Originally Posted by
BillyBaloney
For all the thought you put into that post, it almost makes me wonder if you are affiliated with the website.
Nope. Just someone whose experiences with and opinions of them are somewhat different from yours. I've made many successful trades using them. It's absolutely not for everyone. I do feel, however, a positive counterpoint to your negative one is necessary.
Also, it took me all of about three minutes to type it up. Not a lot of thought going into it, just my experience with them and perhaps a knack for writing clearly on the fly.
I have to disagree with you on most of what you say, however.
Fair enough, and totally within your rights.
There have been more than several times where I have found a decent play on points dot com only to have points dot com say that, "credit card has been declined..." This happened to me at least 5 to 10 times and there was never, ever, EVER anything wrong with my credit cards.
What was happening (the best hypothesis that I can come up with) is that someone was deciding whether or not the trade should be put through AFTER it was advertised and out there on the website for many a day, and then PAID FOR. I'm not sure how it all works, but I don't like it. It just smells bad, and in my opinion it is not worth attempting to trade on that website.
When that happens to me, I enter the card number *with the spaces*: xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx. That has worked for me, every time. The key is how quickly the declined notice comes back. If it's instantly, try using spaces in the card number. If it takes several seconds or more, it's probably the bank declining the transaction for whatever reason.
The first time it happened to me I called my card CS line and had them watch in real time while I tried again. The authorization request never came through even though it showed as declined. I then tried it with the spaces, and it went through through in matter of seconds. Again, this was in real time.
You do not get charged for a trade offer you post until someone accepts it. They do not check with you before finalizing a trade you offered and someone accepts, this is why you give your card number when you first post your offer. If someone accepts it and your card doesn't have enough remaining on it for your share of the transaction fees, however, your bank might decline it, but then that's outside Points.com's scope...
You can, however, delete your trade offer if you so choose, as long as no one has accepted it yet. If you delete your offer it disappears immediately. There also appears to be a 3-month maximum time limit for a trade offer to be live before they pull it, I don't see anything older than about 3 months...