Starwood Preferred Guest - Starwood and Snail Mail: late arrival of 50PRG (merged threads)

Today I received a wonderful brochure inviting me to sample the world for half the Starpoints, bookable until the day after tomorrow. The lovely envelope from a sender in Charlotte NC in the US was mailed from Auckland, New Zealand (!) to Düsseldorf, Germany....

Question to Starwood: Are you really serious?
Proposed answer: Yes we are: At least the mailing traveled around the world.

I live in Shanghai and my SPG mails consistently arrive very late. I will feel lucky if it arrives couple days before the offer deadline.

Today I received a wonderful brochure inviting me to sample the world for half the Starpoints, bookable until the day after tomorrow. The lovely envelope from a sender in Charlotte NC in the US was mailed from Auckland, New Zealand (!) to Düsseldorf, Germany....

Question to Starwood: Are you really serious?
Proposed answer: Yes we are: At least the mailing traveled around the world.
Exact same thing happened to me, rendering this promo useless.

Cheers,

I live in Seattle and received mine yesterday. Not sure it's where you live; it's just the fulfillment house.

Today I received a wonderful brochure inviting me to sample the world for half the Starpoints, bookable until the day after tomorrow. The lovely envelope from a sender in Charlotte NC in the US was mailed from Auckland, New Zealand (!) to Düsseldorf, Germany....

Question to Starwood: Are you really serious?
Proposed answer: Yes we are: At least the mailing traveled around the world.

Was this offer the 50PRG everyone's been talking about in Feb.?

I never received this offer by email or snail mail. When I found about this offer for some Plats, I called Plat Concierge 2 times, second time mid-Feb., to confirm that I indeed qualified for this promo.

Did you try to call Plat Concierge earlier in Feb. to find out if you qualified?

I live in Japan, and got it in 28th of Feburuary. :confused:

I got mine March 1st in Germany too (Yesterday). Same as FlyingLawyer, mailed from New Zealand.

So basically I had today to figure out how to use it (book by March 3rd). My conclusion was I won't be able to due to the short notice.

Any recommendations where I can send this stuff back with a strong letter included?

William, any chance of getting an extention of by when this has to be booked ? Not really our fault the letters arrive one day prior to expiry date ... ???

Never got the snail mail, but i did get an e-mail about 2 weeks ago.

I got mine March 1st in Germany too (Yesterday). Same as FlyingLawyer, mailed from New Zealand.

I haven't got an email or snail mail yet. Thanks to FT I phoned ages ago and am already booked.

I'm in Australia, so if mine was sent from New Zealand, I would have expected to get it by now.
Maybe mine is coming from Europe. ;)

Yes I understand that it is kinda bad that some of you guys got the mailer late. However, the posters who seem upset are long time members on FT and all platinum. I know you might not visit FT that often, but I find it hard to believe you all haven't visited the forum once since the 50PRG was announced.

Just checked prior posts and both the OP and a couple others have been actively posting here in the SPG forum.

The 50PRG has been at or near the top of the SPG forum since the promo was announced.

Sorry to ruffle any feathers.

Just checked prior posts and both the OP and a couple others have been actively posting here in the SPG forum.

The 50PRG has been at or near the top of the SPG forum since the promo was announced.


Actively posting on FT does not necessarily mean reading every single post/thread. Afterall not everyone here are travel geeks ;)

To those of you who just got your letters and are saying it's too late to use it, what did the plat concierge say when you called to enquire about an extension? I would think it would be reasonable to call and ask for more time this week, I'm curious what the answer was when you did.

What's wrong with sending Mail from NZ? I find it arrives quite quickly. ;)

mine arrived today...the very same day the promo expires....apparently I registered on Jan 18th (according to the spg call center). apart from the fact that I was not at home during that week and had no internet access, which kinda makes it difficult to register in the first place.....to the point that we should all have seen this earlier....the call center guy said it was a targetted promo to very few lucky chosen ones....in any case, would be great to have William comment on this subject.
yapak2

...but I long ago had booked using the code by asking the agent if i qualified...its pretty sad when the offer expires today!

OK - for those complaining, you still have TODAY to still book it. Stop posting on FT to complain and call the spg Plat concierge to book :D

Its valid till 11.59pm EST, not your local time.

You have approx 13.5hrs left :D

I've never received it in the mail :rolleyes: I did, however, received an email ^

...William, any chance of getting an extention of by when this has to be booked ? Not really our fault the letters arrive one day prior to expiry date ... ???

