BA Amex credit card - my defective claim!

[mdecker]

Hi - I'm stuck on this one, and not sure whether it should go here or in the Amex section. However, it's a matter purely regarding legal procedures and the correct way to write a claim (the American Express/British Airways aspect seems irrelevant) so hopefully this is the right place.

 

The problem is that my claim is a non-monetary one having a value of less than £5000, but I appear to have worded the claim so badly that the Judge has ordered that the claim be dismissed unless I amend and rectify it by next week.

 

The background - in 2002 I got a BA/Amex card, and racked up around 140,000 airmiles on it over the next few years - most gained at the rate of 1 per £1 spent (in those days I earned a reasonable living, and made a lot of flights); these were credited to my BA airmiles account (the 'BA Executive Club').

 

I also earned one BA flight voucher each year between 2002 and 2005 for spending (as I recall) more than £10,000 in that year. However, I only received and used two of those vouchers - two others were either unissued or didn't make their way to me. I noticed they were missing in 2005, and complained - I also complained about a number of other matters unrelated, and in 2006 terminated the relationship; they cancelled the card, we agreed a much reduced balance, and I paid off this outstanding balance in full.

 

I still had circa 93,000 unused airmiles on my 'BA Executive Club' account, and from time to time over the past two or three years I wrote a stroppy letter to BA demanding my vouchers. Around the middle of last year I started escalating the dispute, as I wanted to use most of the airmiles and the flight vouchers for a family trip - I couldn't use the air miles until I had the accompanying flight vouchers, and the airmiles account was effectively dormant for three years.

 

A nice customer service woman at BA Executive Club emailed me saying she'd extended the validity period by three months (if the airmiles account is unused for more than three years then the whole lot are taken away), and that all I needed to do was purchase something from one of their partners in order to trigger a new three year period. So a couple of weeks before the extension expired, I bought something from John Lewis and something else on eBay. The transactions appeared on the BA Executive Club website prior to the three month period expiring. So one would think that all was well and good.....

 

Wrong! The 93,000 airmiles vanished as soon as the three months were up, despite qualifying purchases having been credited within the period. Cue two stroppy letters from me which went unanswered; I filed a claim in January this year, having sent a suitable Letter Before Action.

 

Here’s where it starts going wrong – my claim was a ‘non-monetary’ one, as I was seeking the return of my missing airmiles and the two flight vouchers. The final part of my claim reads thus:

 

• Provision of one flight voucher to replace missing one issued by the Defendant

• Provision of one flight voucher approved by Defendant’s partner but apparently unissued by Defendant

• Reinstatement of 93,243 airmiles to Claimant’s airmiles account with the Defendant

• General Damages for pain and suffering and loss of amenity of up to £1000 or one further flight voucher

 

The judge has ordered, in part, the following: ‘The Claim as pleaded is defective in that the Court does not have power, except in declaratory terms, to order what the Claimant is requesting. Accordingly, unless the Claimant amend and rectify his Claim........ then it will be struck out’.

 

So my first question is what I need to change/add to stop it being struck out. Is it simply that I need to put a value on the items (e.g. ‘Reinstatement of 93,243 airmiles to Claimant’s airmiles account or £XXXX to represent the cost of nine flights to Region 1 that would cost 9000 airmiles or £XXX each’)? Or is there something more fundamentally wrong with the claims that require a rewrite? I think the difficulty has arisen because I have made a ‘non-monetary claim’ – guidance would be appreciated!

 

The second issue is that the Defendant (BA) is arguing that the contract was not between itself and me, but between Amex and me. It is certainly true that I signed terms with Amex not BA, but Amex has said in previous correspondence that they passed the voucher requests to BA at the correct time, therefore their view is that it’s BA’s problem, not theirs.

 

So the second question is whether I can simply re-file or amend the claim naming Amex as ‘Second Defendant’, so that they can argue it out between them? My view is that the only current contract I have is with BA, which has undertaken to exchange my airmiles for flights and to add airmiles to my account when I make qualifying purchases. Thus Amex cannot be a defendant in the first claim listed above (where I want my miles reinstated) because they a not a party to that contract. However, they may be the correct party to sue with regard to flight vouchers, as BA are saying that they simply hand out vouchers that have been approved by Amex, therefore Amex bear liability if such liability can be proved.

 

I hope some of you might be able to assist, and would appreciate any advice.

Edited March 19, 2010 by mdecker