While traveling last October through Denver, CO, my wife and I were approached by a gentleman working a kiosk, asking us if we would enjoy a free flight. We had a few minutes, and decided to give him some our ear. He told us about a WorldCard that Frontier Airlines has, and that if we spent $500 in the first 90 days, that we would qualify for a free round-trip ticket. There is a $59 annual fee for this card. My wife and I looked at each other and decided it was worth a few minutes and $59 for a round-trip ticket anywhere Frontier Airline flies, so we each filled out an application.
We were both told within just a few minutes that we "qualified" and that our cards should be in the mail in 10 to 14 days. Great, we thought. After arriving at home and getting our cards in the next few weeks, we proceeded to use these cards for some purchases, foregoing use of other cards and/or cash, because we wanted to insure we spent the $500 per card, to qualify for the airline tickets.
We waited patiently a few months, knowing it might take awhile for the miles to show up on our Early Returns mileage summaries. But last week, I thought 3 months was plenty of time, so I called Frontier Airlines. They seemed to not understand the program that was offered through Barclays; this was the issuing bank's program. They saw mileage in our accounts, but not enough for a trip.
I called Barclays... They first told me I should be talking to Frontier Airlines. I was bounced back and forth between the two companies, before someone finally told me that the type of card I had did not come with a free ticket, but just 5000 miles, only 25% of what I needed for a flight. I continued to get the runaround and finally an explanation that we weren'tissued World Cards, butPlatinum cards... Neither of us qualified for the trip on the Platinum Card. (We applied for World Cards... Not Platinum Cards.)
I explained that we applied forWorld Cards... We were told before leavingthe Kiosk that we had been approved, we were bothwilling to pay the $59 annual fee, and we bothspent $500 in the first 90 days... That we upheld our end of the agreements, nowwe expect Barclays/Frontier to uphold their promise and sent the miles for the tickets. They offered to cancel / close my account but I said that I wanted what I was promised. I was told the case would be escalated, but that was four days ago. It only took them about 2 minutes to approve the platinum card, but it's been daysgoing back and forth about theirlack of fulfilling their commitment.
I guess we should have remembered the adage, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."
We'll keep you posted, but we aren't holding our breath.
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