Happy

It only happened with Citicard and it was NOT the Mint's fault according to the supervisor named Angie I talked to. The Mint only made ONE authorization at the order submission, then it billed on that authorization without submitted a new authorization. Angie even gave me the authorization number the Mint used to bill, only one authorization number.

It was Citi system that did not match the billing with the authorization - according to a Citi's supervisor, the interval between authorization and billing was too long - in my cases they were ordered on 09/23, shipped on 10/03 and 10/04. Both orders were using Virtual Accounts on 2 different cards. I thought it was Virtual Accounts issue. May be it is not?

The first Citi supervisor knew what was wrong and manually released the hold after I told her the Mint did not make double authorization and gave her the one and the only authorization number.

The 2nd Citi supervisor was a witch, insisted that in order for her to release it, she needed to hear from the Mint. I demanded her to make a 3-way conference call with the Mint. Citi dialed the Mint's 800 number, I got Angie on the phone again and she immediately knew what was the issue. Angie even said "Same Thing. The bank screwed up." Upon my request, Angie released the Hold on behalf of the Mint, Citi's witch did not say a word during the whold phone call. We had no idea if she was still at the background. I finally let Angie go. Before I call Citi again, I saw my credit line was restored. So the Citi witch was listening the phone call but did not say a word. At the end, she manually released the hold but lack the common courtesy to inform me so.

While the official line of Citi is the hold would remain in place for 30 days, I believe they quietly changed it to 14 days as that is what in reality is now. Still, it is bad because it messes up the credit line as well as the accounting because unlike BofA there is no way to tell the details of pending / authorizations.

I am on the 6th day of 10day cruise now. I saw Citi has 2 emails about "your recent experiences with customer services" - I will complain about the 2nd encounter once I return home.

BTW, it is NOT just with Mint, Citi's authorizatrion and billing are screwy with other merchants as well. I made $200 future cruise deposit onboard yesterday. The credit line was reduced by $200 as expected. Today, Princess's California office probably submitted the billing. My credit line is reduced by a further $200, for a total of $400 reduction. This happens every single time, despite the California office used the authorization number generated onboard to send in the billing.

pkerr

On a completely different note...

Does anyone refer to these as $$$? as in, "I'm getting $1,000 delivered today"

"I have a coin delivery coming up"

I've come to refer to them as "coins" As if they aren't really money. Just an object to be handled and moved around.

I guess I have become jaded to what they really are.

mshah

I still think them as money ...I seriously tell my wife that we are having 1k delivered to our door today (whenever the deliver is scheduled) ..First time she laughed but when she saw she was shocked

Stoughton

Just wanted to relay a call I had with the mint a few min ago

On Tuesday, I placed some orders in rapid succession. Apparently too fast as the credit card fraud control kicked in and not all of them made it thru - this was based solely on my amount of remaining credit. It didn’t go down to the extent I thought it would. The order tracking via the Mint showed them as "on Hold"

I called the CC, the CRS saw the charges and told me “Everything was fine, they’ll go thru”

Fast forward to today, orders are still “On Hold”, and the available credit is the same. I called the mint, figuring I could get them to attempt the authorization again and was told by a very helpful CSR that no, they couldn’t and that the reason my order didn’t go thru was that I didn’t wait 10 days.

My last (completed) order for that ID was over 10 days prior, but on 10/7, I mistakenly placed an order and then quickly cancelled it. The CSR told me that it didn’t matter if the order was fulfilled or not – the 10 day clock starts regardless. This didn’t seem right to me as I knew I’d done that in the past, but I thanked her and canceled the held order.

Then I decided to test her claim and order again – as expected, it went thru, $1,000 was cut from my available credit.

So again the CSR’s for the Mint seem to have incorrect info on the 10 day rule.

QL_714

What everyone needs to understand is the 10 day rule does not work the same in every situation. I know some here think they have figured it out but I will leave it at that.

beckoa

Have an arrival tomorrow of another 4 boxes of TJ's...

Marathon Man

Congrats... I'm always excited when an order comes thru as well. But as a matter of data pointing could you also tell us when you ordered those Tjs?

......

On another point...I have never seen that Citi thing Happy is talking about but maybe I've been lucky.

pawtim

I'm with you, most of the time. Sometimes when someone in my office casually asks "what's in all these boxes?" I absent-mindedly answer "frequent flyer miles". Oddly, they rarely ask a follow up question!

Marathon Man

I certainly do refer to them as money when I see the bank deposit slip in my hand.

I also figure that they weigh a lot because we are always supposed to do some type of work for our miles. Nothing can be so easy as to simply get a stack of bills totaling to $1k and leave it at that. I mean, the Charter One gift cards were really easy like that, but they still required unknown shipping and receiving times and potential issues when cashed out at a bank. I suspect even the Pudding Guy got a bit sick of visiting supermarkets, pulling off pudding cup tops or labels and eating all that goop just to do this mundane task every week.

So if anyone ever thinks we got that FF ticket for free, just remind them of these things!

I refer to them as money when I see the charge on my CC. I refer to them as money when I see the bank teller roll his or her eyes. I refer to them as money when they used to be left on the door step and I'd come home to find the boxes there in the days when we did not have to sign for them. I always laugh because the neighbor lady continuously complains about her bills like when we are all outside chatting whilst the kids play together. If only she knew all she had to do was walk across the street and take away these boxes and everything would be fine.

We all also want to act modest, I think. I mean I don't tend to publicize that I have $1,000 laying around and since many have no concept of the games we play at FT, there'd be way too much to explain. You all know what I mean. Oh, the naysayers are soooooo.... well, let's let them stay that way so there's more of this stuff for us

The only time I feel all 'rich' is when I make deposits. And it is much later when I see miles build up to a larger amount that I feel 'wealthy' in that area. And finally, when I'm sitting for near-free in FC with my family and the other guy paid $1,000 for coach, yeah, I feel a bit good about that too. Then even my wife sees the monetary value of all this junk.

MM

AlohaDaveKennedy

Y'all are getting ripped off - $14 for 6 months here!

Marathon Man

hey now... ur literally 'in bed' with the postmaster over there aincha!

friedice

Then I guess now we know if there's any indication that mint might have delays in order processing, i.e. due to inventory, maybe it's better to hold off orders until it's over, if citicards are used.

BTW, that order that they pushed through, next day went back to "on hold", because the system "recognized" it as being within 10-day limit again. I cancelled it. Will reorder again.

arvin charles

Why are you guys publicly using cc provider names on here? Let's not kill the golden goose!

Marathon Man

never thought of this... what's the dif between ON HOLD and IN PROCESS?

pawtim

"On hold" is when they're verifying eligibility, the cc, stuff like that. "In process" os when everything checks out and they send it to the warehouse to be filled.