I just stumbled across this story on the internet:
Coutts Bank Confirms Air Miles Replacement
9 May 2007
In the UK, the private bank Coutts & Co. (the private arm of the high street bank NatWest) has announced that it is also to withdraw from the Air Miles programme in June 2007 (also see 2nd May 2007), and is replacing the programme with its own loyalty rewards scheme called Courtesy of Coutts. The new programme allows Coutts cardholders to earn points when making purchases with their credit card, and to redeem those points to pay for EasyJet flights, travel booked through eBookers.com, airport taxes and other travel charges, or charity donations.
This article is copyright 2007 TheWiseMarketer.com.
My wife and I recently went to St. Petersburg using Air Miles that we’d earned several years ago, primarily with our Coutts Signia card. The Air Miles people were extremely helpful. We flew on a “proper” airline, and stayed at an excellent hotel. I looked at various destinations before deciding on St. Petersburg, and Air Miles had a large selection of airlines, hotels, etc. — even in Nepal.
I might be cynical and jaded, but Courtesy of Coutts offering flights on EasyJet?
What does that say about the Bank’s customers? In fairness, I’ve never flown on EasyJet — I’ve just seen how it operates on television. (I know, I know: mustn’t believe everything you see on the telly.) My wife has said that she will divorce me if I ever consider booking a flight on EasyJet.
I just had a quick peek at the EasyJet website, and on the first page the button you click to start a booking says,
“Book a cheap flight.”
Quite a change from when Peregrine Banbury at Coutts & Co. (yes, that was his real name) told me that the fees would be “reassuringly expensive.” I thought that was a clever line — it wasn’t until later that I learned he’d pinched it from a beer advertisement.
Nothing “reassuringly expensive” about EasyJet, Courtesy of Coutts.
Don’t be such a snob, and in the end you did get your overcharge back!!
Me, a snob? Guilty as charged. And, yes, I did get the overcharge back – after months and months. And then was kicked out of the bank.
my comment is simple, I would not fly Easyjet, I enjoy flying and enjoy the flying in a better class, so why did coutts get rid of the Airmiles scheme, it is madness, I am a customer of Coutts and Natwest (both RBS Banks).
Keep up the good work – and encourage anybody, with even a minor grievance, to share it with us all – all embittered Coutts customers that is !!!
Just to let you know that Coutts got rid of the airmiles scheme because customers had to book months and months in advance due to the small allocation of seats to airmiles customers and so a large proportion of clients found the accumulated miles useless. The new courtesy of coutts points system allows people to spend points on other things as well as flights and they do not all have to be with Easy Jet!