Problems with Rewards Network - finally solved to my satisfaction.
 

Hello,

I was registered for the 10 dine promotion whereby if you dine ten times at participating restaurants between Jan 1 to Mar 31, 2007 and spend $25 each time, you get 5,000 United bonus miles at the end of promotion. I had satisfied all these conditions and even hurried to dine at the last two restaurants on March 31, the last day of promotion, since I had only 8 dines by that time. For my very last dine the bill came to $19.99, I put the tip at $5.01, for a total of $25.00. But alas my idiot waitress did not want to probably have that extra penny in tip so she charged my credit card $24.99!

I wrote to [email protected], recd. a prompt reply saying please mail your original receipt and it will be reviewed by "our frequent flyer liasion" and sorry for the unsatisfactory experience.

Well, I mailed the original receipt that had $25 and my signature and a cover letter. Six weeks later and no word from RN as if my receipt and letter was garbage. So I called and called and after giving the run around got an email from the same customer service agent who had responded to my original email that "your account has been thoroughly reviewed by our frequent flyer liasion and unfortunately it does not qualify for the promotion". No explanation as to why, no guilt as to being a penny short because of no fault of mine but the waitress they were trying to get away by not giving the 5k miles, and ignoring the fact that some of my other dines were $70-$80. Now aren't the malicious intentions very obvious? The frequent flyer liasion name is apparently Donna Doksee as I was told by one of the helpful CSRs and I am amazed that such people still work at organizations - no wonders the stock price of RN hovers at a 52 week low and they just reported a quarterly loss!! Its because people like Donna drive away customers instead of retaining them. I have hence decided to take the following actions against RN:

- Write to 1K voice at United about the matter and hopefully United will see what type of company they are partering with

- File a claim with Better Business Bureau as the BBB logo is on RN website

- Close my MP Dining account and advise all friends and family members to do the same as they are clearly an unethical company

- Legally sue them as they are clearly trying to escape from their obligations. Their main office at Riverside Plaza is just a couple of blocks from my office in downtown Chicago, if that may make things any convenient.

If you folks have any other suggestions please let me know and I'll take those steps as well.

^ Well a customer service manager (perhaps a secret lurker?) from the Chicago headquarters saw my post, reviewed my account, understood that the waitress short changing me by a penny was an unfortunate incident and hence decided to exercise her customer service aptitude to go ahead and credit the 5k bonus miles. I have recd. the miles in my account - thank you RN for attempting to provide good service to your members!

Restaurant Issue
 

Montreal, sorry to hear of this circumstance, but it appears that this is primarily an issue with the restaurant you dined at, and not with Rewards Network (RN).

Regardless of what your signed receipt says, if your card was only billed for $24.99, then the dine doesn't qualify. And in RN's T&C, it states: In no event will Rewards Network be liable for any damage caused by any act or omission of a Participating Merchant, Third Party Provider or an Other Program Operator. If anything, you should take this up with the restaurant which improperly billed your card and prevented you from receiving the bonus miles.

A couple rules I follow to avoid issues like these:
- Always complete bonuses several days before the end of the bonus period, to ensure dines are properly posted to the credit card before the end of the bonus period.
- Always spend at least $1 over any minimum requirement.

I know RN can be a pain to deal with at times, and RN isn't perfect, but what company is? Could RN have given you the miles or some miles as a "goodwill" gesture, sure. But you can't always count on that happening.

The rounding down problem
 

I have hit that a couple of times, and warned others here not to count on rounding to the exact minimum for these promotions. I still do not understand why they sometimes do this, unless the credit card fee (or RN rakeoff) is determined within each dollar (or $5) range?

If you were billed $24.99, then Rewards Network really has to go by that. Their hands were tied by the restaurant. You have learned a very expensive lesson as the entire promotion was quashed for you, rather than just a single individual component.

Ive got to agree with the first two repsonses as this really is not the Rewards Network. Its a shame that the Restaurant didnt include the correct tip and Ive seen this happen before on my bills.

Overall I am happy with the Rewards Network as it has allowed me to rack up tons of miles in the past years and have always had any open issues quickly resolved by them

This has got be a joke, no reasonable person would think that this is somehow Rewards Network fault.

Not to pile on, but I always add a quarter feeling that if the bonus isn’t worth the extra quarter, it isn’t worth the dine. In the past 6 weeks I’ve had a bunch of $15.24 kind of bills.

That said, I have not had an Idine bonus or dine misfire in over two years. For me, Idine hits at well over a 99% accuracy rate, well exceeding my experience with AA, HH, MR and *wood. At the suckie end of the spectrum: goldpoints…slightly O.T., but I never like to miss an opportunity to bad mouth them.

While it won't give you the points, you could make an issue out of it with the restaurant. You could talk with or write a letter to the manager of the restaurant, especially if it is someplace where you dine frequently. Explain the situation and how the waitress changing what she charged you, albeit less, actually hurt you (not recieving 5000miles).

Not to mention the fact that she changed what was on the reciept. If the waiter or waitress can so easily and willingly change what YOU wrote on the reciept, how do you know this isn't common practice for them. And if they can down charge you, they could be up charging someone else. Definitely talk to the manager or owner.

