ysb41

feel sorry for the OP, judge by the cases reported so far, this wave of account closure is targeting members with a Chinese names, or similar, regardless of your nationality.

so far, no case has been reported on FT other than OPs, but on a similar Chinese FF forums,countless cases have been reported, including few RAs.

People on this forums, myself included, all are taking advantage of those promotion codes, targeted, or not. IHG is now closing one's account by simply saying that you are using non targeted code, which sounds not right to me, to be honest, who it is not on this forum???

ysb41

thats a totally different case, that wave of account audit was NOT account closure, was not targeting a particular group based on their names.

IC6A

Thanks to the translation function of Google web. I successfully understand some part of the story:

IHG in USA closed down quite a lot PC member accounts who all appears to be Chinese names have registered addresses in China and North America.

People called PCR China hotline but was told they should talk to America.

The person who speaks to US PCR member service was told that their account is SHUT DOWN. And the reason for the closed down is that they suspect that the members registered too many prmotion which they should not to.

It is very different from the QUIZ-gate.

The QUIZ-gate is globally auditing and members get their account back after typically one week. This time IHG is targeting members with Chinese names (appears to be at this stage) registered promotion codes and completely shut down their membership.

I am disappointed that so many FTs are short of support to the people who are affected. Let us face it, we, here all enjoyed the promo code posted by Radioman. And according to some posts in the Chinese forum that they get the code from Flyertalk.

Today IHG is closing down the members with Chinese names. Tomorrow it might be YOU with the names of White or Brown. We are in the same boat as we are all guilty here to register all the promos we can find in this forum.

Happy

My question as well!

Can the OP be more specific on this?

EDIT:

OP said he lives in US, so the account presumably has a US address with 7 years history.

The most disturbing part is about OP's father's account - that his has over 100 nights stay with IHG and the earnings dont seem excessive even with the promos.

ysb41

^

Happy

Can you provide the URLs for these reports? I would like to read them even thru the Google translation.

Thanks.

IC6A

Topic 1

Topic 2

Topic 3

English Here

yann

+1

GUWonder

It is indeed scandalous when a travel service provider shuts down an individual's "loyalty" program account on the basis of a presumption of wrongdoing when there is no evidence of wrongdoing by the individual.

A presumption of wrongdoing built upon the basis of the customer racking up a lot of points from legitimate stays and numerous promotions whose terms don't prohibit registration is indeed something that needs to be criticized -- and criticized more so when such ridiculous presumption of wrongdoing rests upon disgusting national and/or ethnic stereotypes.

There is nothing good in Priority Club changing the rules of the game after the game has already been played.

Happy

Among those talks, someone mentioned about the potential trigger of account closure:

Large redemption of points - the 2 recent cases cited, one is the OP's and the other both involved a single redemption of hundreds of Thousands of points, probably 1 week's stay in a single redemption.

And yes, there are account closures involved Chinese customers whose addresses are in US and accounts are several years old, including RAs.

One reason cited by PCR for closure, is to access several accounts via same IP, presumably multiple accounts owned by same person.

I found the above excuse outrageous. How many FTers have accounts for both spouses and parents and in-laws, all managed by one person in the family?

According to the posts, the Chinese customers have already contacted Josh Ellerman without achieving any progress. Some are considering lawsuit filed in China.

Happy

From what I read on the Chinese forums, this seems to be exactly what has been happening.

Like IC6A said, it can happen to any of us here for we all have registered codes learned from this forum.

This indeed is disturbing. I too, am disappointed that not many FTers have sympathy / support to those who currently suffer. It can easily be us in the next go-round.

dabears

The OP and all others who were impacted have my support provided that the information they have provided is accurate. This is very disturbing indeed.

Me2Earth

To the OP,

I will assume that there are three different credit cards used on the three accounts right?

It is as simple as that. If it is the same card then it is just one person with multiple accounts.

My wife uses her own credit card for the PC transaction though we have the same IP address and same PC address as well.

yyliu88

My father has his own CC in China

I use my Priority Club CC issued in China for all PCR stays worldwide

My wife doesn't stay a lot, she uses SPG card

It has nothing to do with CC, it's name!

Jaimito Cartero

I manage my family accounts, but 99% of the activity is on my account. I also redeem quite a bit. I think about 200k in the last couple of weeks.

I know that some people book some of the refer a friend promos, and then consolidate the accounts later. Or sign up for all the promos for a new account, and then later will consolidate it. If any of this activity has gone on, I can certainly understand their wanting to nip it in the bud.

If you father only got 150k for 100 nights, I'd say you haven't been reading the forum enough. 150k for 25 or 30 nights would be decent, but for 100 nights, it's pitiful.