Has any one had any of their MBNA SonyCard Pulsebeats taken away?

Shanker

A statement of when and how many points are due to expire.

Shanker wrote: »

Yorkyuk,

Referring to your post/reply, I have highlighted the bit that I am particularly referring to.

I think that you may be under the misapprehension that MBNA will be deducting points from you on an annual basis, (i.e. once a year, every December in your case).

This is not so.

Once they start taking the points away, it will be on a MONTH BY MONTH basis as you earned them.

You will see points being deducted every month from when the first lot, (your reinstated points from 3 years or so back).

This is why, with at least 11 months to go before they commence this heinous, over zealous act, we need to start campaigning for the appropriate amendments to the posted statements and the on-line statements too.

I am insisting on continuing with postal statements until something is done.

When you contact MBNA, they state that they will respond in 2-3 days. Given that it almost goes without saying that those would be working days and Saturday probably isn't included, I will be contacting them again tomorrow since i have not received a response yet.

We all must act now. If you don't want any shocks in the coming months when you find so many thousands of points have been taken, you must start writing to MBNA and Sony Card now.

Yorkyuk,

I have contacted MBNA by telephone today.

The guy I spoke to not surprisingly displayed great difficulty in interpreting the small print in his employer's own terms and conditions. To add to the confusion, he had even greater difficulty explaining them to me.

I suppose if you don't fully understand something yourself, you have very little chance of confidently relaying that information in an understandable format to someone else!

But he has promised to send me out a letter within the week, to clarify the basis upon which points will be deducted. He did explain it to me and I am still trying to get my head around it, but if what he stated is correct, then you are more correct than I! The points will be deducted annually.

Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is debateable. He seems to think that a whole 12 month period of earned points will be deducted in one go ot the 4th anniversary of the first spend or use of the credit card.

So as I interpret it, any points that I earn from say February 2002 to January 2003 would be deemed expired and therefore deducted from my balance on or by February 2006, the earliest points being earned in February 2002 and the latest in January 2003. So effectively a "stay of execution" for 11 months of that year and then on the 12 month they are deducted all in one go.

From then on a deduction will take place every 12 months.

Quite frankly, I don't understand why in the hell they insist on complicating things. Why they don't just allow you to keep all of the points you are accumulating so that you can save for that 40" TV that you really want, (instead of forcing you to redeem them for old CDs or DVDs that you can probably pick up for a few quid off eBay or Tesco.

Its as though they don't want to part with the high value items.

I, myself, dream about accumulating enough to redeem them for a PS3, but I need over 55,000. I am retired. To achieve that quantity of points I would have to max out my credit card every month for the next goodness knows how long - can't be done!

So I will have to aim lower, for things that I don't really want or need and perhaps give them away as presents.

What's the point of it all at the end of the day?

yorkyuk

Yes that is correct, as far as I know, points will be deducted annually.



My annual date is December so I always phone up in November to see how many points a due to expire and use them up. I got told this by a customer service rep over two years ago when they first took away my points.


It makes me wonder how many people actually get to redeem points against a LCD TV or PS3 for example, when points expire every 3 years.

Shanker

A statement of when and how many points are due to expire.

Those of you who are still fighting for the reinstatement your Sony Reward points will have to bring more pressure to bear.

I along with every other Sony Card account user has probably had the letter that they (MBNA) are ceasing the scheme.

I don't know if Sony have initiated this or if it is MBNA. If it is MBNA and Sony are setting up with someother credit card then I think we ought to be told but I doubr that is the case anyway.

What assurances we need from Sony is that they are not running down the stock of "Rewards" so that the choice ends up that you have to exchange them for over priced, long out of date DVDs.

Has anyone made contact?

The scheme continues until the end of August 2011 but will be able to redeem points up until 30 June 2012.

Will they be replenishing or offering anything else in their catalogue up till then? The choice has never been that great as it is. It is apparent that most of the stuff they are offering is old catalogue which has been superceded.

I know I haven't and won't get enough points to buy a TV or a Home Cinema System, so my choice is coming down to at best a BluRay player and change to buy yet another MP3 player, (or two).

Any views?

I believe someone has already posted another thread associated with this one regarding this issue. I'll try and track it down and link the two posts.

Sub Note:


Found it! This is the link to the other post by chaos_j. He/she has already done a bit of detective work for us regarding my fears.


https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3318684


Hope this helps.

janaltus

Shanker wrote: »

What assurances we need from Sony is that they are not running down the stock of "Rewards" so that the choice ends up that you have to exchange them for over priced, long out of date DVDs.

I've used my SonyCard for years and never redeemed any points, ever. I was saving up enough SonyCard Pulsebeat points to give me a nice discount on a DSLR camera. From many thousands of points I notice, in the August statement, that I've now got just 1,451.50 points, not even enough to get the over-priced, long out-of-date DVDs they've got on offer.

