I just a long chat with my Aplus Sales lady. She has been trying to contact me since last week and I purposely ignoring her as I am very unhappy with Aplus.
Today I told her that this year will probably the last time I will renew my Aplus if I do not see anything is being done. In short, I told her, as a paying member I feel that I am being short changed. I think many feel the same (but not airing it).
Here is the details "complained" that I told here.
1. Elite status. For this year non paying member get the status extended until 31-Dec-2017. As APlus member, my status will change this month. Why I get short changed 3 months as paying member. She said she will check if something can be done.
2. No more monthly availability calendar to see if Aplus complimentary night is avail. She said Aussie IT is working on it. In the mean time, can call the hotline to ask them to check.
3. Member cannot see the availability/book beyond current year expiry date. I told her this is ridiculous. As member that has renewal in Sep, this mean, I always only have 3 months max to book complimentary nights during "busy" period of December and January. And now, it is very difficult to get complimentary nights as more and more Aplus member in the region and of course everyone is eyeing top properties.
I also told her it is almost impossible to get complimentary night at Sofitel Nusa Dua, Pullman Hong Kong and now even Sofitel Sukhumvit.
Of course this is a complex issue, not only about the expiry, now they are checking if you still have complimentary nights avail.
I told her, Accor should have a mindset that member will continue to renew their memberships not to end it when expire.
Seriously I really do not know how they will fix this. Part of the issue, from rumours I heard, some hotel, like Sofitel Nusa Dua, will set max amount that will value the complimentary night. I heard it is valued at 2millions IDR which is around SGD 200, so if the room night at that day is more than 2millions, we have to pay. But I cannot confirm this.
I think Accor should force hotel to allocate x number of room for each day for complimentary night booking with some black out date.
4. Customer Service. Actually this is something that I almost forgotten. But she mentioned that I can contact Accor via Facebook. Then it refresh my memory. I told her, everytimes we as Aplus member contact Accor general CS, they reject us and ask us to contact Aplus CS. I told her this should not be case. Accor CS should take everyone including us the paying member. If they need to route as to APlus CS (as it is related to Account issue), then they should route it internally transparent to us.
Ok, let's she what she comes back. She said she will bring this point to management and get back to me.
I told her I will end the 13-14 years relationship next year, if my grievances are not being addressed as I do not see the point to keep buying Aplus.