corporate dealings: win some, lose some

[eirias]

So the end of the Advantage saga is that we were credited for about 3 days worth of unused time, compared to about 5 days of actual unused time, when we wanted a full refund. G's credit card company was unwilling to go to bat for us, since Advantage gave us something; when we complained that prima facie it wasn't even enough assuming that we were willing to pay the asking price for the time we actually used, they said we needed a receipt proving the original length of the reservation, and our receipt from Travelocity doesn't count. We do not have anything else, so -- there goes the cash, I'm afraid.

Moral of the story: in addition to not doing business with Advantage, consider not doing business with Juniper/Barclays bank, if you find this experience compellingly bad enough (we're thinking about it). The card is one of those airline cards (Midwest, in this case) which are always operated by third parties, I imagine.

The other moral, of course, being don't ever let go of any receipt unless you'd trust that company with both kidneys. We do have some papers from Advantage, but I feel about 60% sure they gave us something else which we don't have anymore. Not totally sure what information it had, but it most likely would have helped.

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In less sucky news, Dell, though their machines are kinda P.O.S.'s these days, is still an okay company to work with, at least if your machine is still under warranty. My laptop's been slow for a while, and thinking that a mucked-up registry was to blame, I set out to reinstall XP. (1) I needed new reinstall CD's; I said as much to a Dell chatter yesterday morning and I had the CDs this afternoon. (2) During the reinstall, I got BSOD'd twice in a row, plus some scary beepy noises that no computer should ever make. I called Dell, I got someone more or less right away, and after some digging he decided it's probably a hardware problem and he's shipping me both components that could be responsible, and they should be here by Monday. (Time was they'd send a tech out for a call like this, and their in-person techs are always superb IME, but right now, not having to argue for what I've paid for feels like a blessing. And I'm pretty sure I can handle a little laptop hardware tinkering.)

Comments

[littlepurple.livejournal.com]

another piece of advice for the future.... when making travel arrangements always book through the original vendor, i.e. never buy via travelocity, expedia, or anyone else. The only possible exception is orbitz who will set up itinerary's involving multiple carriers which you can not do on your own unless you are a travel agent. For airplane tix you can pretty much always get the same price (and often 15$ cheaper) from the airlines website itself. For hotel's and car rentals, you can call them up and say, hey expedia is giving me a price of blabedy blab per day and they'll give it you directly.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

*nods* That's been my way of making most plane reservations now for a few months, after madmanatw's horrible experience as a guest attempted guest at my wedding. But it didn't occur to me that car rental reservations could get so screwed up, since it's always been straightforward before. In the future I may do it for cars as well.