sophiegirl

Well, actually......moonshiners.

Vinodavid

Nice

North Carolina....moonshiners it is.

sophiegirl

Yes. So it is definitely not the "legality" of codes being used. That is up to one's personal ethics, none of my business...TEHO. As far as the codes themselves....Hyatt's choice to police or not.

My concerns are with those who actively discuss ways to game the system - because FT history proves that consistent public abuse within a program never has a positive result.

stc

IMHO, this is no different than back to back airline tickets or throwing away half an unused airline ticket because round-trip was less than 25% of a one-way ticket. If the hotels or the airlines choose to enforce their rules and drive more customers away, that is up to them. But, first they should enforce giving the benefits that travelers are entitled too. As I've said in a number of posts, I have little patience for Hyatt because IME I've pretty much always been treated like crap even when I was a Diamond member - missing stay credit, missing benefits, no upgrades, etc.

FriendlySkies

What about mileage runs, mistake fares, fuel dumps, and the like. Should we also shut down those parts of FT?

NJUPINTHEAIR

I have to disagree with you on this one Peter.

See: http://www.flyertalk.com/help/rules.php#q89


The above example mentions fraud upon the frequent stay/flier program. Use of such codes also consitutes fraud upon the private corporation that obtained such code for its employees based upon some form of consideration given to the program.

As such, it also runs afoul of the following R/T rule which bans re-printing proprietary information of another without their written consent: http://www.flyertalk.com/help/rules.php#q91

Re-printing employee rate codes that are only provided to member's of a corporation for the entire world to use directly violates the above rule.

In addition, the Marriott forum and its mods, have appropriately banned just this such a thread. Further, codes from car renatl companies are often publicly available to a certain segment of the public, whereas corporate codes are provided to a specific private entity based upon their past history and an arm's length negotiation.

This thread should be severly scrutinized and the offending codes erased, as well as the name of the thread be re-named.

peteropny

Ok - this gets into discussion of moderation - which isn't allowed on Flyertalk. However, I will respond to it by saying that I just checked the hotel and car forums and they have similar threads (even Marriott which if you look carefully enough has the corporate codes). FWIW, I'm not going to spend the time looking at all the posts in this thread for "offending" codes and edit them out. If Flyertalk decides for all forums that such a thread isn't allowed, this thread will simply be deleted.

On a side isssue, I have a proposal in with Hyatt about creation of a code for Flyertalk (and milepoint) people - not sure if Hyatt will go for it (they're considering it though).

Anyways, please discontinue this line of discussion about whether or not corporate codes should be posted. Reality is that it exists for the applicable forums - and only issue is whether your personal ethics allow you to use them when you are not eligible. Thanks!!! (Any further discussion may be deleted).

Firewind

I logged all the codes in this thread in an email, and sent it to myself on Monday. I looked in my "Hyatt" email folder, and saw that I'd done the same a couple of years ago.

yousavvy

Did you happen to log in all the GE codes? I have tried a few posted here with little success. I am actually probably eligible for this code anyhow, as I am a distributor for GE as one of my lines

I have the codes from page 22, any others that may have been deleted over time?

Firewind

Haven't tried any lately. And I believe that the GE one is the same as it's always been. Though I did end up with some codes that don't have homes. (More GE? I did wonder if one commenter above added decoys...) But as I say, it took long enough to troll - er - comb - through, so I haven't tested them.

fireworksboy

Awesome idea Peter! I know we're just a tiny fraction of travelers but FTers a loyal bunch and I believe we would prove our worthiness in short order.

seanthepilot

Great initiative. I hope you have better luck than I did at Starwood. :-s

NJUPINTHEAIR

My post was not meant as a comparison or criticsm of your moderation which I think has been excellent, it was only meant to address the issue of what other forums have done. No need to continue this any further, anyway.

With respect to your discussion with Hyatt, I hope it bears some fruit, but I doubt that it will surpass the AAA discount that is available to members of the auto club.

But good luck, anyway!

untamed

Just curious, does those corporate rate allow you to cancel 4pm the day of arrival? If you missed the deadline, and was reject to use the corporate rate, do you have to pay for the rack rate?

dstrahm

All this fuss about the "ethics" of using corporate discount codes. Two major corporations I used to work for both encouraged employees and former employees to use their corporate codes for both business and leisure travel. Their rationale is that the discounts provided to the corporations were based in part on the volume of business being directed towards the particular hotel, car rental, etc.

As far as I am aware, the corporations that negotiate rates do not pay anything to the hotels for each room-night. The discount codes are simply an affinity program whereby the corporatation negotiates a discount for its employees in exchange for the employees favoring a particular brand of hotel or car rental. How is this any different from any other travel "aggregator" or affinity program?

The various rates that a property charges are typically unrelated to the actual goods and services delivered - the rooms are the same and the service is the same. There may be some minor variations such as Internet access and club level access, but generally we are dealing with a commodity item. More than a few times when checking in without a reservation I will ask for the AAA rate, which is typically one of the lowest in their rate charts. In almost all the the instances they will give me that rate without even asking if I am a AAA member or asking for proof of membership.

The decision to allow a guest to use a discount rate hinges more on the property's desire to book a room than any perceived entitlement to use the code.

If it bothers you to use the codes, then don't. For me, I'll gravitate to businesses that want my business and are willing to haggle a bit to get it.