honflyer

To start off, I am a SPG100, have been a Platinum for 8 years now, and I'm under 30. I work in tech...so still tons of revenue to be made from me. I have literally spent hundreds of thousands of dollars with SPG (I rarely stay in hotels for less than 300/400 a night)

I rarely post stuff on FlyerTalk, but I feel like things like this must be shared. Maybe my view is completely off, and I'd love to hear about that as well!

In January 2016 I sent an email to my ambassador and the SPG Moments team whether it'd be possible to notify me when a very specific SPG Moment's package would go online, as I've had bad experiences with the "Notify me" feature on the "Coming Soon" page. I also asked whether there's any chance they would hold a package for me or "pre-sell" it to me, given I'm an elite. I didn't expect that, it was really a question more than anything else.

A day later, I received this response:
"I have spoken to the team; based on your membership level and loyalty to SPG, we would like to give you the opportunity to purchase one of our packages prior to them being launched on the site. Typically we have suite packages and box seat packages. I have not confirmed the pricing on each but I would imagine it would be similar to last year. The box seats went between 7,000 and 10,000 Starpoints and the Suite Packages between 12,000 and 25,000 Starpoints."

I was pumped, replied "Yes, thank you, Thanks so much for making this happen!" It's important to note, the same day I told one of my friend who had two tickets to the event, that I don't need one from him, and me and my other friend confirmed travel plans for going to the city of the event.

A couple days later, I checked-in, as I hadn't heard back. A couple days later, I received a message, basically saying that there was a confusion and she thought I referred to a different event - and that it wouldn't be possible to sell those tickets for me, as SPG has decided to put tickets for that particular game on auction instead of pre-selling it.

I, naturally, wasn't very happy about that, especially since the tickets were confirmed to me already ("because of your membership level and loyalty...").

Things were escalated over and over, and at one point I even had to involve my legal team on this, as SPG didn't want to move at all. At some point, the mistake was realized and I was offered that one of the packages that they were going to put on auction would be put aside for me and I would basically have to pay the average price for which the other packages would go away. Although I was hesitant to agree on a deal which had a price that wasn't set by me or them, I finally agreed, based on the condition that they would provide me with a "repayment plan" for the points, in case the # of points would exceed the # of points I had in my balance. They kept that very ambiguous, promising me that they will work me with when time comes - well, I was stupid to trust them on that one. "If the cost of the package exceeds the amount of points you have in your SPG account, we will discuss a payment plan to make up any difference." Early on I indicated that I was planning to use some SPG points over the next few months for stays and flight bookings, and there was no comment in regards to that.

Then, as the auctions were about to end, and it was clear that the # of points they were going away for were significantly higher than the # of points I had in my account (and also significantly higher than the # of points I had in my account when the conversations started), I proactively reached out to them to discuss a payment plan, as I was missing quite a few points.

The first response that I got, which I thought was pretty ludacrous, was:
"At this point, we feel it is best to release the pair of tickets we are holding and add them to the bid process for other members as it seems you no longer agree to the terms. We can no longer hold these tickets aside for you. " - because my star points balance now was significantly lower than it was a few months back - although that original balance was never taken as any sort of reference, ever. After I brought that up, I was told that

"When we agreed to the original arrangement, your starpoint balance was XXXXXX points. We will make an exception and honor that amount for the purchase of these tickets."

Well, the exception that they offered to make is: either buy XXXXXX star points (and we'll make another exception so that you can by a multiple of the 30,000 star points you're typically allowed to buy) and spend a few thousand dollars (for tickets that are going away for much less than what I would have to spend in terms of $$$ on the points), or we will be giving the tickets away.

I made the argument a few times that if I had known this, I would have just bought tickets a few months back, when they were significantly cheaper. Now they're forcing me to pay them a significant amount for star points, when that was never agreed...They didn't seem to care, at all. Several times I was told "As stated in previous correspondence, we stand firm on our decision."

I told them that I would be buying tickets instead and having my legal team file a claim against them for this BS.

Am I crazy, or am I being mistreated here? There are multiple agreements here which they broke (starting with the first one...).

I'm annoyed by the amount of time I've put into this, I'd love to hear what others would do in such a situation, especially when you have friends from overseas flying in for an event etc. and you yourself have booked your travel and so on....

It just feels odd to be treated like this after "giving" someone so much.

travelswithmyself

I hope it works out for you; obviously your legal team believes you have a case and it does sound from what you've stated here that you do.

I do think the title of the thread should be changed from "Crazy How SPG Treats Platinum 100s" to "Crazy How SPG Treats This Platinum 100"...

fireworksboy

I'm guessing others may feel differently but given the two options you're giving us - I'd say you're "crazy".

Odds are we're only getting one side of the story here but even if that's the case, it sounds like spg went above and beyond the call of duty offering you a package, off line, and you weren't willingness I follow thrust with the agreed upon deal.

There were a lot of things wrong with the way things were handled but they all started with expecting a side deal on a public offering at the beginning.

Again, that may be harsh and others may disagree. But if you're asking me, you weren't the mistreated party.

