Back in October, LAXjunkie415 broke news on MilePoint of a promotion for earning 5,000 bonus miles for $1,000 spend MileagPlus credit cards. The offer was quickly revised to specify only residents of certain Central American countries, but many of us kept screen shots of the registration confirmation.
There was a decent chance Chase would not honor the offer, or only honor for those willing to fight. But since it was not difficult to meet the spend requirement, now that there are so many methods for generating spend, I put the necessary spend on my card and my wife’s. Sometimes it pays off to take a flyer like this when there is little downside.
I then marked a tracking item on my list, and laid low. For things like this, I do not think it is a good thing to call attention to it unless necessary. Give the systems a chance to work, rather than let humans, with their foibles and occasional smarts, to poke around.
Many promotions state that they will take 6-8 weeks after completed, and since many credit card bonuses are tied to statement date, I figured I would not speak up until 8 weeks after November statement close.
To my delight, in doing weekly miles and points maintenance this morning, I found we both got the bonuses. Even better, did not need to follow up!
Same here. Points posted today but were backdated to Dec 1, 2012. What does the description say on yours?
Since there was another version with the $3k spend I am tempted to ask for the points too since I had registered to both promo codes.
@James – both backdated to 12/1 as well. I only registered for the $1k, I have not seen reports of people getting both. I don’t suppose they can get the miles back but I would hesitate at trying to get both.
I hear you. FYI I had emailed CS at United about two weeks ago with a screenshot of the offer and the promo code, and the rep emailed me back that I’d get the miles 8-10 weeks after the promo ends. They never said anything about not qualifying etc, which surprised me at the time!
I agree though that not pushing it is probably best. They could take back that 5k miles if they really wanted to, so I’ll be happy with what I have received.
@James and @RapidTravelChai – Did either of you receive confirmation emails when you registered for the promotion? I did not, and have not received the miles despite spending the $1k.
@diamondvargas – I did not receive any confirmation email.
@diamondvargas second that, did not receive confirmation email either
I also signed up before they changed the terms of the offer, but my miles haven’t posted (yet). Is this an issue I take up with Chase or United?
@Kenny – you can certainly try to take it up, I believe the Milepoint thread linked in the post has some examples of how people have approached Chase that you can borrow and try your luck.
got mine too – wahoo!
I still had not received the miles as of today, so I called Chase at the number provided on the United site for credit card partner contact information (1-800-537-7783). I explained why I was expecting the 5k miles and the details / dates of the promotion. The agent was familiar and said they had been getting calls about this, and mentioned that the promotion was for Latin American cardholders. I explained that I was aware the terms and conditions had changed during the promotion, and that when I registered there had been no such limitation to Latin American cardholders. This seemed to satisfy her or check the right box, and she said that Chase had no way of verifying the registration qualifications since the data was all through the United site, but that Chase was honoring requests to fulfill the promotion and would “manually” deposit 5k miles into my account within 2 billing cycles. We’ll see…
@diamondvargas – good luck!
[...] but that $1,000/month minimum is steep for such a small bonus. Perhaps United is churlish after the 5,000 mile bonus intended for Central America cardholders in the [...]
I received the 5k miles today. Took a little work but I think worth it.
@diamondvargas – great to hear you got it!
[...] offer to specify it was only only to cardholders in certain Central American countries. The miles appeared for many in December and it was chalked up as a pleasant [...]
When the 5,000 miles were deposited on or around Dec 1. what was the description showing on the statement of all the accounts for which the 5,000 miles were ultimately reversed ?
@christo – “Chase Bonus” and I believe everyone was backdated to 12/01/2012 even though posted mid-December.
I guess they have no way of identifying who signed up before the “revision” or if it makes any difference!
Nevertheless it will take a few days for the computer to reverse every “Chase Bonus” entry, so we can expect many more postings about this issue.