Complaint Review: Affinion Group - Traveler's Advantage

A friend offered me to visit her, to which I replied I could not afford it. She stated she would pay for the ticket so of course I said okay. We get reward points through our bank to use for various things such as travel, so that she didn't have to pay the full amount of air fair I used this service - known as Affinion Group - and gave them the necessary information for my ticket. They contacted my friend for her credit card information and everything was set, or so I thought.

After I came back from the trip, I noticed that my credit card had been charged. I didn't understand why because my old card they had file had expired, and that my friend had already paid for the ticket. My friend said the charge was taken out and put back into her account. Then we had a falling out and we no longer speak. In the meantime, I was contacting Affinion Group concerning this and all I got was the runaround.

First I spoke to a John Harvey that said he would look into it and call me back, that it might be a few days, and he gave me a reference number. I waited and waited. He never called. So i called him several times and he was never there. So I spoke to a S.C. Ward and got nowhere again because this person was supposed to look into it for me and call me back. That never happened. So I called again. By then I was pretty upset that they were doing nothing for me. I spoke to a Laura Grisham. She wasn't helpful either and actually asked me to ask my friend to send me the money for the ticket because even though it had been their mistake they can't take it off of my credit card. I told her that is absolutely ridiculous to ask me to do that, and I told her I would be filing a dispute with my credit card company. She asked me please not to do that because it creates a big mess, and that she would call me back and resolve it. She never, ever called me back. No one ever called me back. So I filed a dispute with my credit card company, and they had 45 days to respond, to which they did not.

Three months later, I start getting letters from Traveler's Advantage, which I guess is Affinion Group as well. They demanded that I send them over $300 for this plane ticket. I ignored them. Now they have sent me a third letter threatening to send me to collections if I don't pay up.

This is absurd. If the original charge did not go through they never should have issued me the ticket, and should have contacted me about it and canceled it.