CanadaDH

Announcement just came out on Fairmont's social media feed. Confirmed for this Friday, Nov 27, 2020, from 2 to 5 PM, Eastern Standard Time.

tris06

These vouchers are digital and can be used straight away right? We still have the booking for christmas in Shanghai but my wife is pushing me a little to cancel because 3 or 4 cases of covid19 occured in shanghai over the last few weeks.

CanadaDH

Yes, they're electronic. The e-gift cards will arrive by e-mail shortly after purchase. You can either print them or download a PDF. They are usable as soon as you receive them. The hotel redeems them by entering the card number in their gift card terminal.

beefyT

I just wanted to make sure - we will still earn rewards points/status points on bookings paid for with e-gift cards, correct?

CanadaDH

Yes. The hotel doesn't consider it any different than paying by cash or credit card. They simply apply it to your room bill as any other method of payment.

nmenaker

Sadly, we still haven’t been able to use the LAST 3000 worth of gift cards I purchased in the spring. But stock up for late 2021/2022 I guess.

Maelstrom

As long as the booking conditions are eligible for status/points (booking direct etc)

FlyerGoldII

I have a few credit card purchases.

Some of my credit cards give a premium in points if a purchase is travel or hotel related.

Would the purchase of the gift card fit in that category, or not?

CanadaDH

Unfortunately, no. The purchase does not appear from Fairmont, but rather from the company that manages the gift card program.

habshabs444

I was able to buy $5K CAD each on two different credit cards and another $5K USD on another F/X free MC with absolutely no issues and they are already in my inbox.

Sure the LE certs saves you an extra 2%, but I always feel bad for the staff to have to enter them individually as it's rather tedious.. I'm not overly fussed over a $20 difference in savings per stay based on the $1K LE limit.

SkyteamEP

Bought mine right when the sale started, still waiting for them to show up in my inbox.

habshabs444

Scratch that... only my CAD ones have arrived... still waiting on the USD, For whatever reason, I got multiple emails for some gift certs which made it tough to reconcile and am still missing one from the CAD bunch. I guess it would have been easier to just buy 2 X $5K certs vs 10 X $1K plus the bonus certs..

CanadaDH

It's a bit of a gong show again. My first transaction for $5,000 went through. Got the receipt, but no cards yet.

I did 2 more transactions for $5,000 each, and the purchases timed out, but the pending transaction is showing on my credit card. In the middle of a chat session to figure out how to know if they went through or not.

They mentioned they're extending the sale to 7 PM due to the high volume of purchases and calls.

Update - 90 minutes after getting the time-out error, I received another e-mail confirmation for another purchase. So far, I have 3 pending charges to my credit cards, 2 confirmation e-mails with order numbers, but no actual gift cards received.

Update #2 - Received an e-mail from support, saying the 3rd transaction also went through, and she had a reference number. Still never received the official confirmation message on that one.

I don't have any actual gift cards yet, and I only have 2 out of 3 official receipts, but I have an e-mail acknowledging the 3rd went through. I'll take that to mean I'll eventually receive them.

I was going to make 5 purchases, to get me through to my June vacations, but I don't want to go through this crap again, but trying another purchase. The $15k + $3k bonus will get me through my winter trips. I'll hope the sale returns again on Mothers Day next spring.

Update #3 - Customer Service followed up again by e-mail, and were able to send me the receipt for the third transaction. Still no cards received yet, but have official receipts for all 3 purchases.

While their systems have been slow/offline/overloaded/whatever, I will say their customer service has been prompt and helpful.

CanadaDH

You can't do 2 x $5,000. $2,000 is the max. My purchases were 3 transactions, each $2k x 2 and $1k x 1. A $5k card would be nice.

Vaclav

Indeed. First declined, got fraud alert message from Amex. Settled that and then was online with a rep "looking in their system".

It is a very slow boat to China. Awaiting the gift card by email....