By ARTHUR VIDRO
Last month, I got a surprise letter from my credit-card company.
“Dear Customer: In reviewing your credit card account, we saw you spent far below your available credit limit in the last 12 months. Because of your limited usage, we’re lowering your limit to $5,000 30 days from the date of this letter.”
My credit limit had been $10,000.
Some folks — even so-called financial experts — would call up the company, beg to keep the higher limits, promise to use the card more often and on costlier items. They might charge like crazy if it would keep the perceived value of the card as high as possible.
Therein lies madness.
My reaction was, “Oh, well. At least the card still has a lifetime no-annual-fee clause — the reason I signed up for it 30 years ago.”
You would think after 30 years they would know my name. But to them I am but another customer. They are not being loyal to me.
The loyalty issue reminded me of Thom, a former acquaintance.
In January 2010, Thom, who worked for IBM, wrote the following: “On the last day of 2009, to qualify for MVP status with my favorite airline, I flew to Oakland, CA and back on the same day. I got to do a good deed while doing so.
Thom continued: “The flight attendant suggested I try and go standby, rather than wait three hours for my scheduled flight home. So after reaching Oakland, I got placed on standby. There was only one seat available on the flight. Another flight attendant was waiting with her daughter, hoping to get the daughter home. In the pecking order of standby, paying guests are first and flight attendants or their families are last. They had been trying to make a flight for two days. Without being asked, I gave up my seat so the daughter could fly home.”
I wrote to Thom, praising him for giving up his seat to someone who needed it more. I added, “It sounds like on December 31 you flew to Oakland and back (from Washington state) even though you had no business in California, and the sole purpose of the trip was to spur the airline to value you more?”
Thom’s reply, six months later, reads as follows: “Yes, I made the decision to fly to a city, have lunch and return, just so the airline would give me better service during this year. It would have been a good deal if I had actually flown this year anywhere. But so far, I haven’t. Probably not something I would do again.”
So there you have it. It is possible to get so caught up in the games companies play that we take extraordinary but foolish measures.
Such as taking a flight solely to earn points with the airline, never leaving the airport, then coming back home.
Even afterward, Thom’s action still made sense — to him.
But if that is your mind-set, then the corporation you are currying favor with has already won.
Most of us are guilty, now and then, of committing fiscally foolish acts because we get caught up emotionally in the desire to save or earn better treatment.
Do we buy additional items at a website, simply to qualify for free shipping?
Do we spend more because it is the end of a certain time period, and we feel compelled to earn a reward for the expiring term?
Do we buy extra items in a store where we have a loyalty card, solely to save money on future purchases?
Even I use a loyalty card. Why? Because if I shop at that store without using the card, then I’m spending much more money for the same items. But if I could push a button to wipe out all loyalty programs, I would do so.
All people should be treated equally, regardless of whether we are members of the store’s club. We should all receive the same prices. And any other perks.
As for being loyal to these companies, there is no need. They are not going to be loyal to us.
I don’t know if Thom remains loyal to his favorite airline. But suppose he had tickets to go somewhere these past few months and that flight was canceled by the airline because of the COVID-19 situation.
The airline, if it is like most of its competitors, would be dragging its feet to grant Thom a refund, perhaps telling him lies such as it can only grant him a credit for future flights.
Right now, the airlines seem unwilling to refund money for canceled flights. Perhaps they are broke.
Still, that is no way to repay loyalty.
If you have consumerism questions, send them to Arthur Vidro in the care of this newspaper, which publishes his column every weekend. His latest short story, “GLI or NOGT?”, appears in the June 2020 issue of Mystery Weekly Magazine.
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