I don’t really get the bloggers who claim to earn gazillions of frequent flyer miles by shopping via online shopping portals.
Sure I try to rack up a few extra points when shopping online, but more often than not I find that bonus offers are not honored, probably due to some fault of my own.
For instance, if you enter a coupon code found elsewhere your bonus points will not be credited. If you already have items waiting in your shopping cart, you might not earn the extra points. If sales post after the promotion closes, you may be out of luck.
CITIbank Apologizes for Shopping Portal Payout Error
The AAdvantage shopping portal was offering a holiday promo some months back. I never received the bonus points, but past experience has taught me that it might not be worth the effort to try to straighten it out.
Today I received a surprising email from Citibank. Here’s what it said:
We didn’t give you the correct incentive
You recently enrolled in an offer to earn 3X AAdvantage® miles for eligible online purchases through March 31, 2015. After reviewing your Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® Visa® card account, we found we didn’t give you the correct bonus incentive for the qualifying purchases made during the offer period.What we’re doing to fix this
We added 562 AAdvantage® miles to your card account. You’ll see this adjustment on your card statement within two billing periods.
The email is referring to this offer for 3x extra points for purchases made via the AAdvantage shopping portal:
Well CITIbank, apology accepted.
Many of the online shopping portals are run by a company called Cartera. You can read more about their business model here. There is a whole thread on Flyer Talk discussing the ins and outs of online shopping portals.
Do you ever find that you are not credited what you expect from your online purchases?