There isn't going to be a general extension of this offer. My best advice is to call before midnight Eastern U. S. time and redeem it or possibly lose it.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Online Guest Feedback Coordinator
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

guest.forum@starwoodhotels.com

The snail mail was today in my post box...:rolleyes:

Never mind, the 50PRG stay was booked nearly one month ago :D

Thanks to FT^

To those of you who just got your letters and are saying it's too late to use it, what did the plat concierge say when you called to enquire about an extension? I would think it would be reasonable to call and ask for more time this week, I'm curious what the answer was when you did.
They said too bad, so sad. Thanks for asking though.

Cheers,

Well, mine arrived today - a day after the offer expired :(

I booked three nights in Osaka last Wednesday (30.000 points). Offer arrived Saturday March 1st by mail. On Sunday 2nd I tried to cancel and rebook, but either the customer Service lines told me to call back during office hours (Spain), " due to circumstances outside our control we can not take your call" (Ireland), or no one picked up (US and Singapore).

On Monday 3rd I got through to Ireland and asked to cancel and rebook with the discount voucher. They cancelled and then told me that no award rooms are available for the dates I needed (But I just cancelled!). Sorry the Hotel is now full!

The Platinum concierge sorted it out though, but I almost was left without any reservation Osaka!

"The Sample the world, for half the Starpoints" mailer, mailed by SPG from Charlotte NC via QCM Pte. Ltd, a private mail delivery comanpany in Singapore, delivered to my Singapore address on March 6, three days after the offer expired!! Starwood, can you please organise a time machine for us platinums in Singapore, so we can go back in time and book our platinum privilege stays!!

yes
a family member of mine was POSTMARKED 3 march recieved 5 march
not very good for plat members is it:rolleyes:

I received mine yesterday. I'd have been quite annoyed if I don't live on travel forums.

I think you are also meant to have received an email about the promo from SPG if you've elected to receive promos via email. I was wondering why I hadn't been receiving promos via email until I realised that I had the 'no emails please' option highlighted in my profile.

same with me, i got mine on march 4th.
however, when this happened one year ago, our (then only) lurker was able to help; i trust he still can.

can't you, william? ;)

I received mine yesterday. I'd have been quite annoyed if I don't live on travel forums.

I think you are also meant to have received an email about the promo from SPG if you've elected to receive promos via email. I was wondering why I hadn't been receiving promos via email until I realised that I had the 'no emails please' option highlighted in my profile.

Even my promo email was recived by me on 27 Feb at night. Did not leave much time to decide on where to go, check flights, school holidays etc, and then book by 3 March!!

And I am sure many people have not signed up for email promos, and may not have regular access to emails anyway. SO for the snail mail to reach days after the offer has expired is really something SPG need to work on

...can't you, william? ;)

Regrettably, no, I can't. However, you might try calling the Customer Contact Center to see if they can.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Online Guest Feedback Coordinator
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

guest.forum@starwoodhotels.com

I am astounded by people whining "I didn't get mine. . .I want an extension, etc." when, in fact, this very topic has been discussed on this board for over 3 months (starting with "do you think spg will give Plats the 50% coupon this year" thread. There was also a thread started of "How are you using the 50% off coupon?" way before the expiration date.

Nobody posting in this thread is a newbie to the board with 1 or 2 posts so how can people claim "oh, I didn't know about this." As a matter of fact most of us were told to Call the Customer Service Center and see if you're eligible way before snail mail was received for this promotion. I realize that some people could say "Oh, I don't read this EVERY day" but the fact that several threads were up for discussion for many weeks seems to make this entire point of "I didn't know" moot imo.

Santa Claus delivered a very nice and great SPG 50 Cert in early December 2006, so we put the cert under the Christmas tree and toasted to SPG for this great offer. In early 2007 we spent a wonderful time in Japan enjoying Sakura (cherry blossom) using this cert. Thanks Santa and SPG!!!!

We saved all SPG points in 2007 and in December we waited desperately for Santa Claus to deliver another SPG 50 Cert..... Santa came ..... we had a wonderful Christmas and Santa treated us very well this year, but no envelope from Santa and SPG this year. Oh well....

Santa left early that day since he had some other appointments that night, the Christmas tree is gone since some weeks now, and the SPG promo is gone also since March 3. And all the points we accumulated in 2007 hoping for another 50% promotion for Plats are still in the account.

