Consumer complaint received 2023-01-08
Product: Credit card or prepaid card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Other features, terms, or problems — Problem with rewards from credit card
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO. (NJ)

I would like to file a complaint with Chase Ultimate Rewards Travel. I have been a loyal customer for several years now and I always pay my credit card off in full each month. I highly recommended this credit card to anyone I knew. Now, my opinion of Chase Ultimate Rewards Travel is forever tarnished. I never had an issue using my points to purchase flights in my several years of doing so up until XX/XX/2022. My husband and I had landed in XXXX, XXXX on XX/XX/2022. We had a very early XXXX flight the next day to XXXX XXXX, a city in the XXXX XXXX of XXXX. It was time to check in for that flight as soon as we landed in XXXX. When I checked in directly with XXXX XXXX, it said my reservation could not be found and to call the airline directly. I did as I was instructed to do and XXXX said they could not help me since I booked with a third party, which was the Chase Ultimate Rewards Travel website. Little did I know what a turn for the worse my day was going to take. I called Chase Ultimate Rewards Travel customer service to see what the issue was. At first, they had no idea what could be causing this error message to appear as they stated my flight is confirmed on their end. They called XXXX Airlines on my behalf to see if it was some sort of glitch on their end. I was on hold for about an hour until the Chase customer service representative stated that XXXX Airlines did not have a reservation for my husband and I. Surprised, I asked how do we not have reservation or seats on this flight? I booked this particular flight two months ago ( XX/XX/2022 ) and I received my confirmation email from Chase. The representative then stated that the flight was cancelled altogether. I said that is a lie- XXXX Airlines website is stating this flight is confirmed with the status of on time. Also, the airline would have told me this when I called them myself earlier that day! She kept insisting this flight was cancelled and I told her you are wrong! We were going back and forth arguing for a very long time. Frustrated with this representatives professionalism, I hung up and called again ( my husband also called at the same time on his cellphone ). We explained the situation over to the new representatives we were speaking with. This time they said a Chase travel agent cancelled this flight on XX/XX/2022. I asked why would they cancel this flight without my permission? They claimed I called and made the cancellation, which again was another lie on Chases end. They stated an email confirmation was sent out to me on XX/XX/2022 confirming the cancellation. And you guessed it- another lie! The email I did receive I will attach to this complaint- all it stated was the flight number had changed- that is it. I told them this and they said that is not true and that they indeed sent me a cancellation email. To call their bluff, I asked for that same exact email to be forwarded to me with the date stamp of XX/XX/2022 that was apparently sent to me. It took the representative 30 minutes to do this! What she sent back to me would make anyone laugh- it was an unofficial email created in a hurry that did not state the original date, with plenty of typos, and clearly was not written by someone whose English is their first language ( it was very clear who I was speaking with their first language was not English ). I have attached this email as well to the complaint. At this point it was very clear they were telling all these lies to cover their major mistake- they had cancelled my flight without my permission and they had no clue how to fix it or even admit their error. I was demanding they put my husband and I on the next flight out to XXXX XXXX. To note- this particular airport is very remote and only 1-2 non-stop flights each day go there during the high season, hence why I made sure I booked well in advance. They told me nothing was available. At this point, I was on the phone with them for 6 hours straight and I lost it. We were heading to XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX a remote location in XXXX XXXX It was extremely expensive and difficult to plan this trip. I started screaming and crying that Chase ruined my trip I worked so hard on. Not only did they refuse to book us another flight, they were not willing to compensate for the thousands of dollars ( USD ) we would lose if we could not make it to XXXX ( car rental, 4 night hotel stay, activities, and return flight home from XXXX XXXX was already paid for in full ). Since there was no way we were leaving the next day, I had to pay for extra nights at our hotel in XXXX. They said for my inconvenience they would refund my XXXX points back I had originally used to purchase the tickets with an additional XXXX points for my troubles. I hung up because I was in our hotel room for XXXX hours straight on the phone with Chase with no break at this point and needed to eat. My husband and I went to the restaurant located in our hotel and the phone calls from Chase would not stop. My husband finally decided to answer and now this new travel agent refused to give us anything back when we were just told earlier we would receive XXXX points. Again we hung up. I decided to take matters into my own hands and look for flights myself. To my surprise with a simple XXXX search, I found a non-stop flight to XXXX XXXX that left from XXXX two days later. I decided to book this flight for us since one day in XXXX was better than none- we would land late on XX/XX/2022 and then we would head home to New Jersey XXXX XX/XX/2022. Booking these new flights unfortunately cost me {$730.00} USD that I was not expecting to spend. I have attached that receipt and boarding passes as proof to this complaint. After we came back to our hotel room, I decided to call Chase one last time. Since they were completely unaccommodating, I feared once the flight departed at XXXX the next day, they would refuse even to discuss refunding me my points. The representative that answered without hesitiation called me a liar when I explained Chase cancelled my flight without my permission. Obviously, I hung up and called again to speak with someone new. The representative that answered was friendly, which was a change, but she claimed she had to do an investigation by reading the previous notes before she could start the refund process. She told me this would take ten minutes- TWO hours later, she came back on the line and said she was still investigating. It was XXXX in XXXX at this point- nearly 12 hours of dealing with phone calls. I explained this is ridiculous and she offered to call me back at XXXX the next day. Never received a phone call from Chase again and I refuse to waste my time again dealing directly with them. As of today, I am still desperate to be compensated, hence why I am filing this complaint. I sincerely hope something can be done about this and Chase is held accountable for their mistake. They are untrustworthy and I will never put my travel plans in their hands again. Thank you for your time.