nsx
May 9, 12, 12:02 pm
The Amex/USTravel sales leave far too many customers feeling that they have wasted their time, that they never had a real chance to buy the deal, and that the whole setup is therefore deceptive. Here's what I would like to see happen in the future.
If I were running a travel company I would decrease its content or raise its price as much as necessary to keep it alive somewhere between half an hour and one week. Best Western did this. I congratulate them for their good judgment.
If I were running the US Travel promotions business, I would insist that all offers stay alive for at least 5 minutes no matter how many packages were sold. That would accomplish much the same thing as increased prices: happier customers, with plenty of people getting a decent deal rather just a few people getting a steal. There is no benefit to the companies to run this thing like a Black Friday sale offering 10 items to 2500 customers. In this store there is nothing else for the other 2490 customers to buy!
This is that rare situation in which devaluation would favor the customer. It would also eliminate customer-unfriendly practices intended to defeat automated purchases: techniques such as posting the pre-sale code only 1 second before the sale.
For this year's Hyatt offers, I figure that a 50% price increase would have accomplished this. Hyatt, are you listening?
Also, Hyatt should consider adding options to buy status for the remainder of the current year. These sales are the wrong vehicle for that, though. Status purchases should be offered on the Gold Passport website and limited to a one-level bump from your current status. Airlines sometimes have similar offers (e.g., UA Economy Plus for the year), although IMHO it's a greatly underutilized tool. Status encourages loyalty, so what could be better than to have your customers PAY you to encourage them to give you all their business?
Incidentally, I would like to thank all the FlyerTalkers who posted about the difficulty of getting anything in today's Amex / US Travel sale. You made me feel MUCH better about getting distracted and accidentally missing it! :o
If I were running a travel company I would decrease its content or raise its price as much as necessary to keep it alive somewhere between half an hour and one week. Best Western did this. I congratulate them for their good judgment.
If I were running the US Travel promotions business, I would insist that all offers stay alive for at least 5 minutes no matter how many packages were sold. That would accomplish much the same thing as increased prices: happier customers, with plenty of people getting a decent deal rather just a few people getting a steal. There is no benefit to the companies to run this thing like a Black Friday sale offering 10 items to 2500 customers. In this store there is nothing else for the other 2490 customers to buy!
This is that rare situation in which devaluation would favor the customer. It would also eliminate customer-unfriendly practices intended to defeat automated purchases: techniques such as posting the pre-sale code only 1 second before the sale.
For this year's Hyatt offers, I figure that a 50% price increase would have accomplished this. Hyatt, are you listening?
Also, Hyatt should consider adding options to buy status for the remainder of the current year. These sales are the wrong vehicle for that, though. Status purchases should be offered on the Gold Passport website and limited to a one-level bump from your current status. Airlines sometimes have similar offers (e.g., UA Economy Plus for the year), although IMHO it's a greatly underutilized tool. Status encourages loyalty, so what could be better than to have your customers PAY you to encourage them to give you all their business?
Incidentally, I would like to thank all the FlyerTalkers who posted about the difficulty of getting anything in today's Amex / US Travel sale. You made me feel MUCH better about getting distracted and accidentally missing it! :o