A reader who asked to remain anonymous shared a frustrating story with me, which can perhaps act as a warning to other travelers, as this isn’t the first time I’ve heard of something like this happening.
In this post:
Avianca extorts Lifemiles member over dispute?
I’m avoiding sharing some specific details, since the traveler is worried the airline will try to take action again. Long story short, this person redeemed Avianca Lifemiles for a roundtrip ticket, for travel on Avianca.
The outbound went off without a hitch, but on the day of the return flight, he received an email that his flight schedule had been changed involuntarily, to another flight that didn’t work for his schedule (since he had a separate connecting flight from there). Avianca had no acceptable alternatives, so he ended up booking a new ticket on another airline.
So he then called Avianca, but got nowhere — he claims he collectively spent eight hours (!!!) on the phone, getting transfered from person to person, but no one could resolve his issue. He was looking for a return of half of his miles (for the direction in which he couldn’t fly with Avianca), plus half of the taxes back (which amounted to around $45).
Given his lack of success getting help directly from the airline, he decided to file a credit card dispute for the taxes for the return portion of the ticket, which hadn’t been refunded (which hardly makes him whole).
Then a week later, he received an email from Avianca that “had extortion tones,” telling him that if he didn’t cancel his credit card dispute within 12 hours, they would block access to his Lifemiles account indefinitely. Given that he still had a sizable balance of miles with the program, he decided to cancel the dispute.
They finally granted him access to his account again two days later, after he shared a screenshot of the credit card dispute having been canceled.
The reader asks if I have any suggestions, or what I would have done differently. He says that in retrospect, perhaps he should have booked the ticket as two one-way reservations instead of a roundtrip (but he hardly did anything wrong there).
My take on this frustrating Avianca Lifemiles situation
What an incredibly frustrating situation. Unfortunately this isn’t the first time that I’ve heard of an airline threatening a member’s loyalty program account over a credit card dispute. After all, when airlines are frustrated with customers, it’s sort of the biggest leverage they have.
It’s kind of wild, but airlines own our miles & points, so even if you spend thousands of dollars buying miles, the airline can take those away at will, basically for any reason it wants. Now, you could of course try to litigate that, but at least that’s what the terms state.
What this traveler was asking for — a pro-rated refund based on a flight being canceled — is completely reasonable. However, it’s one of those areas where airline customer service can fall apart, and seemingly no one is empowered to actually make a situation right and find a solution.
Customers are just rendered completely powerless. There’s only so far you can escalate these situations, and if you’ve spent hours on the phone trying to find a solution, what other choice do you have other than to file a credit card dispute (which doesn’t even get you your miles back, but instead, gets you your taxes back)?
I can totally see how this happened, of course. The department at the airline responsible for credit card disputes probably sees the dispute and doesn’t understand the backstory of what happened. No company likes to have a credit card dispute filed against them, so they responded by threatening the person in the only way they could.
What would I have done differently? In all honesty, I’m not sure there’s all that much else that could’ve been done. He’s a lot more patient than I would’ve been, as I would’ve likely just cut my losses many hours earlier.
When you reach a dead end like this, you typically have two options — find a senior executive’s email address, or reach out to someone in the media, in hopes of that getting the airline to solve the issue. He has done one of those things, so I’d say he’s doing what he can! If the flight were touching the United States, I’d recommend filing a complaint with the Department of Transportation (DOT), but that doesn’t apply here.
Bottom line
A traveler who redeemed Lifemiles for an Avianca ticket had his return flight canceled, and the schedule no longer worked for him, so he ended up booking a ticket on another airline. He then spent hours on the phone trying to get the return portion of his trip refunded, only to get nowhere. So he then filed a credit card dispute for the taxes for the return portion, and the airline responded by… threatening to ban his Lifemiles account.
It shouldn’t be this hard to get a solution to an issue, but unfortunately, it’s all too common with airlines. That’s also why I think it’s important to bring visibility to these issues. I guess he’s still better off than the Emirates first class passenger who was banned from the airline for legitimately disputing a credit card charge (the airline ended up making matters right, and even compensating him, as they should).
What do you make of this Avianca credit card dispute situation?
Wow. I recently reconnected with family in LATAM, and I've had top status with American Airlines but their international routes to LATAM suck so much with crazy long layovers and way higher costs than any other airline. Avianca has direct routes and decent prices. I was considering between Avianca and United since they also have better routes than AA. Definitely avoiding Avianca and getting the United credit card instead. Avianca planes and quality is akin...
