Originally Posted by justind
Sorry Efrem, I have to disagree with you. Let's take a hypothetical situation:
Your neighbor tells you that he just recieved a sale flyer from Sears and says "There's a 31" color television set on sale for $99!!" If you then go to the store and are told that this is a "randomly selected price only available to other people, sorry, not you" How would you then feel? Could Home Depot, then, for example, institute a "randomly selected" doubling of the price of plywood over the next week in selected markets?
A good deal is a good deal and should not be offered only to a selected few.
I remember a few years back a story about Coca Cola investigating the idea of using temperture-controled, price-regulating vending machines; ie: the warmer the day, the more the cost of a cold drink. Probably made sense on the drawing board, but would have been a VERY bad customer relations move, similar to what CitiBank is doing in this case. If you know about the promotion, it just makes good sense to offer it to you.
I'm going to side with
Efrem on this. This is not a case of charging one person more for something than another person. This is a bonus, something above and beyond what is being purchased. I think that the company (CitiBank, in this case) has every right to target these promotions, and to use whatever rationale they want. I haven't been targeted for any of these, and would like to...and have even signed up. But I won't be disappointed, or feel cheated if I don't get it.
If it's based on spending patterns- well, that happens all the time. Vegas casinos give deals to "big spenders" that the rest don't get. There are many more examples.
If it's random, then it's like the lottery. All the people with the card have a chance, some get picked. Just because I know someone won the lottery- a pseudo-random thing (nothing that humans do is truly random)- it doesn't mean that I deserve a payout as well.
Cheers.