UAL Visa Story!

[This post is written and copyrighted by FIRE Finance (http://firefinance.blogspot.com).]

We had opened a visa credit card from United Airlines (UAL) to avail the sign-up bonus of 20000 miles and the membership waiver for the first year. This card is great. We have received our bonus miles as promised. Often when we travel on United Air we use it for booking our tickets to earn double miles on an United ticket purchase.

Since we had opened the card in the third week of March last year, we thought of closing it now so that we don't end up paying the membership fees for the second year. When we logged into our account, we found that we had already been charged $60 for the second year! But we're still 3 weeks away from completing our first anniversary, how did this happen?

We called UAL's customer service and explained the situation. The customer service representative (CSR) said that membership fees are charged to UAL credit cards on the first of the month in which the card was opened. We did not remember having read this clause in UAL visa's fine print. However the CSR was extremely friendly and helpful. When we said that we had not yet completed our first anniversary with this card and it was unfair to be charged for the second year three weeks ahead of time, he agreed to credit the annual fees of $60 to our account. No hard feelings!

Later we called UAL again and closed this credit card account. But it taught us a lesson. Say we have an airlines card that charges annual fees at the start of the second year of use. If we do not plan to use this card in future its better to close it in the eleventh month. All's well that ends well!

Image Source(s): iStockPhoto

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