escape4

Darn, I had not noticed this was gone. Even if demand is rock bottom I don't see what it would hurt to keep selling so it cannot be good news.

tris06

Ahh crap the time is horrible for me 2am-5am will be the time on Thursday the 7th of May. My wife is going to think I am mad and divorce me.

sfvoyage

Thanks for the helpful information and confirmation that my understanding is correct. I had missed the part that these are all electronic - even better!

One other thing: I recall reading previously that, when paying with USD-denominated e-cards in non-US properties, the forex conversion rate is favorable. You had mentioned OANDA spot rate, of which I am not familiar. I usually use XE.com for benchmarking.

I have always paid with my credit card with no forex fee and thought that the hotel conversion rates are always terrible. (In the old days, some hotels would post a list of their forex rates at their reception desk against several major currencies, and so it was transparent and easy to see.)

Do Fairmont hotels use a different set of forex rates that are more honest for guests using their e-Cards? If so, do all Fairmont hotels adhere to this practice, or is it up to an individual hotel? And are those rates comparable to those I would get if using my credit cards that carry no forex fees?

CanadaDH

Fairmont hotels may set their own exchange rates for cash transactions, but not for gift cards. If you use a gift card at a hotel whose currency is in a different currency from your gift card, it is the gift card terminal that does the exchange conversion, not the hotel's crappy posted rate. Neither Fairmont nor the individual hotels have any control over that rate whatsoever. It simply uses the Oanda rate. You can use their currency converter below to see what sort of conversion you get, and compare to xe.com or other services:

https://www1.oanda.com/currency/converter/

I've pulled up the currency converter on my phone when redeeming a gift card, and can confirm that it uses that rate with no surcharge added. My various credit cards are all a bit different in the rate used, but none of my cards can get this rate.

Like many businesses, Fairmont doesn't manage their own gift card system. They use a company out of Vancouver called Buyatab, who runs the gift card programs for a lot of other brands.

https://web.buyatab.com/client-types/b2c/

CanadaDH

Fairmont is still managed out of their Toronto corporate office, so they use Toronto time for most things. It does seem a bit strange that they wouldn't extend the times for this promotion, because they do have hotels all around the world, but they've always done it this way. And even though you can purchase a Fairmont gift card directly from a hotel in any currency, this promotion is only good for USD and CAD currencies. Why they do that I suppose is known only to their marketing people. For all I know, they do similar promotions at other times in other currencies, announced through social media channels in other languages. Or, maybe it's just because >50% of their hotels are in North America.

escape4

Same for me, I never had a beef with the exchange rate they used

CanadaDH

I'll give you an example of an actual exchange rate. The last time I used a Fairmont gift card in a different currency, was last fall when I used a CAD gift card at The Plaza in New York, which was charged in USD. I just ran a report online from the Fairmont gift card site of the redemption history of one of the cards I used.



You can see I used a CAD$2,000 card, and they were able to redeem USD$1,512.97 from the card. That works out to a USD/CAD rate of 1.3219.

I just went to the Bank of Canada website and downloaded historical exchange rates, and on October 15, 2019, the 'average' (I can't get historical spot rates for a specific time of day) rate that day was 1.3211.

Maelstrom

Exchange rates for foreign currency conversion (which is what gets posted on the boards at reception) is very different to the bank-determined foreign exchange rates for payment.

In the case of foreign currency conversion, the hotel takes a percentage, which is why the rates are not favourable.

CanadaDH

I was just browsing the Costco site, and it doesn't seem like the removal of the LE certificates is specific to the LE program. It appears that Costco has pulled a lot of their certificates. What's rather amusing, is if you select "Gift Cards & Tickets" from the main shopping menu, guess what image is used to drill into the "Gift Certificates" sub-category?


When you follow that link, the only thing available right now is a vehicle roadside assistance program membership. No other retailers or programs certificates for sale. Maybe if you're based in other parts of the country, you get other options (some of Costco's items are regional), but that's all I see available.

This gives me a bit of hope that they might return in the future, and perhaps Costco just pulled all certificates relating to travel and other activities that are effectively shut down right now. Given these are electronic certificates that don't take up shelf space, and are issued when purchases, there is no inventory cost for Costco to still offer them. Maybe they just don't want to be selling something that their members can't redeem, preventing future complaints from people then wanting to reverse the sale.

Fortunately, I still have ~$5,000 worth of these LE certs in my stash, but hopefully they bring them back again before 2021 travel starts to pick up.

CanadaDH

It looks like somebody messed up with a marketing e-mail!

The Fairmont facebook feed keeps reminding followers of the gift card sale, May 6 at 2PM. Like below.



But, just arriving in my e-mail inbox, at 2:03 PM on May 5 (24 hours before the sale begins), they send this! No mention of the sale, but sending an e-mail, through the official @accor-mail.com channel, promoting a gift card purchase, exactly 24 hours before the sale starts? That's either poor coordination, or somebody scheduled the auto-email for the wrong date!

If anybody received this e-mail, don't jump online and buy anything... the sale is tomorrow!

R2

What is the validity of the Fairmont e-gift cards, one year?

To make use of the upcoming 20% bonus promotion, I just need to buy it within the given timeframe on the Fairmont Gift shop, right?
https://www.fairmont.com/gift-shop/

I assume they are good to use in Fairmont hotels is Asia as well. Thanks.

escape4

no expiration date

nmenaker

Does anyone have any concern that "this time might be different" Meaning, what is Accor or Fairmont goes bankrupt during this once in a century global downturn in hospitality consumption?

TravelStar

Be Sure to specify whether you want your gift cards in Canadian Dollars or US dollars. There is a pulldown selector on the first order page. I'm in the US and mine defaulted to Canadian. So, it's easy to not notice.

nmenaker

Well, grabbed 1x2000 and 1x1000.. we'll see.