vt01 said:
Thanks for the good news update.
It shows that you can get results by writing letters - BUT - only if you're persistent. Sometimes I think companies ignore the first letter just to see if the person will actually follow it up..
Yes I am sure that many do.
My policy is to be firm, but polite...and to be persistent.
Apart from JetStar, within the last 12 months Amex was not going to award my wife and I 35,000 points....it took a couple of phone calls..but the points were awarded.
A number of years back my wife had a car accident one hour after her renewal was due but not yet paid, and initially the company refused to pay for the $20,000 damage!!!
Ouch.
But I was just FP&P till they escalated me to a manager who then again said sorry the policy had lapsed, but that I then pointed out:
*that I knew it was industry standrad to have two week grace period (I then had two sisters working for Insurance Companies...who also advised me that Insurance Companies all operated escalation policies)
*that I had checked my wife's previous payment history and for all the last 10 years she had paid late. Not once was the insurance period adjusted, nor was the yearly fee ever part refunded to indicate less than full year coverage
* I then politely staed that this to us was acceptance by the cpompany that my wife's late payment preactice was acceptable by then and if not why had the company communicated this to us.
* I also indicated that if the policy should have been reset due to revious late payments that the catual expiring time should have been several weeks hence.
From that experience I learnt the value of being firm and polite and not accepting a companies initial declination, as well as the value in escalating to a level empowered to make decisions...
The polite part comes in beacuse at each level there is often some discretion involved...and being polit obatins a more generous consideration and or getting things done quicker.
I also decided to mimimise my future risk by taking over bill paying!!!!
