Creation Financial Services bashing

[stevenhp1987]

NorthernLass wrote:

Why on earth would they do that when they’ve paid out to the rest of us?! You weren’t the one doing £1 million were you 🤦‍♀️😂.

I’m not sure what the statements would prove – surely Creation knows how much you sent to Ernie and whether it was within their Ts and Cs?

£1m pm? I wish!

I sent FOS all Ernie statements I have. Nothing to hide. I assumed it’s an AML thing.

My account was closed due to “business decision” immediately rather than the 60 day notice period back in 2021… which puts me outside of regular offers.

[Jon]

stevenhp1987 wrote:

My account was closed due to “business decision” immediately rather than the 60 day notice period back in 2021… which puts me outside of regular offers.

That doesn’t sound quite right. They’re supposed to give notice for closure due to business decision – no-notice closure is for when there’s a breach of contract by you. Or have they managed to mess up that distinction as well as everything else? 😉

[Lady London]

stevenhp1987 wrote:

NorthernLass wrote:

Why on earth would they do that when they’ve paid out to the rest of us?! You weren’t the one doing £1 million were you 🤦‍♀️😂.

I’m not sure what the statements would prove – surely Creation knows how much you sent to Ernie and whether it was within their Ts and Cs?

£1m pm? I wish!

I sent FOS all Ernie statements I have. Nothing to hide. I assumed it’s an AML thing.

My account was closed due to “business decision” immediately rather than the 60 day notice period back in 2021… which puts me outside of regular offers.

@Jon’s right you should claim. Do an average spend for those 60 days you didn’t get on any resonable basis and give it a go with a claim.

I simply cannot see how they can get away with this – even if they had something in the contract denying points, accrual towards free night etc, another benefit in the case of a summary closure, the fact that this can be unilateral, without right of appeal or independent review, and they don’t have to inform you of a reason says to me that withdrawal of benefits for the period of notice not given (or earlier earned benefits) just has to be an Unfair Contract term. And their contract didn’t specify this either, from reports.

[JDB]

@Lady London immediate closure of a credit card account and/or closures under two months notice cannot be unfair contract terms as that has been expressly provided for in law for nearly 50 years – s98A of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and that section does not require any form of appeal or independent review. As previously discussed, the 60 day closures never require the card provider to give any reasons whereas immediate closure must usually be “objectively justified”.

Your strong views on Creation will be as well known as mine, but I am at a loss to understand why you remain silent re the multiple recent reports here of Amex closing accounts with 60 days notice and/or immediately, immediately stopping points/voucher accrual and removing any points already earned on the account. How does this differ from Creation’s actions?

[EvilGazebo]

So I’ve had a FOS decision which is that I can have a pro-rata refund of the fee. They’ve already given me the points from the notice period.

But what I wanted was either a full refund of the fee. Or (less likely I know) the free night even though I didn’t hit the required spend before they booted me.

My reasoning being that I only took out the card because of the opportunity to earn the free night. And I directed spend on that basis.

Am I being unreasonable/overly optimistic? Should I escalate to an actual ombudsman or just give it up as a bad job? And then have to complain again when they inevitably fail to even pay me the pro-rata….

[JDB]

@EvilGazebo it’s difficult to know whether it’s worth escalating to an Ombudsman without knowing the initial case handler’s reasoning which you need to consider. While it doesn’t really require you to do much to escalate, you would need to address the basis of the initial decision to persuade an Ombudsman that it was wrong.

It is anyway difficult to run an argument based on hypotheticals – if they hadn’t closed my account and if I had spent the £10k etc. Many got round this by racing to £10k after the closure notice, probably with the type of spend that got them sacked in the first place, but it doesn’t sound as though you did that.

[Tracy]

OH heard a few weeks ago that his complaint was being upheld and he would receive points, pro rata refund & free night. I just heard this week and have had the same result. Pretty impressed as we just fired off emails to creation customer services recently 🙂

[EvilGazebo]

JDB wrote:

@EvilGazebo it’s difficult to know whether it’s worth escalating to an Ombudsman without knowing the initial case handler’s reasoning which you need to consider. While it doesn’t really require you to do much to escalate, you would need to address the basis of the initial decision to persuade an Ombudsman that it was wrong.

