Taking advantage of hapless consumers

But I have no interest in renting a car from Hertz, using an RBC credit card or using Massy points, whatever that is. In any case, why should I have to do anything to keep my miles? Now, there’s no good reason for flyer miles to expire except that it’s one more way for an airline to squeeze that extra dollar (or, in this case, a cool $1,000) from their “valued customers”. By comparison, since the 1980s, I earned OnePass miles with BWIA’s former partner, Continental Airlines, by travelling on BWIA. Know what? Up to the last time I checked, they are still valid, no expiry date. So tell me, CAL, why do my miles expire? I’m sure it can’t be because your planes are always full. Is it that you have found yet another way to take your loyal customers for a ride? This is just one example of what I consider an abhorrent practice by corporate entities. The banks and the phone companies readily come to mind. So we use our credit cards and earn points or cash-back dollars.

You put them away in a safe place and, one day, you remember to use them, only to discover that you can’t — they have expired.

So much for the banks’ claim that “it’s just like cash”.

Have you ever heard of cash expiring? Imagine buying a book and because you took some time to start reading it, the book disappears into thin air.

But the worst are the phone companies. So you have a pre-paid phone and you put enough money on the phone so you won’t suffer the embarrassment of running out of money on an important call.

How does your phone company repay you for your patronage? By “cancelling your money” if you do not use it within 90 days.

In any other business (except, perhaps, banks and airlines), such an action would be considered reprehensible. Even so, these companies will try to convince us it’s “good corporate practice”.

But whichever way I look at it, all I see is barefaced dishonesty, and companies taking advantage of the hapless consumer.

NOEL KALICHARAN via email