It was the mail man who deliverd March 5, 2008 a greyisch square envelope from SPG, sent from NZ and I read "With our compliments...". And guess what???? "Sample the world. For HALF the STARPOINTS" ... oh we were excited.... a late greeting from Santa!!!!

We were really excited since Santa must be busy now preparing with packing on the southern half of our globe. No wonder he was mailing the cert from NZ.

But something must have gone wrong: besides the cards with nice pictures of Intimate Luxery from San Jose, Mexico, Spectacular Surroundings from Scotland, UK and Everyone Has A Dream from Obama, US we also fround the card from French Polynesia with the small print: Book by March 3-------This was two days ago!!!!

So now, what are we doing with that cert and what are we doing with our points in the account?????? Nothing????

Well, Santa came on time, the SPG cert was only two days late, and Sakura in Japan is predicted to be even a week later this year. But we are still on time in this global world.... I have no problem shaking another Christmas cocktail and toasting to SPG and Santa even in mid March. As long as there is a real reason to use the SPG cert other then heating the fire place!

However, you might try calling the Customer Contact Center to see if they can.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Online Guest Feedback Coordinator
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

guest.forum@starwoodhotels.com

I really encourage anyone who got their promo after the deadline to follow the hint in Lurker's post.

I am astounded by people whining "I didn't get mine. . .I want an extension, etc." when, in fact, this very topic has been discussed on this board for over 3 months (starting with "do you think spg will give Plats the 50% coupon this year" thread. There was also a thread started of "How are you using the 50% off coupon?" way before the expiration date.

Nobody posting in this thread is a newbie to the board with 1 or 2 posts so how can people claim "oh, I didn't know about this." As a matter of fact most of us were told to Call the Customer Service Center and see if you're eligible way before snail mail was received for this promotion. I realize that some people could say "Oh, I don't read this EVERY day" but the fact that several threads were up for discussion for many weeks seems to make this entire point of "I didn't know" moot imo.

You did certainly get (at least) my post not right: I did not say I did not know about. I knew about. I just wanted to show I stupid *-wood marketing guys can be. This beautiful envelope, postage, design, all this was was quite expensive. 99% of this world does not know about FT. However: These 99% of this world were included in this marketing thing too. And the money for these mailings was nothing but wasted.

deleted

You did certainly get (at least) my post not right: I did not say I did not know about. I knew about. I just wanted to show I stupid *-wood marketing guys can be. This beautiful envelope, postage, design, all this was was quite expensive. 99% of this world does not know about FT. However: These 99% of this world were included in this marketing thing too. And the money for these mailings was nothing but wasted.

I agree. Mine arrived (Australia) after the deadline but thanks to FT I had already booked early. I am extremely happy and grateful to *wood but as I know they get feedback from this forum I will say:

50PRG - 10/10 - who wouldn't love it?
Presentation envelope - 8/10 - beautiful & classy
Execution by snail mail - 2/10 - if you are sending it this way, it should arrive well before the deadline, otherwise it is a waste of money. Instead of surprise and delight, the reaction can turn to confusion and disappointment. Surely not every Plat in the world is a FT regular.

If Starwood is using external companies for mailings, this thread could also let them gauge performance by those companies. So I hope this is accepted as constructive criticism.

I received mine yesterday. I'd have been quite annoyed if I don't live on travel forums.

I think you are also meant to have received an email about the promo from SPG if you've elected to receive promos via email. I was wondering why I hadn't been receiving promos via email until I realised that I had the 'no emails please' option highlighted in my profile.

I'd just scrutinised my envelope - what's even more absurd is that the letter was mailed from Sydney and postmarked mar 3rd, like what a poster above observed. I believe that's when the promo actually expired. In that case - why bother sending it out at all???

:confused: :confused:

Praise be to FT though. I'm not whining about the inability to use the promo as I don't have trips planned in the first place and even if I had I'd have read about the promo on here - I'm just genuinely stumped. Seems like a waste of effort, paper and postage...

I really encourage anyone who got their promo after the deadline to follow the hint in Lurker's post.
yeah i agree to follow the hint... they probably know they have screwed it up and have already a plan to fix it...

This arrived in the mail while I was in UK sometime last week. I left Canada on 3rd (the booking deadline) and it hadn't arrived by then!

