Consumer complaint received 2023-07-12
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: CA
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Advertising and marketing, including promotional offers
Sub-issue: Didn't receive advertised or promotional terms

Complaint:
I saw in the news about bofa getting penalized for issues including mine, which was the alaska airlines promotional miles spending requirement for miles. I spent many phone calls, emails, and even had my financial advisor with Merrill Lynch, a bofa company, to help with no resolution, not even a partial awarding of reward miles. 

In XX/XX/2018 I signed up for the card. The night I researched, I was finding two offers-one had a XXXX spend requirement with XXXX bonus miles, the other XXXX spend requirement XXXX bonus miles. When I went to apply I could only get the XXXX to go through, and I noted that XXXX needed to be spent. I ended up spending about XXXX in the first 3 months and noticed 4-5 months later I never got miles. I emailed bofa to inquire and got a denial. Then, I called and spend 2 hours going back and forth between bofa and alaska with no solution. The biggest issue I had was that nobody could provide evidence of the spending requirement I had signed for. They said I was supposed to have XXXX spent but my statements and any documents in my account did not provide information about that. 

I went back and found that in XX/XX/2018 that transitioned the promotional offer from the XXXX miles, XXXX requirement to the XXXX miles, XXXX requirement. Even the lady from bofa I spoke with agreed that their system and coordination with alaska was glitchy and there was a chance that their system auto-booted me to the other promo offer on their end, but with no notification or information of me to be aware of this. 

The fact there was no proof of what my spending requirement was had me so frustrated. None of the papers sent in the mail had it either. It felt incredibly unfair to KNOW i signed the XXXX requirement, XXXX bonus online and spent XXXX shy of the XXXX they claimed I needed to ... and not even a partial awarding or small token was given. mind you, also being a preferred bofa member with merrill lynch I was shocked to be dismissed without consideration. 

I never got ONE bonus mile to my account after all of my investigating, calling etc. They couldn't provide evidence of the signed document I supposedly had and none of my statements showed progress toward the spending minimum. This felt shady, deceptive and non-transparent. Clearly, nearly 5 years later I'm still bitter and feel slighted by this situation. I've continued keeping this card the last 5 years because of it flying to my hometown, the free bags and companion fare and have racked up XXXX of my own miles in that time. 

Back then I was not able to login and find my original account documents and today I am also unable. The lack of clear communication/information is concerning, especially considering that I am a type A person, financially literate and I can only imagine the mess people get in that are not as savvy in situations like this.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation