How my stupid mistake almost cost us $2000
May 28, 2018
Tending to our Net Worth update, I signed in PiC’s Chase account to check some balances and my jaw dropped.
WHAT IN THE SAM HILL.
WHERE ARE MY POINTS???
I had to nag them for Six Frakkin Months to get my rightfully earned 100,000 points for opening a mortgage with Chase during their promotion for massive points for doing a thing we were already going to do.
[panic flails]
Then it dawned on me.
Yet Another PF Blog done alerted me, I thought.
“Odd, I should look into that,” I thought.
Then it completely slipped my mind!
The reasons? I have never had my earned points or miles tied to keeping an account open so it literally didn’t occur to me that they would be (even though YAPFB TOLD ME), I completely missed that we only have 30 days to cash them out in the Rewards Agreement, and … there’s no real excuse. This was my own damn fault.
But you know me. I eff up, I admit it, and I try to fix it. I messaged PiC that I probably lost $2000 through sheer stupidity, speculated as to what happened, and before he had time to do more than “huh, maybe it was because of canceling the card?” I asked him to call Chase to plead the case.
Predictably, 1.75 seconds later, I told him never mind, I would try to do it on his behalf. Typical.
Since working with Chase by phone and email drives me up and over the wall, I composed a contrite Twitter message to them asking them to return the points. At first I got the standard “Nope.” But I asked, politely and admitting that it was entirely my / our fault, again.
They were neutral about the possibility but asked, in case it was approved, whether we would want the points delivered back to PiC’s account (which means reopening his card account, getting charged $450, cashing out the points, and then closing it all again), delivered into my account, or delivered as a cashed out check.
After waiting a few days, HALLELUJAH the points were deposited into my account.
This really REALLY could have gone the other way and I knew it when I started writing this post. I had braced myself for having to admit to y’all that I lost us $2000 cash or a bit more than that in travel credit, prepared to hang my head.
The only reason I know how to negotiate or fix these mistakes is because I keep making them in the first place. I should really stop doing that.
Oh jeez, I’m glad that worked out in the end.
I’m so worried about making these kinds of mistakes that I never churn to begin with. Which means we never get any kinds of benefits except in very rare cases in which we were planning to open something new anyway.
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It was a very close call!
I will say that even with my near misses or outright misses, the churning has generally worked out in our favor but it’s just an extension of my working the credit card rewards game to me.
OMG I’m so glad they gave you your points back!
My biggest money bloopers have either had to do with my house (i.e. buying one while having no skills for maintenance), booking travel on the wrong day (I do this upsettingly often), or purchasing access to expensive courses I don’t have time to use.
ME TOO. But I fully admit (again) that it would have been my own darn fault for losing them.
Booking travel on the wrong day – YOU TOO?? PiC and I have had some real issues with this one.
Whew! Thanks goodness you got it back.
Couldn’t you have transferred the points to another card?
The biggest bonehead mistake I made was when I got a new Southwest card years ago. I forgot we had to spend $3000 to get the bonus. That was my first try at travel hacking. Now I have a spreadsheet to track all that stuff.
I don’t know if I COULD have but I didn’t even think I had to because I assumed our Ultimate Rewards points pot was independent of any card – like my Citi Thank You points. I haven’t earned any Citi points in years but my points are still there.
Oh I actually remember you telling us about that mistake!
My big one came from canceling a flight I should have asked to change. Cost me the amount of the ticket instead of a hundred dollar change fee on an international flight. That was years ago. Look before you leap with these things as it’s easy to shoot yourself in the foot.
Ouch! Definitely an expensive mistake. And yes, looking before you leap is such an important lesson to learn.
Wow – so glad the word “almost” made it into the title & story!
I’ve mostly just had small money bloopers, but still annoying. Like, my husband used to think an envelope tucked “somewhere safe” amongst somewhat random papers was a good place to store cash… Over $100 got thrown away by me when I was tossing paper waste that seems to always accumulate. I also have lost at least one expensive item that I had to replace. Other than that, mostly just minor purchases that seemed correct but I later realized were not worth it.
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It was a nail-biter.
Oh my gosh, that reminds me of shredding an uncashed check by mistake and having to ask for it to be reissued many months later. Or friends misplacing checks entirely and not knowing what to ask for to replace them.
My biggest one lately has been knowing about the Chase 5/24 rule and still wasting a slot on a suboptimal card so I could get a free bag a one-way Delta flight, that my employer would have been responsible for paying, anyway. I’ve learned a lot over the past 2 years about the churning game, but I sure wish I hadn’t shot myself in the foot with that one. I’m 13/24 now and won’t be getting any more Chase cards for at least 20 months, if I can stop getting new personal cards and concentrate on Biz cards only…
Oh, dang, I try to make sure that anything my employer WILL pay for, they DO pay for. It’s ok, you have time to let that wash off your record.
I suppose not cancelling my Chase card last year to avoid the annual fee was a blooper. I hope I get up the motivation to do it again. $95 for the privilege of travel hacking is something I can swallow. But I used my points. Time to move on 🙂 Glad you got yours!
We’ve done the same and SORTA made up for it by using the card enough to try and reap some points.
You didn’t mention your answer to their question – perhaps because it’s a no-brainer. Did you say “Please deliver the points to my account.” Or did they even need a response? (And is this a dumb question? Sorry!) I really admire the way you tackled that issue to get the points back. My former self simply accepted these types of mistakes as a part of life, and I had a way-too complacent attitude about them (when I even noticed them). This, I thought, was being “easy-going” instead of “stressed-out”. Your temporary “stress-out” was totally worth it.
Prudence Debtfree recently posted…Bewildering Financial Leap from Debtor to Investor
I would have been stressed whether I fixed it or not, so naturally, fixing is the better choice. 🙂
I did tell them to deliver to my account!