It is anyway difficult to run an argument based on hypotheticals – if they hadn’t closed my account and if I had spent the £10k etc. Many got round this by racing to £10k after the closure notice, probably with the type of spend that got them sacked in the first place, but it doesn’t sound as though you did that.

I wasn’t manufacturing spend and I had another spend target to hit so rushing to £10k wasn’t an option for me.

Case handler’s argument is that I had the benefits of the card for that time so pro-rata is reasonable. Conditions always said they could close the card with 60 days notice so tough luck on the voucher. Seems unfair to me but I don’t get the sense I’m going to get much further with it. Underwhelmed by the FOS in general based on this whole experience tbh.

[Lady London]

JDB wrote:

@Lady London immediate closure of a credit card account and/or closures under two months notice cannot be unfair contract terms as that has been expressly provided for in law for nearly 50 years – s98A of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and that section does not require any form of appeal or independent review. As previously discussed, the 60 day closures never require the card provider to give any reasons whereas immediate closure must usually be “objectively justified”.

Your strong views on Creation will be as well known as mine, but I am at a loss to understand why you remain silent re the multiple recent reports here of Amex closing accounts with 60 days notice and/or immediately, immediately stopping points/voucher accrual and removing any points already earned on the account. How does this differ from Creation’s actions?

Hi JDB we’ve covered this before. My point is that if such a provision to close an account without the normally required notice exists, and it’s unilateral by the provider and no right of appeal or independent review, and the provider does not have to state the reason, then to avoid provider abuse then what the cardholder would have received in the notice period not given still has to be provided.

Otherwise providers are just going to close accounts and avoid paying out benefit.

And if any earned benefit is to be withheld, and IMV even partially earned benefit, then the base case should be that in a summary closure this needs to be paid out too. Simply because otherwise it’s unfair in a unilateral closure especially if the provider is not required to state and prove why.

I’m more interested in Creation as I come across them in other ways, and not very interested in Amex.

[Colin MacKinnon]

@LadyLondon Email from FOS this morning asking me for feedback. (Today was the latest deadline to Creation).

So checked IHG account and Free Night sitting there.

The Creation saga is over!

[Jamjaw]

Colin MacKinnon wrote:

@LadyLondon Email from FOS this morning asking me for feedback. (Today was the latest deadline to Creation).

So checked IHG account and Free Night sitting there.

The Creation saga is over!

I also have my free night. Not my points, yet, but that is only 1,100 odd points and therefore I don’t rightly care. Glad to be here now with my voucher

[Lady London]

Colin MacKinnon wrote:

@LadyLondon Email from FOS this morning asking me for feedback. (Today was the latest deadline to Creation).

So checked IHG account and Free Night sitting there.

The Creation saga is over!

Congratulations @Colin Mackinnon.

A part of me is still wistful, though, that we did not get to see you MCOL Creation for the £10,000 cost of your night in Bora Bora, as sadly Creation folded and gave you the free night they owed instead 🙁

[Jon9]

Colin MacKinnon wrote:

@LadyLondon Email from FOS this morning asking me for feedback. (Today was the latest deadline to Creation).

So checked IHG account and Free Night sitting there.

The Creation saga is over!

No email from the FOS or from Creation but my free night from my October year end has appeared in my account today as well.

That’s now my outstanding points paid out in April and my year fee was refunded by Creation in November 2020, so all resolved.

What a mess by Creation. Blowing apart their business model for no benefit.

[NorthernLass]

Colin MacKinnon wrote:

@LadyLondon Email from FOS this morning asking me for feedback. (Today was the latest deadline to Creation).

So checked IHG account and Free Night sitting there.

The Creation saga is over!

My Oct 2021 night still hasn’t appeared, but it’s not been (another) 8 weeks yet!

