Consumer complaint received 2017-04-06
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: CA
Product: Credit card
Issue: Advertising and marketing

Complaint:
Signed up for an XXXX from Bank of America for the benefits XX/XX/XXXX. Received a reduced priced companion fare voucher as advertised, took a while to show up in the account. I was going to use the voucher issued to me before the expiration dateI logged in and noted it expired in XX/XX/XXXX. I was ready to purchase the tickets and suddenly the voucher was gone. 
I called XXXX, they said it had expired on the date of my anniversary XXXX, I was bummed, but when I asked, " then where is the new voucher '' noting that it clearly states that you will receive a new voucher " on the date of your account anniversary ''. They said to call Bank of America to see when it would arrive. 
I called Bank of America spoke with XXXX and XXXX and was told it indeed had expired. I said OK then, while I was pretty sure it had not, then where is the new voucher? I was told that " it was issued on XXXX, but it takes some time to process into your account '' and it would be there next month on " XXXX ''. I tried to verify what I was hearing that there was a voucher that has been issued but I do not have access to it until it is processed into my account. Which would mean it would expire in 12 months from issue and that I would be missing out on 1 months use. They said yes, I asked to escalate the issue as I did not see how this was correct and wanted access to the voucher that they said has been issued sooner. I explained that this appears to be an issue of false advertising, and that it appears that Bank of America and XXXX could be benefiting to the tune of millions of dollars by reducing the odds of the benefit being used for 1 month, for each of their millions of customers, year over year. 
Plus, I happen to know the 1 month to process a voucher code into an account is untrue. Based on the working with an online store that deals with vouchers, I understand what the process consists of. Technically speaking if they run a chron job to remove expired vouchers from accounts daily, they also could also be running daily chron job to deliver vouchers daily. It is not a manual process by any means. 
A week goes by and I called back to find out what happened to the escalation as I had not been called back. They asked me to explain my issue. I told them my escalation number and asked them to explain to me, what the issue was escalated. The Rep read the report and said that they had escalated to get my old voucher re-instated and that they had validated that the voucher did indeed expire and closed the complaint. I asked to speak with her supervisor, and was then speaking with Supervisor " XXXX ''. We discussed the issue and she then said that the voucher would arrive on XXXX, and through the course of the conversation told me that my account had been credited with the voucher the day after I applied for the card on XX/XX/XXXX. She then proceeded to argue that the advertisement was in incorrect and that the terms and conditions state the voucher can be delivered 1-2 billing cycles after the anniversary date because of processing time. We discussed the issue of false advertising and she blamed XXXX telling me to take it up with them as to why it takes a month. I suggested that there must be an SLA agreement that you are legally bound to and that if you are advertising a benefit to a product and are not actually delivering it then there should be penalties. I asked to speak with her manager and am currently waiting for another callback.

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