CodeAdam10

Sounds like they over-promised and under-delivered. They shouldn't have went out of their way to please a SPG member, unless they had the resources and the right intention to do so. Someone at SPG really wanted to help you out probably ... just didn't understand what needs to be done to make things happen. Not your fault, of course. Perhaps they will give you some SPG points as a token.

jibi

I agree with fireworksboy. SPG Moments is not intended to be private, backroom deals between you and SPG. Their initial response, assuming it has been accurately portrayed here, is unfortunate and not in the spirit of the program. However, the entire situation began because you asked for a side deal that you were not entitled to receive. I guess if you don't ask, how would you know there wasn't a deal to be offered, right? If I were in your situation, I would be pretty pissed, as well. However, since I'm not the one in your situation, I am at least afforded the ability to look at this situation from an unbiased perspective... and this means that SPG was not cast in the role of the antagonist in this exchange. Just my two cents.

gabo02

👍🏻

honflyer

I have gotten various SPG Moments packages before by emailing the team directly. So that certainly happens, and I'm not forcing them to do that by any means... it was something they offered to me after I kindly asked - I had a situations a few times where I was trying to bid for a package and the "end" of the bid was dragged on for hours...

This is a quote that I received 1:1 in this fashion, I didn't edit one letter of it:
""I have spoken to the team; based on your membership level and loyalty to SPG, we would like to give you the opportunity to purchase one of our packages prior to them being launched on the site. Typically we have suite packages and box seat packages. I have not confirmed the pricing on each but I would imagine it would be similar to last year. The box seats went between 7,000 and 10,000 Starpoints and the Suite Packages between 12,000 and 25,000 Starpoints.""

okrogius

Shorter summary:

Honflyer: Can I have a private deal?
SPG: Sure, but we don't know how much it will be. Probably X, but no idea.
Honflyer: Ok, great I'll take it [at unknown price].
SPG: (Couple of days later) Looks like X was wrong, it will actually be Y.
Honflyer: But you promised to sell it.
...
Honflyer: I feel like I deserve it for X, as I can't afford Y.
SPG: We'll agree on Z as a courtesy price - you'll need to buy some points to reach Z.
Honflyer: Z is more than I want to pay.
SPG: Ok, we'll just sell them publicly and forego this private deal.

As fireworksboy says, SPG seems entirely in the right to me.

elitetraveler

This story is a good example of why big companies have a hard time allowing customer facing employees to give waivers to good customers. Having OPs legal team involved makes it easier for SPG execs to say in the future, no exceptions.

I think the problem started when OP thought he was going to be able to renegotiate the the deal again. Luckily, it seems like the OP would have the means to just pay cash for the event tickets if he wanted them so much, and it would have been a better value than buying more points.

honflyer

okrogius - accurate summary:

Honflyer: Can I have a private deal?
SPG: Sure, the price will be between 12,000 - 25,000 points.
Honflyer: Ok, great I'll take it 25,000 points.
SPG: Looks like 25,000 points was wrong, it will actually be [unknown price].
Honflyer: Hm, that's a big bummer.
[much back-and-forth]
Honflyer: What if [unknown price] is much more than the points I have?
SPG: We'll figure something out then, you're guaranteed to get the tickets though.
Honflyer: Fine.
...
Three days before the event:
SPG: You'll need to buy some points NOW and pay a significant amount of cash to get the tickets.
Honflyer: We never agreed I'd have to pay ANYTHING in cash - you said we'll "discuss" a payment plan.
SPG: Ok, we'll just sell them publicly and forego this private deal.

Not sure how this is right folks, feels to me that there are some insiders commenting here tbh.

yosithezet

Seems to me that the member's expectation was out of line, as was the promise of a side deal.

Dom Bologna

"I have not confirmed the pricing on each but I would imagine it would be similar to last year. " is not the same as "Sure, the price will be between 12,000 - 25,000 points."

If I was in your situation, I wouldn't be paying my lawyer to fight it. I think that's throwing money away.

Regards

okrogius

I don't see anything in the original post explicitly promising any specific price. If anything, there's specific mention that the price is unconfirmed. SPG tried to be nice, maybe some miscommunication happened; however, I don't see any promise being broken.

Your response is likely a good reason for that team to avoid private deals in the future, with you or others. Pragmatically speaking, involving lawyers over a small miscommunication generally evaporates any goodwill you might have had prior to that point. Also, assuming that you're using your company's legal team, that's also probably a poor use of their time.

Spgtx

i don't like the premise that you can buy moments early.


One think I know with tickets, is They don't count till in your hands

Dr. HFH

Yup, agree with both of these comments. HOWEVER, once the side deal was agreed to by SPG, it should have been honored on the agreed terms. SPG could have said, and would have been well within its rights if it had, that side deals aren't part of the SPG program. But it didn't. It agreed to the side deal.

TBH, I did the same thing with a major carrier relative to a mistake fare. The carrier announced that it would not honor the mistake fare and refunded everyone's money (despite a lot of vocal complaining on FT). I sent an email to the group at the carrier that was handling this problem and after no more than four or five email exchanges we negotiated an agreement which both I and the carrier honored. (Part of the agreement was confidentiality.)