[rams]

It’s not creation related but I had a question about Barclays who wrote to tell me they are closing my account in 2 months a few weeks ago. I tried to log in today and it didn’t work. I called them and they said they written to me today to say they are closing it today. Well within their rights per t&c but is that reasonable having given 2 months notice just a few weeks ago? They say I need to go to branch to collect any balance in my account. Having said I had 2 months I was thinking of switching the account to NatWest but not sure that will work now. Any grounds for a complaint about what they have done?

I could move/delete this but thought it relevant to some of the discussion above about notice of closure and t&c

[Colin MacKinnon]

@LadyLondon It is only £20 for a Simple procedure in Scotland – so our MCOL is a cut-price deal!

Finally got the 300 euro change fee back that BA call centre insisted on me paying to get Mrs Mack back from Colorado as Covid kicked in. Not the call centre staff’s fault that they insisted on the money, they weren’t to know the rules changed during their shift.

But BA only budged three years later after I issued the letter before action. Except it took them five weeks to react, by which time I had filed the claim.

So the customer services, reacting to instructions kicked off by the letter before action, emailled to refund the 300 euros. But wouldn’t refund the £20. Then the legal department called to say we’ll pay you the 300 euro!

Then the legal department wanted to refund the £20 fee and get a letter from the sheriff to say the case was settled.

Of course, I wanted them to wait three years……! (but didn’t make them)

Now I have started, FlexiCar and some other rental car company are to feel the ire of a Scottish sheriff.

So, since I will tick off Bora Bora in September, where is the next most expensive IHG hotel?!

[Lady London]

I like that sound of the Scottish legal system @Colin M 🙂

Not sure next most expensive IHG after Bora Bora – @meta gave a rave review of Six Senses Douro and I’m sure it’s reassuringly expensive but too close in Europe for you?

Why not ring up IHG and tell them you want to impress your new girlfriend and ask them which hotels are their most expensive? 🙂

[Colin MacKinnon]

@LadyL How did you know about the new girlfriend!

[NorthernLass]

@LL – the recently reopened Regent Carlton is nudging £1400 per night next May. I was considering booking a weekend with our free night certs but we don’t really have the requisite set of Louis Vuitton luggage and other accoutrements of their usual guests! I think I’ll stick with my original plan of using them at the Kimpton Seafire which is a similar price on peak dates but has a relatively casual vibe.

[Paul B]

Am I too late to the party to submit my claim to Creation? I also lost the XY&Z of statement points, free night voucher and the card fee.

[Aston100]

Paul B wrote:

Am I too late to the party to submit my claim to Creation? I also lost the XY&Z of statement points, free night voucher and the card fee.

No, raise a complaint.

[indo555]

I have seen several comments on here about using the free night voucher for the most expensive IHG hotels but correct me if I am wrong the vouchers issued have a maximum value of hotels with 40,000 IHG points. Think that you will be looking at a Holiday Inn Express or Holiday Inn rather than a Six Sense or Intercontinental. Issuing vouchers with a maximum value is not in accordance with the card terms and conditions that clearly said a voucher to be used at ANY IHG hotel. Creation are playing games again!

[meta]

That’s US voucher, UK vouchers can be used at any hotel no matter the value.

[indo555]

Thanks for the clarification. When I went to first use the voucher it blocked me from hotels over 40.000 but I now realise that I was on the US site. Going to the UK site does give more options although a lot of nights are ‘free night not available’. It is good have this clarification for using the voucher. Thanks.

[Supergers49]

NorthernLass wrote:

@LL – the recently reopened Regent Carlton is nudging £1400 per night next May. I was considering booking a weekend with our free night certs but we don’t really have the requisite set of Louis Vuitton luggage and other accoutrements of their usual guests! I think I’ll stick with my original plan of using them at the Kimpton Seafire which is a similar price on peak dates but has a relatively casual vibe.

I always enjoyed turning up with orange Sainsbury’s bag pre-refurb! 🤣