Money and Finance
My last post was about American Express and their arrogance/stupidity with their benefit-deprived Black Card but the other credit card banks are not unfortunately much better.
Instead of a Black Card from Amex, I ultimately chose a United Platinum Visa from Chase Bank which gets me miles on an airline with a hub in Los Angeles which has helped me be able to get upgrades for most of the flights I have traveled on in the past three or four years. My AMEX miles are still sitting in their account with it being literally impossible to redeem. Trust me, I tried to use them. Those 750,000 miles are plenty to buy my wife and I a first class trip to Paris and one call to Delta (Amex's biggest mileage partner) got me flights stopping in Salt Lake, Atlanta and then on to Paris thus adding 6 to 8 hours onto an already intolerably long flight. They were blacked out on the direct flight from LAX to de Gaulle in Paris. The last time I tried to book flights to Maui on Delta (they have 2 a day from LAX non-stop) the agent had me leaving LAX at 6 AM going to Salt Lake, connecting to Honolulu and then being stranded there needing another flight. What a great solution. I flew on United and used miles to upgrade.
Today I got an email offer from Chase Bank to upgrade my card to the Gold level. While I have platinum card from them (whatever that means) yet they are touting double miles, no mileage blackout dates (see nightmare above) and other perks. They provided a web link from the email that that was broken. They offered an 800 number and I have been on hold for 31 minutes and counting waiting for them to answer. Their first level customer service girl was "going on her break" and didn't have any idea how to help me. This wait - which is more of a war now and I am curious to see how long the wait would be - may not be over anytime soon. Note: they sent the offer by email but offered no way to correspond by email to take the offer.
All advertising in my opinion boils down to Cost Per Acquisition of client meaning you spend all the money you spend on advertising and marketing to ultimately get quality leads and from those leads you close whatever percentage you can. If you spent $1,000,000 on email campaigns - wouldn't it be nice to know you closed X number of upgrades and each cost you Y per customer? In this case - I was interested customer who is packing significantly above 800 credit. The email got me on the hook and that is where I died as a lead. There was no reasonable way convert and that is a waste of their money and my time.
Ultimately, it was 37 minutes before I got someone on the phone from Chase who explained to me that the Gold card is really a downgrade over the Platinum card I have and that the offer is only for my personal card and not my business card - where I book most of my travel anyway. Brilliant.
Its nice to know AMEX doesn't own a monopoly on moronic marketing and bad customer service. While unquestionably arrogant - at least AMEX picks up the phone faster than 37 minutes.
- Even The Rich Can't Get Credit These Days
All of the talk today when it comes to the economy is the "frozen" credit market. $350,000,000,000 of money from our taxes hasn't seemingly done anything to slow down the foreclosure rates as U.S. banks are simply using the free government money to...
- Amex And Sentient Jet Team Up With The Business Of No
I stopped using my American Express Card a few years back when after spending over $140,000 for that callendar year the company refused to offer me a "black" (Centurion) card as the standard was $150,000 in yearly spending (its now over $250,000 reportedly)....
- Welcome To A Blog About The Best And Worst In Customer Service
Welcome to The Business of No - a blog about the best and WORST in the world of customer service. Every been treated like crap at an airport? Ever been given a hotel room overlooking a grave yard? Ever been treated like Julia Roberts shopping on Rodeo...
- Don't Worry About The Credit Card Breach At Target Corporation
The decline in the share price of Target Corporation (TGT) has been well documented by several dividend growth disciples. The share price has been on a continuous decline since hitting its 52 week high back in July 2013. Share have declined...
- Applying For Your First Credit Card
It's a big world out there! Sooner or later, you realise that having a Credit Card might be essential in your everyday life as you're growing up. Or maybe you just decided that having a Credit Card would boost your image or there are many benefits...
Money and Finance
United Front on Bad Customer Service (Chase Bank)
My last post was about American Express and their arrogance/stupidity with their benefit-deprived Black Card but the other credit card banks are not unfortunately much better.
Instead of a Black Card from Amex, I ultimately chose a United Platinum Visa from Chase Bank which gets me miles on an airline with a hub in Los Angeles which has helped me be able to get upgrades for most of the flights I have traveled on in the past three or four years. My AMEX miles are still sitting in their account with it being literally impossible to redeem. Trust me, I tried to use them. Those 750,000 miles are plenty to buy my wife and I a first class trip to Paris and one call to Delta (Amex's biggest mileage partner) got me flights stopping in Salt Lake, Atlanta and then on to Paris thus adding 6 to 8 hours onto an already intolerably long flight. They were blacked out on the direct flight from LAX to de Gaulle in Paris. The last time I tried to book flights to Maui on Delta (they have 2 a day from LAX non-stop) the agent had me leaving LAX at 6 AM going to Salt Lake, connecting to Honolulu and then being stranded there needing another flight. What a great solution. I flew on United and used miles to upgrade.
Today I got an email offer from Chase Bank to upgrade my card to the Gold level. While I have platinum card from them (whatever that means) yet they are touting double miles, no mileage blackout dates (see nightmare above) and other perks. They provided a web link from the email that that was broken. They offered an 800 number and I have been on hold for 31 minutes and counting waiting for them to answer. Their first level customer service girl was "going on her break" and didn't have any idea how to help me. This wait - which is more of a war now and I am curious to see how long the wait would be - may not be over anytime soon. Note: they sent the offer by email but offered no way to correspond by email to take the offer.
All advertising in my opinion boils down to Cost Per Acquisition of client meaning you spend all the money you spend on advertising and marketing to ultimately get quality leads and from those leads you close whatever percentage you can. If you spent $1,000,000 on email campaigns - wouldn't it be nice to know you closed X number of upgrades and each cost you Y per customer? In this case - I was interested customer who is packing significantly above 800 credit. The email got me on the hook and that is where I died as a lead. There was no reasonable way convert and that is a waste of their money and my time.
Ultimately, it was 37 minutes before I got someone on the phone from Chase who explained to me that the Gold card is really a downgrade over the Platinum card I have and that the offer is only for my personal card and not my business card - where I book most of my travel anyway. Brilliant.
Its nice to know AMEX doesn't own a monopoly on moronic marketing and bad customer service. While unquestionably arrogant - at least AMEX picks up the phone faster than 37 minutes.
- Even The Rich Can't Get Credit These Days
All of the talk today when it comes to the economy is the "frozen" credit market. $350,000,000,000 of money from our taxes hasn't seemingly done anything to slow down the foreclosure rates as U.S. banks are simply using the free government money to...
- Amex And Sentient Jet Team Up With The Business Of No
I stopped using my American Express Card a few years back when after spending over $140,000 for that callendar year the company refused to offer me a "black" (Centurion) card as the standard was $150,000 in yearly spending (its now over $250,000 reportedly)....
- Welcome To A Blog About The Best And Worst In Customer Service
Welcome to The Business of No - a blog about the best and WORST in the world of customer service. Every been treated like crap at an airport? Ever been given a hotel room overlooking a grave yard? Ever been treated like Julia Roberts shopping on Rodeo...
- Don't Worry About The Credit Card Breach At Target Corporation
The decline in the share price of Target Corporation (TGT) has been well documented by several dividend growth disciples. The share price has been on a continuous decline since hitting its 52 week high back in July 2013. Share have declined...
- Applying For Your First Credit Card
It's a big world out there! Sooner or later, you realise that having a Credit Card might be essential in your everyday life as you're growing up. Or maybe you just decided that having a Credit Card would boost your image or there are many benefits...