Wow. I recently reconnected with family in LATAM, and I've had top status with American Airlines but their international routes to LATAM suck so much with crazy long layovers and way higher costs than any other airline. Avianca has direct routes and decent prices. I was considering between Avianca and United since they also have better routes than AA. Definitely avoiding Avianca and getting the United credit card instead. Avianca planes and quality is akin to that of Spirit, so their convenient routes hardly make up for that experience, but this is the final straw. Wow.
As attractive as lifemiles can be there are plenty of reasons Avianca is first in my no flight list. Cancellations, delays, substandard planes. Thuggish behavior. Never again.
Yes!!
Before he does anything he needs to use up all his points so there will be nothing to extort. It sounds like one of Petro's people is running Lifemiles.
Avianca is part of Star Alliance. Which is why I always receive Aeroplan points (Air Canada) instead of Lifemiles.
Avoid Avianca!
The traveler should contact a travel consumer advocate, like Chris Elliott (The Travel TroubleShooter) for help getting his issue resolved. He's great. His columns are also very interesting reading.
I always buy my outbound and inbound separately when using miles. I’ve never had a difference in Amount of miles needed when booking two transactions versus one. And the reason I do this, if the flight comes up at the last minute very cheap, I cancel the miles and they get deposited back in. Plus on that cheap flight, I cancel still earn miles. Never had a problem on American Airlines.
AAdvantage has spoiled us. I've had executive platinum year over year with the AA Citi card and it's amazing compared to other airlines. I've only looked into Avianca for latin American flights which AA really sucks at, but man, seems like all these other airlines can't figure out what AA has done so well.
Avianca (and LifeMiles) customer service is responsive and easy to navigate for simple things, but the moment anything gets even slightly complicated, the wheels come off. It’s typical of a large Colombian institution, and is manageable if you know what to expect, but especially frustrating for foreigners unfamiliar with how the system works.
That’s why I always book fully refundable tickets with them. The price difference is usually minimal compared to other airlines on both...
Avianca (and LifeMiles) customer service is responsive and easy to navigate for simple things, but the moment anything gets even slightly complicated, the wheels come off. It’s typical of a large Colombian institution, and is manageable if you know what to expect, but especially frustrating for foreigners unfamiliar with how the system works.
That’s why I always book fully refundable tickets with them. The price difference is usually minimal compared to other airlines on both miles redemptions and purchased tickets, and it gives me a fail-safe option if things go sideways.
Car rental companies basically do the same thing -- if you dispute, they put you on your DNR list for their family (Hertz-Dollar-Thrifty, Avis-Budget, National-Alamo-Enterprise) and even share the lists among other companies.
I would have responded to the airline’s extortion request as follows:
“Thank you for your attention to this matter. I am more than happy to cancel the chargeback request. Based on this request, I presume that the airline will be providing reasonable compensation for my return flight which was involuntary changed and no longer fit my needs. I look forward to hearing what the details are in writing prior to the 12 hour expiration of this request.”
No dispute, but I also learned that roundtrip mileage bookings cannot be refunded pro rats, so I now book every flight in separate outbound and return segments. Problem solved.
Thats not completely true, but may be worth a deeper dive by Ben. Especially since not all airlines have award pricing as 2 OWs = RT -- I'm looking at you DL.
Thanks for the tip, man.
Same thing happened to me. Avoid LifeMiles at all costs!!! And I Lost the balance that i had in LifeMiles. NEVER AGAIN LIFEMILES.
What credit card did he have?
Both AA (citi and barclay card) won't honor a legit dispute for ANY reason. Sadly there isn't another option for AA.
I've had a successful chargeback with an AA CitiBank MC. They were very helpful and friendly.
I’ve never had an issue with AA. Been loyal to them for over twenty years. I am an executive platinum and the perks are top notch.
I have to admit that you’re the most sympathetic blogger towards airlines and hotels that not only have I ever read but that I’ve ever heard of. The eerie both-sides thing might be less disturbing if you didn’t display a different take on things when you’re the one getting burned. Would you be similarly empathetic of Chase cutting your signup referral payments by half?
Airlines giving crappy service then seeing direct repercussions isn’t a...
I have to admit that you’re the most sympathetic blogger towards airlines and hotels that not only have I ever read but that I’ve ever heard of. The eerie both-sides thing might be less disturbing if you didn’t display a different take on things when you’re the one getting burned. Would you be similarly empathetic of Chase cutting your signup referral payments by half?
Airlines giving crappy service then seeing direct repercussions isn’t a “frustrating situation” for the airline, it’s a wake up call to stop screwing up.
