The Points Mom

I Used The Wrong Card Trying To Get An Avios Bonus

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I think I just made my biggest mistake ever but it worked somewhat in my favor.  Recall that Rob got an offer a few months back, that if he uses his Chase British Airways Visa Signature Card to spend $7,500 between November 1, 2015 and January 31, 2016, he will earn 7,500 bonus Avios.  My plan was to wait until January 2016 to take advantage of this offer and after the $7,500 charge, go for the $30,000 in purchases so that Rob would earn a Travel Together ticket.  Don’t forget, with the Chase British Airways Visa Signature Card, every calendar year you make $30,000 in purchases, you will earn a Travel Together Ticket, good for two years, that can be used when you redeem Avios points for a flight on British Airways. You basically redeem Avios for one ticket and you get another ticket for free.

Apply For The Chase British Airways Visa Signature Card Here

So on January 3rd, I went armed with what I thought was Rob’s Chase British Airways Visa, to our local tennis club to pay for all of my kids tennis clinics/lessons, (you don’t want to know how much we spend on tennis but yes, its over $7,500 for the year 🙂  ).  I put $8,000 on the card.  But guess what?  I put it on the wrong card!  I accidentally put the charge under my account because I accidentally used the additional cardholder card of Rob’s that is under my Visa account.  AHHHH!!!!  The 7,500 bonus offer was only under Rob’s account.

Ok what steps could I take to correct this?

I called the tennis club to try to get a refund and then a recharge to Rob’s real card.  They said their books had closed and they could not help me.  Ok, I didn’t want to push it.

I called Chase.  They also could not help me in that they couldn’t just move a charge from one card to the other, that the vendor (tennis club) needed to be the source for this change.  Strike 2!

But Chase felt bad.  They like me, I like them too.  🙂  They put 5,000 Avios in Rob’s British Airways Executive account, as a measure of goodwill, because they felt bad for not being able to help me.  So technically in terms of extra Avios, we were only down 2,500, because although I lost the 7,500 bonus Avios, Chase gave us 5,000 anyway.

Learn About The British Airways Executive Club Here

And guess what I am going to do now?  The Chase rep is rooting for me to do this too!  I am going to charge other things ($7,500 worth) this month to Rob’s Chase British Airways Visa and get that bonus 7,500 Avios anyway.  So in the end, I will have gotten an additional 5,000 Avios for making a mistake.

Another plan I have due to this mishap, is to go for the Travel Together ticket under both my account and Rob’s Chase British Airways Visa accounts.  You see, at the end of January, I will have spend $8,000 on my card and $7,500 on Rob’s card.   I still have 11 months to get each card up to $30,000.  I think I can definitely hit it, especially when Rob hits his 2016 advertising spend cap on his American Express Business Gold Rewards Card, and we start using another card for advertising charges!  There may be a family trip to Wimbledon in our future.  🙂