Actually, if you submit a corrected receipt and perhaps a letter from the restaurant, you may be able to get the miles... be sure there is an indication of the correct date. The resto was the slimy one, and whether it was the waitress or the cashier, someone decided to be sly and short you what you were due. :td:

Most of my dines have hit with no problem - I am currently disputing two dines at Jaleo (Arlington VA) that Rewards Network says

"We have researched your inquiry and have determined that, unfortunately, these restaurants were not offering special dining rewards in the AAdvantage Dining program on the dates and during the times of your visits so miles can not be awarded."

Nonsense - they were, and are, advertising "Benefits Every Day," so I can't see any exclusionary reason they might be able to rationalize - particularly as they DO accept Discover / VISA / MC / AMEX, and we used our registered AMEX.

I have e-mailed, but now I will call and see what else I can do. They do have to follow their own rules, even if someone in Member Services appears to be asleep at the wheel.

Just curious, are the restaurants made aware of special promotions that are going on with RN? i.e., AA giving bonuses for $15+ dines? Do the restaurants see any difference in a promotion period than they do a non-promotional?

What I mean is, If you spend $15 during the 250mile AA bonus, do restaurants pay/get anything different than if $15 are spent during a non-promo period?

Just trying to figure out why a restaurant would NOT report what was truly on the receipt

Thanks for all the replies. It was definitely a painful lesson learnt, one that I will not have to apply in future though. As I do see your point of view that it is the restaurant's and not the RN fault, however, world-class companies do really adapt a world-class attitude.

RN should see that I was a penny short, for no fault of mine - so why should I be penalised and quashed for the whole deal. I agree no company is pefect but some are near perfect and what sets them apart is truly to go the extra distance when it comes to retaining the customer. For all my dealings with United, Air Canada, Royal Bank, Starwood, Hilton, Marriott, TD, AMEX, VISA, and so on I never had to doubt the integrity of their actions to resolve issues, if there were any. Although I do not know how the awarding of miles through RN by dining at participating restaurants work, it is safe for me to assume that they had extracted their part of the benefits out of the nine dines that totalled much in excess of $225 ($25 * 9) it was the 10th dine short changed by a penny that was to determine their biggest obligation. I fully understand it is the restaurant's fault (which by the way is in Pittsburgh and I happened to be there on March 31st and aimlessly tried to spend the $25 before midnight although I did not even need to eat) but I could see why the waitress would prefer an even $5 tip and having no clue that one penny would become so important!!!

Now when the facts come to light, my stupidity (not fault) is to have not put $5.50 in tip, the restaurant althought the one really at fault, cannot be held accountable for all the 5k miles as I believe the obligation would probably be spread over, and if RN really wants to set itself apart can definitely say the promotion T&C are not "laws" and what if the waitress had correctly charged the $25 then one penny would have made us give this customer the full 5k miles anyways but not just because of THAT PENNY!

Again thanks for your cool-headed replies. It is too much of a pain for me anyways to find and then dine at participating restaurant that takes away the pleasure of dining and I'd definitely be happier without an RN account as this incident has convinced me that it is not worth the hassle!

I've seen the process at some restauarants (though I don't know that it's the same at all restaurants), and what I've seen is that they have to key in the amount of tip, not the total amount. So if they make a typo (say, they didn't notice the .01 because they're not use to FTer-type rounding :) ), it goes in as what they typed for the tip, not what they typed for total (which looked rounded to you, but they weren't looking at the total, just the tip).

I've seen a circumstance where the total ended up .01 higher than I expected. When I reviewed my receipt, I realized I'd done the rounding math wrong, and indeed, if they had keyed in the right tip, it would have endup the .01 higher than it did.

Of more concern: I've had a couple cases where the restaurant failed to key in the tip at all. I'm surprised this doesn't happen more: I see so many restaurants where they're sloppy about putting away the receipts you sign, leaving them out on the counter where they're candidates for getting lost (the other day the next customer put her handbag on top of my receipt, I scooped up and grabbed it and handed it to the cashier, as without the tip I wouldn't have made $15!).

This may not be RN's fault, but it's their responsibility to fix.
The OP should simply state that the amount posted by RN is not the correct amount spent, and send in the receipt showing the correct amount.
It may have been a mistake to discuss the 5000 point bonus before getting them to fix the amount first. Try to get them to work on the correction.

But if you don't explain that you need it for the 5000 mile bonus, they'll fix it alright: By posting one mile separately as a "customer serivce adjustment" or whatever. There, you'll have the mile, but you won't have the spend minimum fixed, and thus you still won't qualify for the 5000 mile bonus. (It's always easier for such orgnaizations to issue a separate adjustment than to go back and change a posted transaction. So if you don't explain to the why you need the latter, they'll do the former.)

So since because of the 5000 mile bonus you need it fixed in a particular way, that's why you have to explain that's why you need it.

^Well a customer service manager (perhaps a secret lurker?) from the Chicago headquarters saw my post, reviewed my account, understood that the waitress short changing me by a penny was an unfortunate incident and hence decided to exercise her customer service aptitude to go ahead and credit the 5k bonus miles. I have recd. the miles in my account - thank you RN for attempting to provide good service to your members!

Kudos to RN - perhaps the moderator can edit the thread title to reflect the positive outcome!