Failure to notify customers that they will forfeit world points if they are not used by a certain date. I have had an account for 7 years and allowed my worldpoints to accumulate. I have paid my account monthly and had built up a substantial number of points. I have now learned that Bank of America does not notify you when you are about to start forfeiting worldpoints. I lost over 72000 points, and when I contacted Bank of America to arrange to have them reinstated since I paid to earn them, I was told that was the rule and they will not return them to my account. As soon as I pay this months bill and redeem my remaining worldpoints, I will cancel my card and never be a customer of this bank again. No other bank credit card takes your earned points as long as you maintain and use an account every 18 months.
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I have BA accounts but never heard of world points. Are these specific accounts? I did have an interesting discussion with one of their managers and thought she was extremely insensitive when she insisted that I travel two hours to come in to their bank vs online banking. When I explained with my disability, the travel to her bank was difficult if not impossible she responded with “well, we put in railings and ramps, what else would you people like?” The insensitivity and idiocy of this manager’s comments left me wondering how she ever became a branch manager. However, I am happy to share her comments here, in the classes I teach, and just about anywhere else. With about 45 million people in this country classified with some type of disability, that’s a lot of people to offend and they will certainly tell all of their friends and relatives. True story!
N smith on February 20th, 2010 at 11:24 pm | Link
At one time Worldpoint catalogues were sent to people with world point cards. Now we have to search the net to find away to redeem these points. I have tried numerous times only to give up. These credit cards aren’t worth having!
Nancy Olivolo on April 2nd, 2010 at 7:20 pm | Link
While the policy is kind of underhanded, I still enjoy my WorldPoints from BOA. The Worldpoints program has one of the best points:cash ratio of any program. As long as you cash out 50,000 points as soon as you earn them; you’ll receive $500 in your checking or savings account. As with most credit card rewards programs, the cash redemption options are the best value. I travel between 1 and 2 times a month and given a budget of between $700-$1500 per trip put on my card in addition to groceries, bills, entertainment expenses I end up with an extra $500 every year in credit card rewards…assuming you pay the card off every month, it’s really not that bad a deal!
Quincy on April 8th, 2010 at 5:05 pm | Link
Good for you, Quincy. You are a responsible credit-card user. We pay our bills every month in full, so just like you, we pay zero interest. I swear most people think credit-card loans should be free! Hell, they think EVERYTHING is free! So I wonder why they don’t tell their bosses they will WORK for FREE?
I just had the same thing happen to me, Failure to notify customers that they will forfeit world points if they are not used by a certain date. I just lost 15,000 points. I do not recommend the Bank of America (world points) (Miles Edge) (Power Rewards Signature) credit card….or whatever its called they keep changing the names and rules. SHADDY way to do business!!
jackie on August 2nd, 2010 at 1:49 pm | Link
Took 1/2 my Worldpoints. Unbelievable. They had $$ value now that’s gone. I could have cashed them in for $$. They didn’t even give me a chance first to do something. By time they notified me, they already took them. There has to be a legal issue. Where did it ever say they could do that? I just received a promo saying “NO LIMIT TO HOW MANY YOU CAN ACHIEVE”. How about Taking them without advanced notification?
NAC on November 8th, 2010 at 3:59 pm | Link
Bank of America is a Shady Sheisty operation. They closed my account after I paid of the balance in full for the 2nd time in two years and my Worldpoints were forfeited. They are the worst. I wish MBNA had never been taken over
Susanna G on November 26th, 2010 at 4:58 pm | Link
World Points is a scam. Even if you try to use them before they expire, it’s likely that you won’t get what you were promised.
I redeemed points for a free night at a hotel. I had a confirmation email and I even called Worldpoints to confirm the reservation the day before my arrival. When I got to the hotel, they had no record of my reservation and they were sold out. It turned out that there was a glitch and Worldpoints mistakenly booked me a room in England. I was told by the people at Worldpoints to stay at a different hotel and to fax them my receipt, and that they either would reissue my points or reimburse me for the cost of the alternate hotel. I did just that, but I never head back from them.
I have called Worldpoints and FIA several times, and I’ve sent letters to both. FIA tells me that it’s not their problem; the people at World Points keep telling me that they’re working on it and that they’ll call me when they get it taken care of. They never call me back, so I end up calling them again and getting the same runaround. My problem occurred in October. It is now December and they still haven’t done a thing. Clearly they’re just hoping that I’ll get frustrated and give up. Basically Worldpoints has stolen over 11,000 points from me.
It’s undeniable that I deserve compensation. If I don’t get it, I will cancel my account very soon.
Chris on December 8th, 2010 at 12:23 pm | Link
I had the same thing happen to me; Just as I was about to reach the top tier of redemption value I lost, what for me is about 3 months of charges without notice. It took two phone calls, both almost an hour long, to get a small portion of the points replaced but then they immediately expired another $500 points.
There is no notice and points expire 60 months to THE DAY they were earned. Who keeps track of 60 months of spending? I was told I could “simply call and we would be happy to tell you” but I don’t want to spend an hour on the phone every week to find out what is going to expire, let alone every day!
I went to the FTC Consumer Protection web site & it walks you through submitting a complaint. I don’t expect any action to come of it personally but if enough people complain maybe something might get done about yet another deceptive bank practice. The bottom line for me is that I have moved ALL of my business away from banks, particularly BOA and into credit unions. I haven’t heard any complaints about ANY credit union and none of them seems to have needed bailing out. And guess what else? They have better rates on almost every service banks offer without all of the gotcha’s!
Mario on December 19th, 2010 at 1:36 am | Link
i work for the worldpoints redemption, and thats all i hear is complaints. It is rediculous that points expire.. but its points, get over it.
katelyn on January 4th, 2011 at 3:41 pm | Link
“Get over it,” said the World Points employee. That explains a lot about their quality of service.
Chris on January 4th, 2011 at 4:48 pm | Link
were just employees, we dont make rules for the company, bank of america does, the redemption center is a completely different, they make rules we follow, why not complain to them instead of being rude to us. WE WOULD LOVE TO HAVE HAPPY CUSTOMER call in,redeem and be on your way.
katelyn on January 16th, 2011 at 7:30 pm | Link
“We are just employees” & “World Points is a completely different company” well that may be true so why doesn’t Bank of America have ANY other phone number or contact information when someone with a Bank of America account has a problem with World Points?
If you ARE a completely different company then you are not taking responsibility either. Any way you look at it it’s a scam.
As for “They are just points, get over it?” I will, as soon as you and your company decide to make up the cash value WE have lost because of yours or some banks shady practices. Who is going to take responsibility for that? Someone is making those extra bucks and they have conned us into using their credit card over someone else’s because of World Points.
More like World Class Rip-off!!! You company and business practices SUCK!
GET OVER IT!
Mario on January 17th, 2011 at 5:58 pm | Link
Do not use Bank of America credit cards at all. If you have them then close it immediately, If you have reward points use them ASAP. They just close my account and told me that they were not comfortable so that they closed the account. They also told me that since they closed the account then the points that I have accumulated are forfeited. They are telling me that they can not even let me have my points or rewards. I have been very good customer for 10 years and my accounts were very good. But again they are telling me that they can close the accounts at any time without notification even though the account is in good standing.
When they advertise they tell that we can earn lots of points and they make you apply to their card, and you use it for a long time and all of a sudden they close the account. I believe this is deceiving and cheating. I am going to look for my right , and I ask everyone do the same. They should not take advantage o people.
John Clark on January 4th, 2013 at 3:53 pm | Link