I made a reward booking today and phoned platinum concierge and they went searching for permission to get an extension to date for Canadians. They said they were aware of the late arrival of the 50PRGs. They said to give them 5-7 days and they were "doing everything in their power" to get this fixed. They said it was sort of out of their hands as it was under control of someone else--who could that be?

I can't believe how they could turn a potentially great positive into such a negative. I have no guarantee that they will be able to do this but I am hopeful that they will given their apologies.

Two things for Starwood--first, frequent travellers travel a lot--best to email these offers in the future--at least we usually are connected electronically. Second, if you must mail, for countries outside USA, allow sufficient time for mailing. Bulk mail tends to sit around in the post offices it seems.

I am astounded by people whining "I didn't get mine. . .I want an extension, etc." when, in fact, this very topic has been discussed on this board for over 3 months (starting with "do you think spg will give Plats the 50% coupon this year" thread. There was also a thread started of "How are you using the 50% off coupon?" way before the expiration date.

Nobody posting in this thread is a newbie to the board with 1 or 2 posts so how can people claim "oh, I didn't know about this." As a matter of fact most of us were told to Call the Customer Service Center and see if you're eligible way before snail mail was received for this promotion. I realize that some people could say "Oh, I don't read this EVERY day" but the fact that several threads were up for discussion for many weeks seems to make this entire point of "I didn't know" moot imo.

if this is your sort of contribution to this forum, i guess i rather not bother reading your other thousands of posts...

some 580 posts of mine since dec 2001 hardly indicate i am on FT everyday, do they?
after all, i got work (and yes:travel!) to do. :rolleyes:

Received the "package" (which I thought was my new plat card) on 10th March i.e. 7 days after the expiry date. I did however receive an email earlier, towards the end of February.

Today I received a wonderful brochure inviting me to sample the world for half the Starpoints, bookable until the day after tomorrow. The lovely envelope from a sender in Charlotte NC in the US was mailed from Auckland, New Zealand (!) to Düsseldorf, Germany....
I know some other US organizations that use this crazy mail service that sends mail from the US to Europe via New Zealand. It is painfully slow, and I can't understand how it makes sense to route mail like that. In this case, Starwood prepared an expensive promo piece and then tried to skimp on mail service.

So I hope this is accepted as constructive criticism.

how far has constructive criticism gotten us with spg.com? :rolleyes: have you tried to book an spg50 online lately?

"I am astounded by people whining "I didn't get mine. . .I want an extension, etc." when, in fact, this very topic has been discussed on this board for over 3 months (starting with "do you think spg will give Plats the 50% coupon this year" thread. There was also a thread started of "How are you using the 50% off coupon?" way before the expiration date."

Well as a long time member and regular on this board, I don't read every thread and sometimes the thread titles really don't sink in. There are lots of offers that I am not eligible for.

I haven't had this offer before so didn't even know it existed--I do now! The good thing about being an FTer is that when I opened up my envelope yesterday, it twigged something about a thread title I had seen. It made me go looking after I read the book by date had already expired.

For Canada Starwood seems to recognize it as a problem and I am happy they have. As I said, there are no guarantees that I will get my discount, but I will be most pleased if the Platinum Concierge comes through and I will pay more attention to a similar thread next year!:cool:

Like many here, our promo package arrived late as well. Upon realizing that the promo had just expired, I contacted the Platinum desk just before midnight on the 4th. I explained that the package had arrived late at our home, and I was informed that SPG extended the deadline by 24 hours only, but that the extension was due to heavy booking activity on the 3rd, not due to any recognition by SPG that many Platinum members had received the promo late. I was told that the 1-day extension was only until midnight Eastern, so we had missed even the extension(by less than an hour).

This is a wonderful promotion, and as much as I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, I don't think customer service handled this well in light of the mail issues. Until I read this thread, I didn't realize the late arrival of the promotion was apparently fairly wide-spread, so I took the explanation of the reason for the extension at face value, and didn't push back very hard. Now I'm even more frustrated about the refusal to allow us an extension. That stinks.

Well the good news is that SPG came through with the 50% promo^

The bad news is that they deducted the 50% points, instead of crediting them back to me (so I was out double the points!):td:

The good news is that Platinum concierge fixed it all up in about 30 seconds!^

All in all I am happy--hope that others have been similarly successful, especially my Canadian peers who must have endured the same frustration of getting the package late . . .

That's great news, BlondeBomber. I anticipated that Starwood would do that for those who got their mailing late. It's nice to have you return and confirm it.