I'm confused. He pretty clearly says he thinks the airline is in the wrong here.
And I do definitely prefer Ben's take to, say, VFTW's take on everything (where it seems like 2/3 of articles are essentially rage-bait. It's like reading the points-blogging version of hew NY Post!)
For 45 dollars and it was his choice to book that separate flight segment vs perhaps a continuing ticket ..
Also it seems he could have emailed executives at the airline to work it out .
Not all tickets are evenly priced coming and going either.
I think there is more to the story than what was presented.
Lifemiles customer service is the worst part of it. I've had customer rep booked a ticket for me (already a freaking chore, had to do it over my hotel breakfast) and then they did a double booking, I had to roll with it and board with them. They refunded it in the end, but confiscated the $12.5 booking fee on me, I figured it wasn't worth it to fight with them to have it back…...
Lifemiles customer service is the worst part of it. I've had customer rep booked a ticket for me (already a freaking chore, had to do it over my hotel breakfast) and then they did a double booking, I had to roll with it and board with them. They refunded it in the end, but confiscated the $12.5 booking fee on me, I figured it wasn't worth it to fight with them to have it back… Guess it could be worse.
Though I also wonder is there any upside for booking round trip with AV?
He cam make sn official complaint to Secretaria de Tansporte de Colombia y a la Aereocivil. The of Avianca services has gone down the drain since it was taken over a Central American airline with base in El Salvador. I was never able to resolve and issue with them.
I would not recommend to flight with Avianca because they are always late or cancel the flights without caring the impact on their customer scheduled.
Would a one way booking help with getting this resolved better? I book one ways for more flexibility when things go bad.
Marriott Bonvoy also does this - freezes the account for any chargebacks, including 100% legitimate, and threatens to close it, forfeiting all points and reservations.
Then cardholders in the USA need to threaten Marriot with Reg Z
@Ben, I think an important thing to consider is what a chargeback is intended for. I just found this on Amex's website:
@Ben, I think an important thing to consider is what a chargeback is intended for. I just found this on Amex's website:
Of course, there are way more additional details and, possibly, other definitions, but if the 'goods or services' are represented by an AV flight ticket, then the ticket was indeed delivered and already partially used. There was an involuntary itinerary change, but AV offered alternatives. If the alternatives didn't work, probably this person would still have a flight segment to be used at a later date (this might depend on the fare rules, etc., but given the involuntary nature of the itinerary change, the airline might have been willing to be flexible).
This was of course an unfortunate situation, only compounded by AV's well-known-as-way-less-than-stellar customer service. But, overall, it seems more like a case of a customer feeling unhappy with the situation, rather than an actual case of undelivered/non-compliant products or services.
That's where the entitlement hypocrisy begins.
When a ticket transaction happens:
Customer: Airline needs to get me on flight XX123 on Jul 28 with seat 2A.
Airline: We just need to get you from A to B in any method we want within a few days from Jul 28 in a seat of our choosing.
The customer will then say they fell victim to misleading advertising etc. In my view, that sort of thing is what the civil courts are for... Although things aren't helped by the fact that a lot of jurisdictions have court systems which are inaccessible and/or prohibitively expensive for litigants in person.
That's the 2nd step of entitlement hypocrisy.
Customer: I'm victim to misleading advertising.
Airline: It's explicitly written in the condition of carriage that you agreed to.
But the customer will say that the ambiguity is intentional. You can then say that the customer should've been more careful but then the advertising and consumer protection/ 'unfair terms' laws and 261s kick in and that's why again it's not really the sort of thing that can be processed as a dispute around a payment.
I believe the reason that lifemiles are still not devaluating too much under an era of devaluation everywhere is because it is too difficult to deal with=) my advice is very simple, to take the loss and move on. The value of the lifemiles itself surpass these small amounts of loss. Everyone gets tired of lifemiles, their logics hardly makes senses, esp customer reps.
You might want to check how much North America to Asia in J costs now vs not long ago.
The DOT is no longer responsive since it was gutted by DOGE but it's still worth trying.
This involves a SA airline. Maybe you can tell me how the DOT regulates the action of SA airlines? Your TDS and it's associated stupidity is profound and incurable.
SA?
Saudi Arabia?
South Alabama?
Sex Addict?
Salvation Army?
Your TDS-DS and it's associated stupidity is profound and incurable.
what a completely stupid take on this. Completely stupid
Interesting how Avianca is completely disorganized and incompetent when it comes to issuing refunds, but right on top of it when it comes to making threats when a customer files a completely reasonable credit card dispute.
