Originally Posted by
SeanPoints
Hello Marathon Man and FlyerTalkers,
As an employee of Points.com, I was disappointed to read your post. At Points.com we have remained silent viewers of the FlyerTalk forums for many years, but feel that perhaps some of the issues and comments that are being raised here could be dispelled if we were to provide some commentary.
I can assure you that at Points.com we have no desire to take advantage of our users. We are doing our best to work with loyalty programs to provide their members with new ways to use their points and miles. And we're frequent flyers too. Over 100 people work at Points.com, which is now traded on both the US and Canadian stock markets; We're the real deal. Points.com also now has almost 3 million users worldwide, and almost a billion miles have been transacted through our services since we opened our doors over ten years ago.
We do work closely with our loyalty program partners for fair exchange rates for our users, and we're always trying to improve these rates. In many cases, the exchange rates and fees that you find on Points.com are set by the participating loyalty programs. We're also always working to update our technology so that our systems work faster and more efficiently, and we're looking to expand our customer service team. But, as several of your posts point out here, nobody's perfect. Also, our services and tools are not for everyone at every point of their loyalty program life cycle – as several FlyerTalkers have pointed out in the past, some of our services are best used in specific situations.
I firmly believe that Points.com can be a great tool for flyers, and I'd really like to hear suggestions from FlyerTalkers about how we can improve Points.com so it can become a more useful tool for you. Although exchange rates aren’t always in our control, we are always trying to provide the best value we can. We take your feedback seriously and are here to answer questions you may have.
If we're welcome, we'd like to start addressing your questions and feedback about Points.com. If you have any comments you'd like to share via email, you can reach me at
[email protected]. Otherwise, we'll respond to your comments right here in the forum.
Thanks,
Sean Hutchison
VP Consumer Products
Points.com
Sean thanks for coming in here and showing yourself.
When one needs to transfer airline miles within various carriers, the link to do so has often been powered by Points.com. Paying the associated fees and clicking through has in fact resulted in the promised transfer to go through and credit card to be charged accordingly.
So while I personally have rarely used this feature--and only for very small amounts if I have used it--I find that is just about the only thing your company is good for. The fees are really high for that, by the way, but at least you do seem to get most of it right in that one area.
For all else I have found that your main problem in doing business is two-fold:
1) completing a promo for the user.
2) communicating with/solving issues with (in a timely matter) that user.
I have been on this board for a number of years. I have participated in a lot of promotions. I have followed the posted rules in every single one of them and when I do that I expect to receive the bonus or benefit I set out to obtain. Sometimes people have to write in to various companies find out what happened to their miles or points but generally speaking they do get what they expected. With you that process is horrific or non-existent.
Fix that and you will be liked and I will stop plastering this place with negative reports of things I have seen. Fix that and people like me will stop making countless posts in numerous threads about your company not coming through for them in the clutch. Fix that and I will stop helping people to avoid your company.
Fail to fix that and you will probably run away from this board faster than we will chase you.
Thanks. It was a pleasure talking with you. Now please get to work.
MM