koisolar

Disputing a charge on a Costco Citi Master Card from Norwegian Air I had a very disappointing experience.

I bought one of those discount Norwegian Air ticket from OAK(Oakland Ca.) to ARN(Stockholm). I then made the mistake of trying to bid online for an upgrade. I just picked the default amount for a "medium on the chart bid" thinking it was in Krona, since that is the currency for Sweden and Norway.
Instead of bidding what I thought to be about $75 it was more near $700!!!
All of this for a ticket that was $200 before add ons. The Norway website was some how in pounds?

Of course I did not notice this until the Citi Card invoice after the trip. I called in the dispute and presented my case. Then they closed the case due to no documents filed. They made no calls or emails, but expected me to be monitoring the Citi website for "communications". I called them again to reopen the case (after 60 days) and they accepted my documents showing the website and misleading currency/bid selections. The only docs presented by Norwegian Air was a template letter about general ticket refunds. Citi closed the case again, claiming they could not get the merchant to decide to return my money. They claimed that it was up to the merchant to make a reversal.

So I ended up paying and additional $700 for a couple complementary drinks and a steward that could not speak english. Norwegian Air is quite an experience at the terminals. They cram you into a gate with less than half the seating of the flight, and then just make a call for boarding that is completely chaotic from both end of the plane. No concern if you board the front of the plane for a rear seat. What a mess!

So I am learning about the new online, and offline nickel dime methods and hope others can learn, and not make bids for "upgrades" that are not even for a 1st class seat!

mia

The published terms of the Bid for Upgrade feature specify:

https://www.norwegian.com/uk/travel-...nd-conditions/

If you were billed in Pounds there may be something to dispute, but otherwise you should probably be dealing with the airline.

koisolar

Thanks for the reply mia,

I wish it was actually in US dollar on the bidding site! That was my complaint about the bid, in that it was in a currency not related to my departure/home or the destination, much less the currency of the merchant (shown as Norway on the Citi invoice page).

You have shown a site evidently for UK users. I was sent the below link for the bid, at plusgrade.com.

upgrade.plusgrade.com/offer/O8Cg16lPDY/offer/upgrade/goTEVGjzFhpLrXGIbXI4Vlsae0RolZz6CI?utm_content=bul letpoints&lang=en

The chart in this webpage is quite small, as well as the grey letters even more hard to see. On top of this I am not familiar with currencies other than $US, except for the fact that a Norway and Sweden use the Krona and it is about 12cents or US$0.12 value. I met a person on my flight who told me he paid about $200 to win his upgrade. I was thinking at that point that my 530 krona bid was a great deal, until later when the Citi invoice showed US$683.79

Another item making the bid, and condition not so obvious is that I actually purchased the original ticket from CheapoAir.com and received upgrade offer from Norwegian Air. I paid for the original ticket in US dollars.

There are no refunds available w/o a canceled flight. My dispute was about using random currency and a default bid that is very misleading.

Often1

I don't see this as a valid CC dispute. OP bid US$700 and received the product he bid for. The terms are disclosed, he presumably acknowledged them and perhaps did not read them.

OP can sue DY in small claims court, file a DOT complaint or just remember next time to carefully read the terms.

koisolar

Often 1 is right (no pun intentions ;-)
All the terms were probably located somewhere even if in small light grey print on a preset, default amount on some graphic item instead of a numeric field for a bid. Is it really ok for a website to trick a customer with a random currency not related to that transaction, or from the country shown on the website address?

Its like I'm in Vegas and I win a hand with everything down on the table. Then when I check the chips in as a big winner the cashier converts them to Pesos and converts over to $US. I started a transaction that ended up as gambling in another currency. Maybe this is just too much to to grasp.

The whole idea of winning a bid on something an amount you did not intend to bid is an interesting gimmick itself. Why am I complaining win I won!

dw

Agreed that with these facts, the credit card company is not going to resolve the dispute in favor of the cardholder.

OP-- reviewing the link you sent, it states that the offer is for "530 GBP" and at the bottom states "Note: Prices showed are in Pounds sterling". It is unfortunate that due to the use of a currency different from that used in either the origin or destination countries for your flight, there as a misunderstanding on your end, but contractually it looks like the price was clearly set forth and you agreed to it.

Productivity

Every time I have used a Plusgrade based bid system with an airline, it has very clearly on the confirm page showed my how much I am bidding, in what currency for how many passengers.

I would be very surprised if this wasn't the case here - the fact that you didn't read it, or even that it was in a different currency than you expected is not justification for reversing the charge and no bank would ever support you here.