Friends are Priceless, for everything else there is Mastercard!

I had blogged earlier about how much I loved my Chase OnePass Plus card for its perpetual double miles promotions and 10K bonus miles for $25K spend in a calendar year. I just got a shock yesterday. Well, that is exaggerating the situation; but why would they advertise a benefit that does not exist? The roadside assistance on Continental OnePass card is a total joke!

To cut the long story short, I woke up yesterday morning to notice that I had forgotten to turn off the lights in my car and it needed a jump start. I recollected that the Continental OnePass Plus Card has a roadside assistance benefit whereby the cardholder can get up to four free emergency roadside calls per year, up to $50 per visit. I decided to try them; I called the number on the back of my card. After about 5 minutes of hold time, I reached a representative. He took about three minutes to verify that my card did have the benefit. He transferred me over to Mastercard.

The Mastercard rep took five minutes to verify my account and then concluded that there is no free roadside assistance on my card! I told her that it was clearly stated as a benefit of my card. She nonchalantly replied that it was not the case; however some other types of cards have access to that benefit. I reminded her that mastercard.com states that all World Mastercards are eligible for roadside assistance. She remained firm and offered me to transfer me back to Chase to see if they can help me.

By this time I had already lost about half an hour and was getting late for school. So, when the Chase rep told me that if Mastercard cannot help me, they can’t do anything; I hung up. I called a good friend and my car was humming again in five minutes.

The situation just made me realize a few things

· Chase and Mastercard just advertise the various travel protections to lure cardmembers, they have no responsibility. However, I have heard people have had better response from Amex.

· If you really are in an emergency, call AAA or any other such service. I wasted 30 minutes to just determine if my card was eligible for the roadside assistance.

· Friends are priceless.

Next time around, I will call Amex to see how their roadside assistance fares. Do any of you have any experience?

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