mooper

Interesting. Because it wasn't fun for you and/or you didn't win as much as you would have liked, you're happy to see that no one else is allowed to win? Even *if* every winner was a "cheater" (clearly not the case, as many people would attest to winning without reading the cache, or by reading it but not creating any false accounts), why would you be happier to see those with the skills to win have the opportunity denied? What do you have to gain? It was a give-away by IHG, not something where others' gain was your loss.

Judgejudy

Absolutely shocking. I agree with Mooper 100% (and my winnings are the same! )
I was getting better everyday, the questions were coming around more often, I even had one over 50k that counted for nothing thanks to the bitter bleaters. I couldnt care less about how people found the questions either remembering from last time, or reading the cache thingymyjig, my only issue was the bogus accounts diluting my chance of winning

There is a guy who plays the fruit machine in my local bar. He plays it that often he knows the answers to all the questions and even can guess the order they come up in. He sits and waits and lets people who have not figured out what he has and then when he is ready he goes on and drops a load of cash.
Those who filled it up for him do not unplug the machine just because he won.
If they did not think it was 'fun' they could just not play.

So what if you couldn't win, just walk away, give it up. But leave me my chance of doing so, no matter how slim it was, it was my choice to take it or not, not yours.

Raffles

Not true.

IC has now 'saved' millions of PC points which they can use for another promotion which I can fairly win. The site says that 24 MILLION points have already been given away, so at least another 30 MILLION were due to be handed out.

I am also not losing out on redemption rooms to people who have fraudulently won points (and you can bet those who were fraudlently winning points weren't planning on redeeming them at the Holiday Inn Rotherham / Sheffield M1 Junction 33 - the bulk would have ended up at the 'big city' IC's where most of us redeem, otherwise it wasn't worth bothering cheating).

Neither am I going to lose out on a Plat upgrade because someone who fradulently won 60k points checked in ahead of me.

Judgejudy

Fair point, well made

Goonerfish

Amazing how you claim not to have 1 minute of your time spare to take part in a quiz that you have undoubtedly spent hours defending!?!? ... More strange logic!

Thank god this joke of a quiz is finished! As Raffles so rightly said, let PC save their points and put them towards a proper quiz....PLAYED THE WAY IT WAS INTENDED!!!

big_mac

Judging from the 50,000 cap, and my limited experience (I only have access to one account, not 'over a dozen', like at least one person on this thread), I think that any answer that was fast enough to score over 10,000 points was not marked.
If that's true, scores of 50,000, 49,998 etc. would have been pretty obvious examples of cheating going on.

I am also glad to see the end of this promo; while I had the ability to 'win', I did not easily manage the moral flexibility required to maximise this.
I hope that the points they saved do end up in the hands of the PC members in the future, but I agree that it's still better for the rest that they don't all end up in the hands of just a few cheats with many accounts.

notquiteaff

And I don't believe it for one second.

+1000

As IHG say themselves:

"Unfortunately, we have identified some technical issues with the Win It in a Minute trivia challenge that we believe have given certain players an unfair advantage. "

Clearly IHG agrees with those of us that have been pointing out that hacking the game by looking at the cache was in violation of the T&C.

Minneapolis

Good Riddance. What a bungled promo.

figgarro

^^^^
Flyertalk elitist hard at work! Good job not giving anyone else the opportunity to win at this.

essexadventurer

^ + 1

mnredfox

I have no evidence of anyone "cheating", but the patterns of names seemed pretty darn suspicious to me...

notquiteaff

If those others had played fairly, everyone would have had the opportunity to win. Ultimate the cheaters cheated themselves out of that opportunity. And quite frankly, if discussing the cheating here openly cost you tens of thousands of points you would have gotten unfairly, I am happy about it. ^

2millionquest

If everyone had played it as presented, and checked their "creative computer skills" at the door, the game would still be running. Everybody would still have a shot at picking up a few "free" points. Nobody would have felt a need to complain if nobody else had hacked the game. The minute those of you who chose to use "enhanced skills" started playing the game your way, the game was doomed.

Getting upset and screeching at the top of your virtual voice because your "legal loophole" got closed is a wonderful example of pure solipsism. Frankly, I've gotten more entertainment out trying to follow the convoluted logic in some of your posts to this forum than I got from the game itself.

As far as those blaming the "complainers" for the game's cancellation: Methinks thou doth protest too much!

miffSC

Totally agree. If for nothing else, and maybe not even lurking here, I believe PC may have noticed the patterns as well. Just a little too odd to be coincidental.

Me too. I liked the concept of the game and tried my best every time I played. This past week I was actually able to score in the high 100k's for a weekly total, getting all but one question right all week. Enough to win? No. Glad to see the game gone? Yes. Think PC did the right thing? Yes. Hoping for something a little more 'fair'? Also, yes.

josephstern

I actually thought:

A - The game was fun in it's original iteration.

B - I enjoyed trying to figure out how the cheaters and hackers did their work.

C - I enjoyed watching the incompetent programmers at ePrize try to outwit the cheaters.

D - I loved seeing the cheaters overcome each obstacle.

E - I liked that IHG/ePrize tried the daily limits so you had to shoot for a crazy small window.

F - I loved that many people (not me, unfortunately) figured out how to shoehorn themselves right in there (two 50Ks exactly on the last day).

G - I even love that they had to finally give up and just take it down.

This was a classic. The many looking for free points are easily able to outwit the few who had too much confidence in their skills, repeatedly.

It wasn't exactly crowdsourcing (unless there's some forum I didn't find) but it was a competitive effort to beat, first, the game, then, the other cheaters.