Cap 1 - Combining Rewards Cards

[Anonymous]

I just learned the hard way...if you combine a rewards card, make sure you redeem the rewards before you do it!  If you close the card that had the rewards accrued...you'll lose them.

I had $18 accrued and I combined the cards last night without thinking about the rewards...the rep I talked to didn't mention anything about it.  I called the backdoor # this morning to see if it would carry over to the new card and was told it wouldn't.  I was transferred to the rewards department to cash it out, they told me that since the account was closed they couldn't do anything.  They transferred me to customer service (offshore) to temporarily reopen the card so they could redeem the rewards...but customer service couldn't do that.  I asked to talk to a supervisor, so they transferred me to an onshore rep who put me on hold for 5 minutes then came back and said I was SOL.  (paraphrasing, of course )  I told her that the rep I talked to last night should have told me to redeem them first and even though it's only $18, it's MY $18 and if I don't somehow get them it will give me a very bad opinion of their company.  So she offered me a goodwill credit on the new account for the balance of the accrued rewards!  Which of course works for me...I don't care how I get my money as long as I get it!  But it took talking to 4 reps to get it, and it could have been avoided if I had just thought of redeeming the rewards before I combined them.  So I wanted to make sure no one else made the same mistake 

[niecey89]

Thanks that is good to know. I was thinking about combining mine in the next month of so.