Linda Marshall

OK- the basic outline of my situation is this:
In June 2018 I booked a hotel in Bangkok from the thankyou.com website.<br />I booked with 4th night free using points.
Sometime in December there was fraud on m prestige account and a new card was mailed to me with a new account number. I need to cancel the reservation, but am unable to do so for reasons explained below.
My 73,283 points are being held hostage and that's just the beginning!
About 2 weeks ago, I went to the thankyou.com site to cancel my reservation because my plans have changed. The reservation definitely shows up (along with 2 others) but when I try to click on the "view itinerary" link it spins but doesn't load. The other two reservations showing on that page have been cancelled, I know this because after cancelling them, I was able to open them up by clicking "view itinerary" and see "cancelled' in big red letters. These will no longer load either. After several attempts on several computers to open the reservation so I could cancel it, I called the help-line. They were unable to even locate the reservation. They insisted that there was no reservation. When I explained that I could see it but couldn't load it, the CSR said this was because the reservation didn't exist. She argued with me for 30 minutes and kept putting me on hold to try to "find it". She assured me that because there was no reservation, I didn't need to worry about it. EXCEPT, I explained, 73,000 points were deducted from my account in June and they haven't been returned, if there is no reservation why are my points missing? In response to her continued declarations that I had nothing to worry about, I asked her to submit that to me in writing- of course that wasn't possible, so I asked to speak to a supervisor. The supervisor couldn't find the reservation either and again, tried to tell me there was no reservation, when I asked about the points being taken out of my account, she couldn't answer my question, so she transferred me to the citi thank you dept who she claimed could do the research and figure out what was going on. I was transferred and the thankyou CSR who confirmed the points had indeed been taken out of my account. He didn't know why the reservation wasn't showing up on their end and said that the only thing he could do was submit a request for account research and request the points be refunded to my account- which he explained could take 30 - 60 days! Unbelievable! But it gets worse.
My primary concern is that the reservation won't get cancelled and they will try to stick me with the 73,000 points for a "no show" despite all of my effort trying to cancel the damn thing, so I emailed the hotel to confirm that there was a reservation in place and asked them to cancel it. They confirmed that there was a reservation and also informed me that it was non-refundable. Hmmmm.... I am quite sure that this is incorrect. I NEVER book non-refundable hotels unless I am absolutely certain about my travel plans-- this reservation was booked in June, way before my plans were solidified, so I KNOW it wasn't a non-refundable reservation. I went back to the original confirmation/itinerary email I received from connexions on June 7, 2018, and read the T and C's. Sure enough, this is what it says:<br /><br /><strong>Rules, Policies and Cancellations</strong><ul><li><span style="color:#c0392b;">Changes or cancellations received within three (3) days of check-in date will be subject to a supplier cancellation fee equal to one-night room and tax.</span></li><li><span style="color:#c0392b;">Cancellations or modifications received at any time will be subject to program service fees, in addition to any supplier fees, when applicable.</span></li><li>No shows are non-refundable.</li><li>Cancellations made directly with the hotel will forfeit any refund.</li><li>Any additional hotel charges, such as resort fees and hotel energy surcharges, and any charges for incidentals that you incur are not included in your reservation rate and must be paid directly to the hotel.</li><li>Government-issued photo identification is required at check-in and must match the name on the reservation.</li></ul>Unless I'm reading that wrong, I can cancel up to 3 days before the check in date. There may be some fee of some type assessed for a cancellation (#2) but I don't see anything about the reservation being non-refundable. SO . . . I called citi thank you again to figure out what was going on. I was informed that on June 17 I was sent (but never received) T and C's that indicated that the reservation was non-refundable. As a result of this, a "resolution has been set" on this inquiry and the request for reimbursement of points has been denied and the case has been closed. ...???!!!<br /><br />I read the CSR the information above but she continued to assert that the email "sent to me" (NOT) on 6/17 established that this was a non-refundable reservation and there was nothing further that could be done. First of all, why would they send a second email 10 days after the original confirmation with different terms? She couldn't answer this and of course, she claimed she doesn't have a supervisor that she could transfer me to. She was unmoved when I explained that I am leaving for my month-long trip in 2 days and need to figure out what happened here- she had no suggestions regarding what I should do next. Meanwhile I am unable to use my points to book a hotel for the last leg of my trip. I tried calling connexions and they are closed for the night. <br /><br />This is really frustrating- I've already missed out on one hotel room that I would have booked with my points, and I have spent hours online and on the phone trying to sort this out! Does anyone have any experience with this type of situation and if so, how did it get resolved? Am I correct that the terms and conditions sent with the original email are valid? Am I mis-reading them somehow?<br /><br />Grateful for any suggestions or help than anyone can offer!<br />LM

Finkface

The wall of text is very hard to read, but what about the part I bolded?.

Since you were trying to cancel directly with the hotel, according to the T&C your posted, doing so would forfeit any refund aka it is non-refundable if canceled directly with the hotel, which is what you were doing at that point.

flyershmlyer

Must be frustrating for you. But to clarify: First you said they can't find the reservation, and now they claim it's non-refundable. Does that mean they can now find the reservation? At least you're making progress on that front!

akr1970akr

I am pretty sure that when you use 4NF with TYP through the portal it's actually going to end up being a prepaid booking, the majority of which are non refundable.

It's possible that the reason why you are having issues with 'seeing' the bookings in the portal is that they may be linked to a prior TYP number.

And potentially, when reissuing the Prestige card, they might have created a new TYP number.

I've had situations where I was not debited TYP for a flight booked over the phone (with Connexions staff), and then maybe six months later, it must have been noticed in some audit, and they finally pulled the points.

At this point you should request some help from the Prestige CSR's to fix the issue.

TYP supports many different Citi products, and not all of them are flagship / luxury offerings, so see if you can get a dedicated Prestige rep to help.

Ask them to stay on the line and/or escalate to a manager.

Also summarize your points above in clear bullet points (your post needs clarifications) and send that to Prestige CSR / TYP Portal reps to review. Verbal description is hard for those folks. Please have someone whose first language is English review and edit your initial written summary to TYP/Prestige.

Good luck.

But I think 4NF+TYP Usage + OTA portal is going to end up having been a non refundable booking, even if it was not super obvious at the time.

Often1

Plain and simple, you have got to rewrite this into 3-4 short declarative sentences.

There is no way that it can be fully understood and this means that when you seek assistance, a CSR who has 30 seconds to read and evaluate what you have written, simply won't be able to.