Latinpass - globalpass ripoff refusal to award earned frequent flyer mileage Miami Florida

This is a rebuttal to the CEO of GlobalPass's rebuttal to my rip-off notice re. "GlobalPass's refusal to award earned frequent flyer mileage."

CEO Guy Booth makes several misinterpretations, factual mistakes, misrepresentations, and spurious allegations in his rebuttal. First, as he is well aware, the procedure that I followed was the one that I was instructed to follow by one of his agents.

There was never any intent to "double dip," a most serious and damaging accusation. If there was any error, it was on the part of the LatinPass agent who gave me erroneous instructions.

Second, however, I am not convinced that the instructions were erroneous. This procedure was required as related to other elements of the promotion (e.g., hotel stays), and I have written evidence that this is so (including letters from the hotel company).

Third, Booth and his general manager and customer service manager all accused me of different and changing rationales for contacting TACA, none of which hold water (I will happily provide a summary of their fallacious reasoning and my rebuttals to the rationales that they offered, should anyone desire one).

Fourth, it would make no sense for us to double dip--we received 8,159 miles from TACA, which are not sufficient to earn even the lowest level of award, it would be foolish to gamble 8,159 miles against one million miles, and the closest airport to us from which TACA departs is Miami, about 1,000 miles from our home--the TACA credit is of value to us only in terms of applying to the million-mile promotion.

Fifth, and most importantly, Booth has received a copy of an E-mail (February 4, 2004) from the head of the legal department at TACA in which the head declares that TACA does not find any evidence that I ever intended to double dip. If the company with which I was supposed to be double dipping does not consider my actions double dipping, GlobalPass's case is obviously not based on rational facts.

Sixth, I am not trying, as Booth contends, to "discredit" GlobalPass. Globalpass does a good job of that on its own. In fact, the frequent flyer magazine INSIDE FLYER on several occasions has issued warnings and even an editorial regarding LatinPass/GlobalPass activities (see the February 2000 issue, for example).

By posting my original "Rip-off" notice, I was and am merely trying to continue to warn the public at large to be aware of GlobalPass's history.

Seventh, given the above, if GlobalPass were an honorable company and--leaving aside the ridiculousness of the double dip accusation--if Booth accepts the possibility that he himself suggests in his rebuttal that I "may have been naive and not understood the complexities of the mileage programs," then the accounts of myself and my wife would be reactivated with the bonus mileage recredited to our accounts.

We can immediately tell who this customer is even when his name does not appear. We do not have these types of complaints and can tell exactly who this customer is. The claim made by Dr. Steven Gale (and his wife) are false and unjustifiable for the following reasons:

Some background first. Under the old program name LatinPass, in 2000, we performed a Million Mile Promotion that required enrolled customers to earn mileage activity from purchasing the services of qualifying airlines, hotels, and rental car partners during a six month period of time and customers would be awarded either One hundred thousand, Five hundred thousand or One million LatinPass Bonus Miles, depending on the amount of activity the customer would perform. Most customers made the mileage run (as they are so-called) for the One Million Miles Bonus and LatinPass rewarded in excess of 250 customers. Dr. Gale and his wife included.

However, Dr. Gale and his wife, attempted to earn the mileage activity to qualify for the Million Mile promotion in more than one program. A practice considered fraudulent activity because it increases the cost of the participating airlines and programs. A practice considered as double dipping and sufficient to close the customers account and forfeit the earned miles. This was the determination that LatinPass concluded after reviewing Dr. Gale's account.

When Dr. Gale and his wife were to board one of the LatinPass airlines, TACA Airlines of Central America, upon initiating their mileage run they made the mistake of enrolling in the Distancia Program, TACA's program. They continued to present the LatinPass card in most of their flights, hotel stays and car rentals. In some cases, the activity was not properly reported by the service provider and, in these cases, the customer must perform a retroactive claim (what is referred to as a retro in our business) to properly obtain the mileage credits. Dr. Gale had to submit these retro claims for some of the activity in order to be rewarded the Million Miles Bonus. Eventually, LatinPass did reward them with their Million Mile bonus, each.

However, Dr. Gale also reported the missing activity to their Distancia accounts. Unknown to Dr. Gale, LatinPass performs a valuable service to the participating airlines and programs, and acts as a clearing house for many functions, including the distribution of the network activity. When Dr. Gale presented their retro activity claims for the Distancia accounts, his names appeared as double dipping. LatinPass immediately cancelled his account privileges and forfeited his earned and bonus mileage.

Dr. Gale is now using your website and services to discredit our program and company as a last effort. He has already contacted the Tennessee District Attorney's office, has contacted the Florida Better Business Bureau, hired a Tallahassee attorney in the State of Florida, attempted to provide derogatory information about LatinPass in travel publications, and LatinPass has always been able to satisfy each and every one of these complaints. So far, that none have ever returned to continue the complaint because of our findings and evidence. The last attempt to resolve his complaint, by his Florida attorney, was responded (by our attorney) 3 to 4 weeks ago. Since we responded, we have not heard anything back from his attorney.

By seeing his post in your website dated April 22, 2004, it is evident Dr. Gale's attorney received sufficient evidence from LatinPass and informed Dr. Gale to drop his complaint, however, it is also evident, he will continue to bad-mouth our program through any means he finds. We will also continue to respond and provide our opinion to the matter.

Dr. Gale has changed his story along the way. He has even alleged that a LatinPass agent gave him the wrong information to enroll in Distancia. Our agents know and understand the importance of the cost of double dipping and would never suggest to our customers enrolling in more than one participating program. At the end, LatinPass could only resolve to either the conclusion that Dr. Gale may have been nave and not understood the complexities of the mileage programs, or, he may have attempted to perform double dipping thinking LatinPass was not involved as the clearing house.

Either way, the resolution was made and we do not intend to honor his request to reinstate his miles. He is also saying that LatinPass never gave them the bonus miles, which is not the case. They both obtained the bonus, but, were then taken away after our findings. We have zero tolerance for double-dippers!

Personally, I believe you provide a valuable service and appreciate the opportunity to provide our part of the story.

If any evidence of our findings are required to get our rebuttal posted, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,

President and CEO
GlobalPass, Inc.
(formerly known as LatinPass)