Seems like a GREAT reason to avoid them entirely.
Before a credit card dispute, I'd reach out via the customer service folks as previously suggested. If that doesn't work, I'd email their top Customer Service execs, one at a time:
https://www.elliott.org/company-contacts/avianca-airlines/
Being polite and to the point can sometimes work wonders - though not always!
Precisely. Build documentation in writing demonstrating your good faith efforts.
Exactly, and then it makes things a lot easier to escalate if there's no sensible response.
@Lea and anyone else planning to do this: While I fully agree with your point regarding escalating it with higher ups within the company before a chargeback, please note that Elliott's contact information seems to be out of date for many companies. Taking Avianca as an example, if you search the primary and secondary contact's full name and "avianca" online, it can be seen based on their Linkedin profiles (verified as their job titles coincide...
@Lea and anyone else planning to do this: While I fully agree with your point regarding escalating it with higher ups within the company before a chargeback, please note that Elliott's contact information seems to be out of date for many companies. Taking Avianca as an example, if you search the primary and secondary contact's full name and "avianca" online, it can be seen based on their Linkedin profiles (verified as their job titles coincide with the info provided at elliott.org) that they no longer work at avianca. So verify that the people still are at the company shown by elliott, otherwise search for their job title and company online
He spent 8 hours getting nowhere. How much more politeness should he exhibit?
Spending 8 hours on the phone sounds a bit extreme, same as filing a chargeback for just $45 (esp. if one has a 'sizable' LM balance). And, although AV is notorious for making passengers jump through many loops (I've been there myself as recently as of last week), a written complaint could have probably been more helpful.
How do you report to CDot ? I found them never respond to complaints that you post online. Is there a way to get hold of somebody? Or enter enter the complaint in such a way that it at least get responded to.
Similar situation for me. I filed a charge-back because Turkish Airlines gave me 25% mileage accrual when my ticket was supposed to earn 100%. I got my money back ($800), but Turkish Airlines suspended my account for "fraud" the next day. I had about 50,000 miles in my account, so I guess I ended up breaking even.
How did you persuade a credit card company to issue a chargeback for that? Amex make you jump through so many hoops before it will even entertain a chargeback, and certainly nothing it deems to be a customer service dispute. What’s your secret?!
I think the traveler should have submitted a complaint in writing to Avianca before waiting on the phone for 8 hours.
https://ayuda.avianca.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=11745634200859
Who's going to actually read it? Who's actually going to receive said letter and not toss it in the trash? How long would you wait for a response if it ever comes?
The link is an online submission. I don't have first hand knowledge with Avianca, because I've had good luck with their phone support, but I assume the form provides a reference number. It's unlikely the support team will ignore it, because it makes later escalations with a credit card company or DOT look really bad. I'd wait about a week to follow-up. If you're going to stay on the phone for 8 hours, it's definitely...
The link is an online submission. I don't have first hand knowledge with Avianca, because I've had good luck with their phone support, but I assume the form provides a reference number. It's unlikely the support team will ignore it, because it makes later escalations with a credit card company or DOT look really bad. I'd wait about a week to follow-up. If you're going to stay on the phone for 8 hours, it's definitely worth it to document the complaint in your own words, instead of having an Avianca employee (or contractor) transcript it.
Unpopular opinion: Pushing a payment processing company to take your side of a contractual dispute is a form of extortion in itself. It's no surprise that retailers really dislike it as, beyond any actual cost, it'll mess with their accounting etc.
In the UK it's typically easier to send something to the small claims court (naming the issuer as a co-defendant) than go down the chargeback route. There's much less chance of retaliation and you...
Unpopular opinion: Pushing a payment processing company to take your side of a contractual dispute is a form of extortion in itself. It's no surprise that retailers really dislike it as, beyond any actual cost, it'll mess with their accounting etc.
In the UK it's typically easier to send something to the small claims court (naming the issuer as a co-defendant) than go down the chargeback route. There's much less chance of retaliation and you can also claim for your actual losses where they exceed the transaction amount (e.g. because you spent lots of money on a new ticket as a result of the airline's failure to transport you on the day you'd booked).
Unpopular opinion: Believing a payment processing company actually takes your side.
Retailers really dislike it not because of accounting, but because their money is on hold. Some business can't afford to have cash stuck somewhere.
The problem is not the system. But people like you who thinks they know how the system works in their favor.
