Transcript of my Correspondence with Chase over SM
 

I would recommend everyone express their opinion to Chase if you earned BA Miles through their Visa. Here has been my experience doing so to date:

Original Message from me to Chase:

Due to British AIr converting their program to Avios all
my miles I earned with them through my Chase credit card
are much less useful. It will cost me twice or triple the
amount of miles for a trip than what it did when I signed
up for this card. In my mind this is clearly unethical
bait and switch and I am strogly leaning towards closing
down my credit card.
How did Chase let British Air get away with this? You
must have some sort of say and this change reflects very
poorly on Chase.

Chase's Response:
Dear XXXXXXXX,

Please accept my apology on behalf of British Airways for
any inconvenience you may experience with their switch to
Avios. I want to assure you that under no circumstances
would either Chase or British Airways ever intentionally
cause our customers any form of inconvenience. Feedback is
very important in improving products and programs and is
essential to customer satisfaction. I appreciate the time
you took to express your concerns.

Because British Airways wants to be made aware of all
customer concerns and because we feel they are in a better
position to respond to your inquiry, please contact them
directly at 1-800-452-1201 with any additional questions
or concerns that you may have regarding the switch to
Avios.

If you have any further questions, please reply using the
Secure Message Center.

Thank you,

XXXXXXXXXX
E-mail Customer Service Representative

1-800-436-7927

Account is owned by Chase Bank USA, N.A. and may be
serviced by its affiliates.



My reply:
I have contacted BA to express my dissatisfation and have received a most unsatisfactory response, basically they told me that we can do whatever we want because the "terms and conditions," (the fine print) allows unilateral changes and we are lucky they did not devalue the program even more. Obviusly they totally blew me off and I expect that is the gist of the response the agents are told to reply to complaints with. This has been their public response as well on public forums such as Flyertalk and Milepoint, where without exception, 100% of Chase BA Visa customers commenting are angry, upset and frustrated at BA. The anger is now becoming focused towards Chase as the general consensus is that these changes were done with Chase's consent and/or knowledge and was not vetoed by the bank, who it is assumed has the ability to do so. There are also a good chunk (probably a majority) who believe, perhaps based solely on conjecture, that this was the (nefarious) plan of BA and Chase all along, going back to the lucrative sigup bonuses of the past 2 years and the extensive marketing urging Chase customers to spend money on their BA Chase credit cards.

All in all, it is clear that Chase referring me to BA to respond to my inquiry is woefully inadequate on the part of Chase and a direct response to these issues by the bank is warranted.
I sincerely hope that some sort of fair and reasonable compensation is in the works at Chase to offset these severe devaluations. While I do appreciate your words of apology for this devaluation I do not think I, nor 99% of your BA Visa cardmembers, will be satisfied with anything less than a fair responsive action on the part of Chase, probably in the form of depositing into our BA accounts BA miles equal to two or three times what we have earned over the life of the card (including sign up bonuses), and/or perhaps a refund of all annual fees ever paid on the card.
Please do respond quickly, dragging out the time period until Chase adequatly responds only increase the anger and frustration of your BA Visa customers.
Thank you,

Some ludicrous stuff in there, but the highlighted part is particularly funny. Time to look out that tin-foil hat methinks.

Do you really expect Chase to give you over 200,000 - 300,000 miles?

I hope this is a joke... Right?

Someone giving you 100K miles for free and you're complaining because you think that they are worthless?
You can travel everywhere you want with those 100K avios.. South america, far east, middle east, europe, and you're complaining? Seriously?

When did you take a survey to ascertain that you speak for 100% and 99% of Chase BA card holders?

State your case and leave out the hyperbole.

I'll apologise in advance as it's Friday and I've had a post-work pint

1) Is this service available to customers in the UK?
2) How many Avois does it cost?
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I'll get my coat

Who are British Air? Are they a member of Star Alliance or something? :confused:

(I'm happy with my British Airways avios, but then I'm a frequent BA flyer)

I did see a ryanair special doing the rounds, standard treatment in Ryanair "Business" class on the trans-atlantic route apparently.

Quite, and rather economical with the truth.

I am upset with the changes as well but I know that your actions are pointless and useless.
If anybody should be contacted at all, it should be Amex that ran a 50% bonus promotion on point transfers that ended July 31st - just 1 month before BA announced upcoming changes. I suspect they might have been aware of this coming up - or maybe not.
But Chase is blameless in this instance as BA is entitled to do as they wish with their FF program w/o anyone's permission or approval.
I don't like the changes, as they are not beneficial to me, but I am afraid you are barking up the wrong tree with Chase.

hence forth, i am going to refer to BA only as British Air and devalue their name in the way they devalued by miles. good on you OP, let us know how it goes. if enough people give Chase the gears, Chase might ask British Air refund some of that money Chase paid to British Air for the miles they then gave to their customers.

The best miles offer for $75 ever seen and now you want even more? What a joke. I'd love to know your real spend on the Chase BA Visa above the initial $75 and the subsequent minimums to receive the almost ludicrous amount of miles compared to any other offer especially ones where you actually had to fly BA. Now you want double or triple more? :rolleyes:

Surely all Chase holders aren't oblivious to how incredible the initial deal was and still is even with devaluation on partner rewards?

Yes, please do. I really hope this becomes a regular Friday feature; great entertainment to end the week.

+1 yes, Chase isn't to blame, it's all BA. They chose to willfully or through negligence to deceive US members by saying that 97% of awards would not change.

That's got to be the frequent flyer program lie of the year. Maybe the flyertalk community should consider an award event along the lines of the Razzies?

Too funny. I wonder what value British Air put on the miles that Chase bought? I can only imagine Chase might want to re-negotiate the deal.

:D :D

The poor chap is already flogging a dead horse. Nothing is going to change.

So many want so much for next to nothing. Neither Chase nor BA have done anything wrong in law.

What no mention of a Class Action??

snore, snore, snore, snore.

Someone please wake me up when the CHASE promo's have gone away.