Latitude 28 Degrees $8 per month starting September 2024

[MEL_Traveller]

True to their word, the $100 credit is in my 28° account this morning. Which is kind of a pain because now I have to fully investigate and get my head around how I'm going to get the gift card each month for the next year and a bit.

If it takes you more than 5 minutes to work it out, it’s not going to be worth the reward?

 

[burmans]

True to their word, the $100 credit is in my 28° account this morning. Which is kind of a pain because now I have to fully investigate and get my head around how I'm going to get the gift card each month for the next year and a bit.

Lucky you don’t value your time at much then.

 

[Legoman]

Hmmm, y'know, it's just possible I may have unnecessarily maligned Latitude slighty more than they deserved. The way they introduced the monthly fee was still awful and making it monthly instead of yearly is undoubtedly more painful than it needs to be for no reason, but, the gift card redemption thing looks a lot better than it did at first glance.

Introducing a fee where previously there was none is never going to go down well, and will require an awful lot of sugar-coating to get swallowed. It does appear though that a great many might regret their knee-jerk reaction to cancel. The gift cards effectively represent a 20% discount on their face value. ie. you get a $10 gift card for effectively $8. That 20% discount is far greater than you can get from any other scheme out there, so on that measure alone, it's well worthwhile. The range of cards available too is massive and includes staples like Colesworth, Bunnings, Ampol etc. so it's not like you're going to struggle to use them.

I think it's quite a smart move of Latitude to waive the fee for 12 months (although their implementation of doing this for only some card holders and not others has been dreadful). It gives cardholders the opportunity to try it out and see if they can make it work for them first before cancelling. I admit my initial reaction to the new fee was the same as everyone else's… ie. that's it, I'm cancelling! But now that I've managed to get myself a chance to test the new paradigm before committing to it for life, I'm starting to see some logic in it.

All that said, the way Latitude have implemented all these changes has been absolutely appalling and they could have saved themselves a LOT of cancelling customers, if they'd only been smarter at how they communicated.

 

[Trekky1]

Apologies in advance, because this is going to be quite annoying…

I did not get the fee waiver e-mail or SMS and I did not call to have a big wet sookie whingeathon at Latitude either. What I did do was send them a polite, unsarcastic e-mail that included the evidence provided in the e-mails that others had received (helpfully copied and reposted in this and other forums) and suggested that I had missed out for no apparent reason despite seemingly falling into exactly the same category of 28° user.

I then patiently waited the required 2 days they said they would take to respond. When that response didn't come, I helpfully re-sent the original e-mail and patiently waited another 2 days. After five days of waiting for a response with no reply, I sent the e-mail a third time and suggested they have a problem with replying, with just a hint of a sacastic jus for garnish this time.

Just got the response right at the end of the day before the weekend. We've credited your account with $100 you'll see it in your account within 24hrs and on my next statement. So, no official fee waiver or exemption for me, but I do get the equivalent (+$4) in credit on my account in advance right now to cancel out and compensate me for the $8 fee they are going to continue to charge for the next year instead, and of course if I can charge $1K/month to it, I can claim the gift cards too. I'm calling that a win.

…and yes, this is on top of the other $24 credit I got to compensate me for the anticipated problems I expect to have cancelling my card in the 5 day window between my next statement payment date and the production date of the following statement with my first $8 fee on it.

What's the email address you used? I've emailed them multiple times (and received 2 Request IDs) and no reply at all.

 

[Legoman]

What's the email address you used? I've emailed them multiple times (and received 2 Request IDs) and no reply at all.

[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

I used the last one

 

[Legoman]

If I compare my actual real-world 28° card usage just before the fee introduction, to my use right now post fee-introduction, I'd have to admit reluctantly that their strategy has worked and they've won.

Before fee: No usage. None. Full credit limit balance available, no pending spend.

After fee: Balance on card = $7,500, Amazon Prime free 30 day trial offer redeemed and being used, 2 x Flexiroam eSIMs redeemed, 8 flights registered for Mastercard Flight Delay Pass, 2 more Amazon Prime 30 day free trials still to redeem on separate cards and 1 more eSIM to redeem. Now I'm looking at how I can claim the free gift cards each month.

I think even the most sceptical Latitude h8ter would have to admit, that whilst what they've done is bad, and how they've done it has been even worse, in my case at least they've achieved exactly what they wanted. They have played me like a fiddle.