MilesBuzz! - Did anyone buy multi-year subssciptions for *wood promo?

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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by birdstrike:
Did anyone buy two years of IF and receive 5,000 *wood points?</font>

Yes, I did. So did many other FT'ers. If you do a search, you can find this information and more.

You can buy more than 2 packages, but the limit on any one subscription is two years. So if you buy more packages, you'll need to give them to friends or donate them to charity. IF will send them to airport lounges if you run out of friends (or enemies).

I did the search first, but somehow missed the thread you mentioned.

There is nothing about a two year limit on the offer webpage and the person who answered the IF phone said "yes" when I used 5 years, 17,500 mile as an example.

So either the person I spoke with was wrong or the DC promo is different.

That's why I was seeking other opinions.

Cheers,

birdstrike

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by birdstrike:
There is nothing about a two year limit on the offer webpage and the person who answered the IF phone said "yes" when I used 5 years, 17,500 mile as an example.

So either the person I spoke with was wrong or the DC promo is different.</font>

As far as I know, the 2-year-per-subscription limit is based on the IF subscription database limitations, not on any restriction associated with the partners, unless something has changed since April.

I think that there is at least one person that answers the phones at IF that doesn't know what they are talking about. When I made my initial purchase in April, I called early in the morning, and asked about being able to purchase "several" subscriptions and have them distributed to airport lounges, or otherwise at Randy's discretion. The person told me that this was not possible, and that I must provide a specific address for each subscription. I protested that I had read on FlyerTalk that you could "donate" your subscriptions, but I was told that this was incorrect.

Incredulous, I ended the call at that point. I then scoured the FlyerTalk archives, figured out that I was probably correct after all, and called back in the afternoon. This time, I spoke to someone else, who said that of course I could donate my subscriptions, as many others had.

In an almost eerie sense, IF has the same problem that many airlines have: there are some people answering the phones that don't really know what they're talking about, but are nonetheless confident in their own knowledge and sound so, such that you can't tell by their voices what the real situation is. If you're told something that you think is not true, the only solution is to call back and speak with someone else.

Steve M - For your question back in April i think what might have happened was that the phones rolled over to an employee in another department to handle the call and thus the confusion. We did get a lot of calls during that time mostly related to US Airways, etc. and when the lines get full for our normal customer service they roll to everyone else in the building for the basics, including people in interactive and publishing, and even accounting. Sorry you had a problem but our research tells us that 99% of the roll over calls will be basic, unlike yours and thus we feel better about trying to handle those than put you into voice mail. But there seems to have been a good ending. Thanks for your business.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by birdstrike:
I did the search first, but somehow missed the thread you mentioned.

There is nothing about a two year limit on the offer webpage and the person who answered the IF phone said "yes" when I used 5 years, 17,500 mile as an example.

So either the person I spoke with was wrong or the DC promo is different.

That's why I was seeking other opinions.

Cheers,

birdstrike</font>

There really isn't as much contradiction as you think and I doubt the two offers (Starwood versus Diners) are materially different.

It is an uncontradicted fact that you can order many subscription packages and receive the full bonus points for each one. There are definitely threads that confirm this. The ordering page also says that the offer is unlimited.

What is limited is the number of orders that can be tied together into one longer-term subscription. I may not have seen this specifically mentioned on FT, but rather in this paragraph in email from IF asking me where to send the packages:

"To begin processing your order, we require a list of the names and addresses to whom you would like the packages sent. Please note that we offer one- and two-year InsideFlyer Magazine subscriptions only, therefore, no more than two packages can be sent to any single individual. Many have requested that additional orders of this offer be donated to one of many airport lounges for reading material to other frequent flyers. If you would like for us to donate them in this manner, simply let us know."

[This message has been edited by dhacker (edited 06-05-2002).]

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birdstrike,

Ordering one subscription IS definitely safe. But so is ordering 2 or 10 or 25. This text is copied directly from the Diners order page (http://www.insideflyer.com/diners):

If you are interested in more Club Rewards points, select '2' to order two Frequent Flyer Packages and earn 7,000 Club Rewards points or '3' for three packages and 10,500 Club Rewards points. This package makes a great gift so please feel free to order multiple packages and we'll contact you to let us know whom to deliver them to. Hey, if you're feeling really generous to other frequent flyers, order 5 packages and we'll deliver them to one of the many airport lounges so that others can enjoy the reading while you enjoy the bonus Club Rewards points.

So order as many packages as you want to earn bonus points. The information you are getting on the phone is either wrong or you are misinterpreting it. Trust me!

I should also add that I received full Starwood points for packages that I combined after the fact into two-year subscriptions. I seriously doubt that IF would deny Diners points for doing the same.

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I would like to apoligize for any misunderstanding there may have been when I answered a call this morning. I am helping to answer the phones in our customer service area this morning, we have had a overwhelming amount of calls. I was still under the impression that our system could only handle a two year subscription but we have since updated this system to handle all of our great new promotions.

I normally spend my day assisting
Randy.

You may order as many packages as you would like and you will earn 3500 points with each package

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Also , Don't forget that until 8/31 your Diners Club Points are doubled when transfering to British Airways !

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Randy Petersen:
Steve M - For your question back in April i think what might have happened was that the phones rolled over to an employee in another department to handle the call and thus the confusion. We did get a lot of calls during that time mostly related to US Airways, etc. and when the lines get full for our normal customer service they roll to everyone else in the building for the basics, including people in interactive and publishing, and even accounting. Sorry you had a problem but our research tells us that 99% of the roll over calls will be basic, unlike yours and thus we feel better about trying to handle those than put you into voice mail. But there seems to have been a good ending. Thanks for your business.</font>

Thanks for following up. It sounds like you have a good system in place for handling calls. It's a tough decision to make, isn't it? Well, perhaps not in your case, if 99% of the overflow calls really are for basic questions. In an ideal world, everybody would know what their level of expertise is, and instead of just making up responses when they don't know for sure, they would have the wherewithal to say "I don't know the answer to that, but I'll find out." I have to deal with this issue all the time from the provider's point of view in my non-Flyertalk life, and it's a tough nut to crack.

I guess it comes down to the types of questions being asked. I suppose that from the basic nature of most of your caller's questions, many of your customers don't scour every available resource in program materials, on official and non-official Websites, etc., before calling. I tend to use telephone support at companies as an option of last resort, for several reasons (for example, if your web form had a checkbox option to say "send out the subscriptions at Randy's discretion, such as to airport lounges," I never would have called in the first place). But when I do call a company, it's often quite obvious that many of the questions they deal with are very basic in nature, both from the types of questions they try to automate through the phone menu, and from the knowledge level of the people you get to talk to initially.

Overall, I think that InsideFlyer does a great job, especially when you consider the level of service that FlyerTalk participants get for the price paid (i.e. $0).