Here is a weird one that I originally posted in the credit card section many months ago but there is an update and it probably better belongs here. My son was flying and his baggage did not show up at the destination. The cc printed policy showed a $1,000 policy. I had checked online to make sure an independently traveling child would be covered (since this had happened to me before on a different card where my son was not covered) before I had purchased the ticket with this card and checked on line again to confirm. Then I called the company to start the claim and was told that the policy had changed and he was not covered because he was not traveling with me. I checked again on the website and could not find this update so I called back, spoke to two different departments and a supervisor for close to an hour in total - who all told me that the policy has been changed and that the bank had not updated the website.
I told my son to hold off on purchasing anything but a few hours later sent him a message to just go ahead and buy what he needs and a suit for yomtov which was fast approaching and I would cover it out of pocket. He felt bad and did not buy anything and wore his travel clothes, planning to borrow something to wear over yomtov - and thankfully his luggage showed up in about 24 hours, jut before yomtov. Because it showed up the airline will not cover anything for the one day it was delayed.
Meanwhile, I took up my frustration with the cc company customer relations and they finally got back to me explaining that there was an exclusion clause that I missed - but they would offer $25 as a goodwill gesture. I thanked them.
When I downloaded the policy again, I still could not find any such exclusion and I contacted the cc company, asking the rep to please clarify where the exclusion was. She finally called back and admitted that everyone on her end had been making a mistake and the exclusion applied to a different benefit (trip interruption) but not to the lost baggage claim. She added that since we did not end up suffering a financial loss, they stood by their goodwill gesture of a $25 gift card. I told her that in light of all this I felt that, notwithstanding we didn't "incur" financial loss, the $25 token compensation was entirely inadequate.
...well, after months and months of dealing with ombudsmen and regulators, I have been told that since we suffered no direct financial loss, only lost opportunity, my only recourse is (small claims) court. Anyone with legal expertise care to opine on whether it is worth my time. (Would be in Canada as it was a Canadian issued card). Thnx
