uk1

It is correct to say "obtaining goods". Not "asking". Back to the OP .... nothing has been done wrong by enquiring which is what in my view is clearly happening here.

Basically the OP is saying that "I'd like to make a booking with an offer I have come across and that I may or may not be entitled to use - I do not know - can I use it or not?" Those offers he found are then stored (or not) and then used or not as IC decides. In other words, he is asking "accept the request or reject it". When it is used on a computer site and he cannot ask a human. IC either has a choice of rejecting or accepting the code. Loads of other companies do exactly this.

IC can choose to accept any code whether it was targetted or not by simply having a system that makes offers to customers - targetted or not - and then if they are targetted or not ensures that their system only accepts and ensure that only those that they made an offer to can use it or if they choose - which seems to be the case - to have a defective system that accepts anything. If they accept everything that is their choice.

If you think of a human replacing the computer, a human would say at checkout "you cannot use this voucher" but here the computer system accepts anything. That is not the customers fault. If IC has a system that accepts the code and process an order, then they are agreeing that the customer - or at least allowing the customer to believe that they have accepted - that he is entitled to use the code. It isn't for a customer to second-guess the robustness of IC's systems.

The idea posted elsewhere that this is somehow like stealing from a shop is complete nonsense. If you take a discount voucher that you have found on the pavement to a checkout in a shop, the shop either processes the transaction (accepting the voucher) without a comment or says "you can't use this" in which case the transaction isn't completed. No one has at that point done anything wrong. This is a computerised version of that transaction but where the computer accepts the voucher, and then holds the customer responsible for it's own error.

The OP has been treated badly but sadly that is life.