Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

Earlier this week, I talked about two different shopping portal bonuses that are active for the next few weeks: 3500 bonus miles with either Southwest or American Airlines, and 4000 bonus miles with United.

(SEE ALSO: Earning miles through shopping portals)

(SEE ALSO: Why you might lose money from shopping portals)

united-mileage-shopping-bonus

I found a deal over on BigHabitat for a Dell laptop at Staples.  Staples was offering 3x at the American portal, in combination with 500 bonus miles and 5x for spending on my Chase Ink card, would net me about 3000 miles (~10x).  I needed a new laptop for my son, and this seemed like a good deal

(SEE ALSO: Business credit cards even if you don’t (really) have a business)

Time to jump on the deal

The deal started on Sunday but it took me till Tuesday morning to get around to ordering the deal (I know… I know… I’m not always the most timely person).  Still, the deal was still prominently advertised on the Staples.com front page.

staples-visa-checkout

But when I went to check out, the $50 would not apply (saying it was an “Invalid Coupon”).  I chatted it up with Staples Customer Service, but they refused to honor the deal, even though it was still on the front page.

To me, its analogous to gas stations – they can’t (or don’t?) raise the price on the sign until there are no customers who pulled in under the old (lower) price.  To do otherwise would be fraudulent IMO.

Let’s try Staples Customer Service via Twitter

I often find that companies are often responsive to customer service problems via Twitter, so I thought I’d see how Staples Customer Service was there.

(SEE ALSO: List of Airline and Hotel Twitter contacts)

Then I decided to vent my spleen a bit and share this Staples Customer Service #fail to my 3,500+ Twitter followers – maybe some bad press would encourage them to do the right thing. By the way, if you’re not following me on Twitter, then you’re definitely missing out!

Of course, then I did my own #fail, by mis-spelling @Staples and castigating poor Joe Stapleton, who has the poor misfortune of having the @Stapes twitter handle 😀

That led to some other hilarious tweets

3rd try – Staples customer service on the phone

So next I try calling into the main Staples customer service phone number.  The Staples customer service agent put me on hold to look at my detail, then came back to tell me that a) I didn’t use Visa Checkout and b) even if I had, they couldn’t do anything about it and c) it was a vendor promotion

I said a) yes I did, b) yes you can and c) I don’t care

Eventually she said that because it was a vendor promotion that they couldn’t adjust the order, but she could give me a $50 coupon good off my next Staples order, which I accepted.

staples-courtesy-coupon

Of course, I’m sure I will promptly forget to use it like I do with most of my Staples rewards…. 😀

Persistence pays off!


Points With a Crew has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Points With a Crew and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers and that compensation may impact on how and where card products appear on the site. Any opinions expressed in this post are my own, and have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by my advertising partners and I do not include all card companies, or all available card offers. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers and other offers and benefits listed on this page. Other links on this page may also pay me a commission - as always, thanks for your support if you use them

User Generated Content Disclosure: Points With a Crew encourages constructive discussions, comments, and questions. Responses are not provided by or commissioned by any bank advertisers. These responses have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the responsibility of the bank advertiser to respond to comments.

BoardingArea