Hi,
I'm not sure whether this topic has ever came up (I checked and found nothing), but am curious to find out anecdotes/examples of promotions or loyalty programs that failed (i.e., became too expensive to run or were not fullfilling their original objectives) due to loopholes and/or not-so-thought-through executions (both of which we were able to take advantage of ).

I can think of the following as examples, but am sure there were/are/will be (we hope?) many of them. So, I would like to hear your experience.

(1) Promotions from MyPoints.com without any minimum purchases: They became savvier now, but until recently, MyPoints.com gave out 2450 points for AmTrak purchase, so we were buying an $1.10 AmTrak ticket for 2450 pts. (Btw, there's minimum of $25 purchase now.)

(2) Promotions without maximum points rewarded: Again, at MyPoints.com, you could buy Tupperware for 800 pts, so you could've bought $1 gift certificate(s) without any shipping & handling. (Apparently, they found out about this one as well.)

(3) Airline double / trip mile bonuses: I'm not sure whether these qualify as failed promotion, but I recently flew from PHL to MAD at an amazingly cheap price (300+ dollars), and received double miles (about 7350 miles), 3000 bonus miles for online purchase, and additional 10000 for european activation bonuses. I'm not complaining , but shouldn't the airlines be more careful about not giving out too much bonus miles?

(4) Last year's GoldRewards promotion of magazine subscription was such a great deal. This may not be a failed attempt, though, since ValueMagazine was trying to sell magazines at cost, I believe.

So, do you have any stories to tell? I'd love to hear yours. Thanks.
--Sun

Edited for minor spelling mistakes.


[This message has been edited by spark (edited 03-14-2003).]