MilesBuzz! - Uh-oh ... credit cards and gift cards ...

Call me a worry wart, but here's what I've got:

Just received my Dividend Miles Visa card. There were T&C's for the card, and a special addendum for the DM miles earning portion. In the general T&C's, they define "quasi cash" as "...money orders, traveler's checks, foreign currency, lottery tickets, casino chips, racetrack wagers, vouchers redeemable for cash, or other items readily convertible for cash ... "[emphasis added].

Under the DM portion, they say you will earn Dividend Miles on "Net Purchases", which they define as the stuff you buy, but "Cash Advances, Balance Transfers and the use of other Checks are not eligible to earn any Dividend Miles".

Finally, they say "We may adjust your Dividend Miles for any valid reason including use of the Account for an improper purpose.".

Is this stuff the normal boilerplate, or are they sneaking up on the gift card problem? I got my other cards pre-gift card dealie, so I have no idea what their T&C's say.

Sounds like the normal scoop to me.... it just so happens gift cards have been working - not because they were supposed to.

so, like, how do they want you to earn miles anyway?

Do these cards and companies want us to not ever get anything cool or do they just want drones who only buy things and pay our CCs late and have to owe interest because we were stupid enough to over charge everything just because we wanted airline miles that hal of us will never use anyway?

Wait--forget that I ever asked this.
-----MM

Like the rules are actually going to stop people from doing this. :rolleyes:

Mike

Like the rules are actually going to stop people from doing this. :rolleyes:

Mike
No, no, no. What I was expressing trepidation about was that they could be setting us up to negate the miles because we used the card for an "improper purpose". And we all know they make the rules, so they could do whatever they da*n well please.

Like the rules are actually going to stop people from doing this. :rolleyes:

You seem to be getting over-stressed lately.

The rules are a bit ambiguous -- "readily convertable to cash" does not clearly apply to gift cards. Many gift cards can not be converted to cash at all. Diamonds are readily convertable to cash, but I don't think they are going to rule out jewlers any time soon. If they prevent miles earning for the Charter One gift card (or any others), I suspect that they would simply stop treating as a miles earning transaction going forward; I would be astonished if they went after miles retroactively.

You seem to be getting over-stressed lately.

The rules are a bit ambiguous -- "readily convertable to cash" does not clearly apply to gift cards. Many gift cards can not be converted to cash at all.

Read the Wal-Mart gift card thread, and you'll see what I meant about the rules. Why is it that we only care about the rules when it may hurt us? Why is it that we only care about rules that bite us in the butt when all is said and done?

Mike