It's now a "contractual dispute". The customer paid for taxes for a flight he did not take. Those taxes were not paid to the taxing authority and therefore cannot be collected from the customer, and they must be returned. That's the law, not part of a contract. And Avianca refused to do it. So disputing the charge is perfectly legitimate.
*not* a contractual dispute. oops :)
And card companies are not law enforcement.
They uphold the contract not the law.
Disputing your charge is your right.
Legitimacy of your dispute is not determined by you.
People need to stop mixing those together.
It is at least partially a contractual dispute, inasmuch as the service charges aren't really taxes.
To be clear, I am not saying that Avianca's behaviour is justified, or even that the passenger shouldn't have been aggrieved at the treatment dished out by the airline, just that the chargeback mechanism is really designed to deal with issues like credit card fraud and doesn't work that well when trying to address unacceptable levels of service.
Would it be useful to complain to the credit card issuer? I wonder if their standard agreements with merchants prohibit this sort of retaliation.
I essentially view charge backs as totally off limits with airlines, given the power the they hold over us (our points balances, oligopolistic practices, etc.). Sadly, just not worth the risk.
This all boils down to POLICY. I don't know Avianca's policies off the top of my head, but there should be clear language posted in fine print somewhere about their policy on refunds/credits when a flight is canceled.
Now, there's "policy" (the rules everyone has to follow) and there's good customer service, but only a fool would assume they are the same. Policy should be pretty black-and-white. Customer service...that's more open to interpretation.
If Avianca...
This all boils down to POLICY. I don't know Avianca's policies off the top of my head, but there should be clear language posted in fine print somewhere about their policy on refunds/credits when a flight is canceled.
Now, there's "policy" (the rules everyone has to follow) and there's good customer service, but only a fool would assume they are the same. Policy should be pretty black-and-white. Customer service...that's more open to interpretation.
If Avianca followed their stated policy (assuming their policy is posted somewhere), and is just giving bad customer service, then the person has no basis to dispute the credit card charge, and Avianca has every right to suspend his membership and in fact can ban the guy (and maybe should).
Many people (idiots) immediately run to their credit card company and dispute a charge when they have no legal justification for doing so. One can sympathize but the credit card dispute channel is widely misunderstood - and widely abused.
Many people (idiots) immediately run to quote "policy" thinking it can protect them when the airline can modify it anytime without notice.
Its been written thousands of times, book it as 2 one ways to avoid this! Only slight reason to not do it that way is if you needed to 'voluntarily cancel' your flight, have to pay 2 fees with lifemiles vs. 1. 8 hrs is enough for a lifetime of not worrying about fees like that though! Don't sweat the small stuff.
Happened to me with HULU last month. They shutdown my account after a credit card dispute/chargeback, even though I still had prorated credit and other discounts with them. Maybe a common practice? Not a big deal but if I had 100k+ frequent flyer miles w/ them I'd consider a different avenue; he made the right move.
Common practice for Hulu.
Blame it on the card fraud. They like to pay for Hulu Netflix and Apple.
Frequent Flyer programs need to be regulated.
Unrelated, but I didnt see you post about Citi finally opening up points transfers to AAdvantage. Did I miss that?
You missed that.
@ ecr12 -- Wrote about it here:
https://onemileatatime.com/news/american-aadvantage-citi-thankyou/
I know there has been a lot of content the past several days. :-)
Thanks! I figured you did, but after scrolling past a dozen or so pages I tried searching the blog for "citi AA transfer" and all the posts were 7-12 years old. Not sure if theres any easy way to tweak what the search results are prioritizing.
Appreciate all the posts!
Create a google search starting with omaat (eg omaat citi thank you AA)
google will do a much better job of finding the right link
This type of problem could affect US passengers participating in US programs. If someone redeems an award for a round trip ticket on a route that only operates daily (like most international flights), there is not an alternative to reschedule to a different return flight if the original is cancelled.
With airlines pricing one way awards and fare higher than half of the round trip, a similar problem happens. Many years ago, that happened...
This type of problem could affect US passengers participating in US programs. If someone redeems an award for a round trip ticket on a route that only operates daily (like most international flights), there is not an alternative to reschedule to a different return flight if the original is cancelled.
With airlines pricing one way awards and fare higher than half of the round trip, a similar problem happens. Many years ago, that happened on a paid round trip and I got only $11 refunded for the return that was cancelled.
If the flight touches the U.S., or the complainant is a U.S. person I highly recommend filing a dispute with DOT. They are super responsive and airlines do not FAFO.
-G
Do you think Ben file DOT about Cairo?
Because CAI already FAFO.
-E