My MP3 player has just bust but, with not enough points now, I'll have to look elsewhere for a replacement to buy even that!

Bu99er Sony, taking away my well-earned Pulsebeat points! I hate deception like this. :mad:

I'm declaring a lifetime boycott on purchasing further Sony products and shall buy my DSLR camera and MP3 player from another manufacturer.

Shanker

A statement of when and how many points are due to expire.

janaltus wrote: »

I've used my SonyCard for years and never redeemed any points, ever. I was saving up enough SonyCard Pulsebeat points to give me a nice discount on a DSLR camera. From many thousands of points I notice, in the August statement, that I've now got just 1,451.50 points, not even enough to get the over-priced, long out-of-date DVDs they've got on offer.

My MP3 player has just bust but, with not enough points now, I'll have to look elsewhere for a replacement to buy even that!

Bu99er Sony, taking away my well-earned Pulsebeat points! I hate deception like this. :mad:

I'm declaring a lifetime boycott on purchasing further Sony products and shall buy my DSLR camera and MP3 player from another manufacturer.

Don't get upset.

Give SonyCard a ring.

MBNA have just now passed all of the admin back to SonyCard. Tell them your predicament.

Ask to talk to someone high up, try a guy by the name of Dave Harley, I understand that he is the Managing Director.

Once you get past the telephonists it is much easier to talk, you will get increasingly frustrated with the call centre operators.

Tell them you were saving for something that you really wanted and were given no warning that points were being removed. If you nearly had enough for what you wanted or were well on the way, try pleading with them to allow you give the points and cash to make up the cost. They will listen.

By the way forget MBNA. As far as I am concerned, they are the problem and you will not get anywhere with them.

They have introduced their own rewards scheme now but to be honest I do not want to really get into that as I did the Sony Pulsebeats.

Shanker

A statement of when and how many points are due to expire.

Everyone - Hiya!

Some of you have been sending me private messages over the last few years and I haven't noticed them until now.

I am really sorry about that, my settings must be that I am not notified. I will look into it, but can anyone let me know quickly how to make sure my settings are set so that i am notified of incoming private messages as well as those that are in the open forum?

Many thanks.

Shanker

A statement of when and how many points are due to expire.

I have good news to report!

I have now disposed of all of my points.

This is what has happened and should be a guide to all of you who haven't redeemed your points yet.

In July I phoned up MBNA to and explained the situation that I had 28,000+ Sony Reward points on oy account and that there was nothing that I really wanted from the catalogue as i was intending on saving more points towards a PS3, but obviously could no longer do that because the scheme was due to end.

I asked if there was any possibility of using my points and using cash to make up the short fall. They didn't say no. In actual fact they came back with an offer of a £145 voucher named against a store in a list they have, (John Lewis was one of them).

I left it at that and said I would think about it - there was plenty of time after all, I had until next June to make up my mind.

I contacted them again about 6 weeks later and asked for a list of the stores that they had mentioned as i wanted to shop around for the best price and then apply for the £145 voucher. They had no record of the previous conversation and denied having made any offer. I thought, OK that's typical of MBNA, I should have struck while the going was good.

I decided to phone up Sony and asked for their rewards people. I was placed with a very nice lady by the name of Jo Ritchie.

I told her the story and she said that she would investigate a) the MBNA scenario and b) if Sony could do anything along similar lines if that failed.

Jo phoned me back a short time later with the news that basically they were having no luck with MBNA. She did however say that a deal was possible with Sony. The deal came through a day or so later. For the 160GB PS3 Slim, I would have to pay £90 in addition to the 28,000+ points. I asked if there was a possibility of doing a deal for the 320GB Slim and she went away again to enquire. Sure enough I got another phone call. The deal for the 320GB Slim would be £165 plus the points - said that almost certainly I would be going for the 320GB Slim but to give me a day to go through the figures. I promised to email her a day later.

Having researched the prices across the range of PS3s on the Sony web site, I worked it out that on the basis of £180 for a 160GB Slim, they were actually giving me £90 for my points so I was getting half the price of the 160GB when really I had saved the best part of 70% of the points required had I saved the total number of points required and redeemed them. On the basis of these calculations I thought they were short changing me so I went back with the case and explained in my email the bsis of my calculations that I thought I should be offered either more for my points or expect less money.

Jo didn't say "take it or leave it", but went away and promised to come back. It only took a day or so and I got the call. The new offer was that Sony would give me an extra 2,000 points and reduce the cash contribution to £150.

I obviously said "YES!" and the package arrived a couple of days later. I am now playing Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2012!

Hats off to Sony. They went well out of their way to please this time.

Please let me know how you all get on with your own situations.