Missing The Point, But Not Missing The Points
I hold a platinum membership (second-highest tier) with an international hotel brand. I came back from a trip to Branson, Missouri, and noticed that my points hadn’t been added to my account, so I contacted Member Services to get that adjusted. After doing so, I was told that, as a Platinum member, I could get 500 points if I listened to some information about a future trip.
Now naive, dopey me agreed to this as I get 500 points just for checking in, so I assumed I would hear some electronic spiel that I could say yes or no to and then go on with my day.
Oh, how wrong I was.
I ended up speaking to a sales representative who made a pitch about what would turn out to be a timeshare. (Conveniently, he never mentioned that, or the fact that if I took this trip, I would be required to sit in on a timeshare presentation. I later learned this from reading the fine print in an email.)
He mentioned a slew of cities, and I asked for some information about Las Vegas as a friend of mine and I go there enough that it might have been a worthwhile offer. It turned out I would have had to pay up front and then use the trip sometime in the next year. Without a firm date, I had little desire to hand over my hard-earned money, so I declined the offer and thanked the representative for his time.
He suddenly got deathly quiet. I knew he was there because he was still breathing. And then, this took place.
Me: “Again, I’ll keep the offer in mind, but it’s not for me right now, and I thank you for your time.”
Representative: *In the snottiest tone imaginable* “So, what? You’re not going to travel in the next year?”
Me: *Annoyed* “I likely will. But I don’t know when or where. Now if you don’t mind, I have a client coming into my office, and I have to get off the phone.”
Representative: “Yeah, sure.”
Me: “Excuse me? I don’t appreciate that.”
Representative: “Well, I don’t appreciate you saying that you go to Las Vegas and then don’t want to buy this trip.”
Me: *Voice cracking like a whip* “I want to speak to your supervisor!”
Representative: “I am the supervisor.”
Me: “I don’t care. Whoever is above you, I want to speak to them now.”
He reluctantly switched me to a more senior member, and I related this conversation and how ridiculous it was that I or anybody else should be treated like that just because a sales pitch was turned down. The senior staff member tried to placate me by saying they were in the sales business, but there were lines that shouldn’t be crossed. He said all the calls were recorded, and he’d do his due diligence to listen to the call and handle things, and then he disconnected.
I realized it was probably a bunch of blather and that I’d never hear a thing. Then, I discovered I had been cheated out of the points.
After I calmed down, I wrote a pointed, but polite, letter to the company restating the story and telling them I was neither going to hold the whole company responsible for one bad apple, nor would I ask for special favors due to a bad experience. However, I did ask for my 500 points as I did hold up my end of the bargain by listening to the pitch.
Then, good Karma started coming out of the situation.
Later that night, I received an email from the company which included a sincere apology. They were not only giving me the points but doubling them, so I got 1,000 points for my troubles.
But it didn’t stop there.
The next week, I found that they had actually double-pointed me for my Branson stay. Now that was an additional $400 worth of points, so I couldn’t keep them in good conscience, so I reported the error.
I got another message with yet another apology from the company, who told me they appreciated my honesty and were letting me keep the points, so I ended up earning a total of 15,000 points for my time and trouble.
So, Mr. Rude Sales Rep, thanks for earning a free room for me!