Lehava

Most credit cards dont work until you get them and call the 1800 number to activate them.. Dont lose hope yet.

mbreuer

I agree they should pull the plug. But as mentioned, they either need to honor the promotion for those who applied for the card, or undo the application, including the inquiry.

cova

Give away Plat also means give away SkyTeam Elite Plus and its associated benefits. No wonder CO is viewed as the odd ball in the SkyTeam alliance and likely why Air France will not let CO SkyTeam Elite Plus members in many of its international lounges.

There should never be more than Silver as a give away - that allows execs who buy full Y fares to get an upgrade and get elite access priviledges. Otherwise you send a message - execs go ahead and buy cheap tickets - we will upgrade you with free Plat status. I also think wallet candy should be no higher than Silver.

For matching - match only up to Gold. AA only matches up to the second tier.

MIA-SAT

Hilton Honors did revoke my non-targeted Gold Card, but I was sent another promotion, stayed the required nights and got the Gold Card through through the promotion directed to me. Your experience was different than mine.

I think posters may want to consider another problem that will arise. The quantity of F seats on CO or NW has not gone up as a result of this promotion. As you proportionately increase the supply of Plats who gained the benefit without flying, the Golds and Silvers and flying Plats will receive fewer and fewer upgrades.

To those who are snapping up the cards without the BIS miles, go for it. Enjoy it while you can. You had better hope deep down that CO does stop this however, CO cannot survive long when the BIS Plats, Golds and Silvers who actually buy tickets on CO abandon it for an incredibly stupid marketing move. Think about the other postings you have seen recently about decreasing upgrades for elites, and this promo just started in the past few weeks. Bloat the elite pool with people who do not provide additional ticket revenue for CO and the upgrade levels will plummet, and consequently the level of flying by those who actually spend money on plane tickets. What a thought, expecting more elite benefits by actually flying more!

At least UA's and other double EQM promotions required the person to actually fly to get the double miles.

fireworksboy

Agreed. Paging cigarman... cigarman please come to the podium and save us all from this insanity.
OK, seriously, anyone know how to get a hold of cigarman?

J.Edward

Why bother Cigarman? All that's needed is a call to CO. I tried calling Victor and Mark Bergsrud (sp?) a few minutes ago and got through to their voicemail. However, considering that A) the call was fairly early B) we’re still in the “holiday season” (as in people come in late ) I’ll give ‘em another ring in an hour or so.

J.Edward

Yes, post a topic to the extent of:

That'll get him up

OnePassMan

Classic!

PS - The "Z" link in your sig does not work?

Cyberridge

Is it really Platinum Elite or just a Platinum MasterCard?

bocastephen

Westtexas, I understand what you're saying, however, given the T+C listed in the offer were quite clear the offer was only available to targeted customers - if someone who was not targeted applied for the card and had their status denied or revoked because they were not targeted, as far as I'm concerned, they accepted any liability for the added credit inquiry and deserve nothing except a refund of the annual fee, if they cancel the card.

The bigger issue is the flood of applications that could be hitting Chase as we speak - and the mess both CO and Chase (although given their legendary poor customer service, I have little sympathy for Chase) will need to weed through to undo this is a total waste of resources.

We have all tried applying for promo codes found on FT and were frequently denied at the application point because we were not targeted, and we can debate whether our behavior is good or bad board citizenship, but whoever did the back-end programming on that CO webpage and forgot to match the application approval system to the targeted list, should be drawn and quartered - the denial should have been generated on the spot by the application approval system when the applicant (their name and address) did not match the marketing list.

As for what CO needs to do right now...this very minute...get those $%!!?* codes taken down and stop the application flood! We all know certain CO execs read FT and they must be aware of this thread (or have been told about it) - holiday week or not, a call to an IT manager to get those codes down takes all of a few minutes. I would be very shocked and unhappy to find those promo codes still active in the system.

ctownflyer

OK, please help me out!
I just recieved the World MC last week, what do i do??
Will chase let me have 2 world mc's?
Do i cancel it and reapply?
Help!
TIA.

mlawless

This is a crazy promotion.

You can just e-mail Mark Bergsrud and Victor the link to the thread.

Secondly, this promotion far exceeds the price/value relationship of the American Express Centurion card, which is supposed to be THE elite card and benefits package.

Third, I hope the entire world (fatwallet.com) does register for this promotion. It will force CO to implement a strategy to deal with the problem. If only 50 extra people get PE bbecause of this, they may take a softer stance.

Fourth, even though I believe that this was a very queit promotion for a reason and despite some hacking (I like the fact Speedyturtle is testing the system and coming up with promos) we never should have known about it. I am kind of disappointed to see Larry Kellner telling us one thing and then catch them with their hand (or their customer's) in the cookie jar.

It bothers me that they give away this status that we go through quite a bit of trouble to earn.

Overall, I like CO and think they are a good airline. It just frustrates me to see things like this. Maybe Cigarman can actually have CO put together a council of 6-8 Elites that would meet quartlerly to represent issues that we percevie to be a problem/concern.

As in many situations, reality and perception may be two entirely different things. Managing perception is very important to gain a desired image. Reality just backs up that perception.

ng_iint

All you can say is amazing.
As of a few minutes ago you can still register for this offer. I even got the, you have registered, email.
The fact I actually flew to keep my status is a bit of a rub. Hopefully they will live up to the conditions about it being targeted so that the flood gates don't open with 100s (1000s?) of new plats. I can't argue with being comped, since CO matched my DL status several years ago. But I have kept my loyalty to CO and have earned my status every year. Every year we see our benifits cut and now we'll be competing with the new, I didn't even have to fly elites.
If it does go though I bet NW will cut out our upgrades, and who could blame them.

oopsz

How about knocking down ALL the people who registered but weren't eligible to no status proletarians? Even if they earned it?

That would prove how much they want to keep elite benefits from being diluted, in my opinion. And it would sure show all the people who weren't targeted that they should know better.

I think it's a fantastic idea.

Ken in Phx

When is everyone going to learn that "Their" Airline of Choice, in this example Continental, DOESNT care about them!

Do you think they care if you take your business elsewhere? The people that Continental loses go to Airline B, Airline B loses customers back to Continental.

One day, fliers will actually realize that the airline doesnt care about them. I am not sure when that will happen for most of us, but I bet its soon.

Not to mention tha fact that the Legacy airlines are debt ridden, bloated corporations that hemmorhage money and should be shuddered for lack of business acumen.

off the soap box

Ken in Phx