[nomoremonkeybusiness]

In order to avoid legal fees that it would have cost me to protest falsely being charged for a credit card account that I was not aware of having, today I paid the annual subscription for the US Airways Dividend Miles MasterCard I never activated and never wanted. It cost me $89 and some nerves.

I was assured by numerous employees at US Airways at the time of filling out the request for the card during some campaign on flights last year that if I decided that I didn't want the card, I could simply not activate it. And there would be no charges.

Having never activated an account, I filed mail from Barclays for their US Airways Dividend Miles MasterCard into my junk email drawer. When recently sorting through that junk mail, I was unpleasantly surprised that not only had I been charged for an annual credit card fee, but also that I had numerous late charges.

Though I was able to negotiate away the charges for late fees, those representing US Airways Dividend Miles MasterCard were unbending in requiring the yearly fee. I paid it to avoid the hassle and legal fees that it would have required to fight it and further mars to my credit rating (which had been stellar).

I suppose such duplicitous billing pays off in many cases. It won't in this case. Since my wife and I each do 5 or more round trip flights per year though, this is hardly to the advantage of US in my case. Neither of us will book with this US Airways again. I have to admit that neither my wife or I are loyal to a particular airline. Still we have probably flown with US Air more than twice a year. Well, no more!

US Airlines, like others, has PR employees who work sites like this for damage control. I'm sure they will tell me that my complaint is with the credit card company, not them. (I've noticed something similar on other posts here.) In fact, my complaint is with both. US Airway stewardesses represented the credit card companies. They falsely represented the billing conditions and the conditions for opening activating an account either without knowing how the billing really worked, or knowing it and just hoping to hoodwink people who don't read the fine print. Terrific. I'm now out $89 and may have a marred credit rating. Well to the US Dividend Miles MasterCard, I kindly say no thanks. To US Air: No thanks as well!