LTN Phobia

I am having yet another occasion of Ambassador pack not having been received. It happens pretty much every year, and I am getting a little fed up with it. I should have received it by the end of February but no, it's mid-April and still no pack. My husband's is also missing, although his is not as bad as mine as his renewal date is a month behind mine.

Last year and the year before they did not turned up at all for me, and I had to have them re-sent, extremely reluctantly, with quoted "8 weeks" waiting time (in the end it took 3 months, not 8 weeks, for the replacement to be received, if I remember correctly).

Is there a serious problem with their fulfilment system, or are they intentionally delaying sending them out until they are chased, so that we have much shorter period to redeem the Amb weekend certificate?

I have heard of many similar cases, but I'm wondering if there is a way of improving reliability of their delivery, or to have it reissued more easily?

scubaccr

I don't think IHG have any ongoing plan delaying sending out the welcome packs. Going back several years to my ambassador signup, the first pack arrived in 2-3 weeks (I was away so don't know which date exactly pack arrived)

I know from 2years ago when my RA pack never arrived, it got an @emergency reorder", which much have some delay as packs are not off the shelf as personalised with name+member number on card etc. Maybe IHG don't make packs up everyday and just do one big run a month for renewals?

My RA year ended 31Aug2013, IHG incorrectly decided i dd not requal as RA, and I received Plain Ambasador pack 11th Sep 2014.

I contacted Amb desk 2nd Sep 2013 and got my RA status manually re-instated and my RA pack arrived 13th Sep , 11days to create, post and arrive in amsterdam.

htb

My Ambassador pack consistently takes way longer than indicated (25% of the time) or never arrives and has to be re-sent (75% of the time).

The replacement is usually sent in a way that it can be tracked.

I think IHG has major issues with their shipping system.

HTB.

Globalist

In the 3 years I was RA my pack never arrived, had to reorder and did not arrive again. 3rd time it got sent via fedex and it arrived. Every year the same thing, now down to Amb and it happened again.

No idea why it seems so difficult.

Globalist

uk1

A problem ICHG are clearly not bothered about ever curing.

EG Earlier threads:

Unsolved issues with (Royal) AMbassador service over long time

The Unbelievable History of A Portfolio .... they send at least nine .....they claim ...

OrientExpress

my 4 years experiences:
1st year: Standard Kit not arrived, order replacement, they sent via Fedex
2nd & 3rd year: order replacement, sent via Fedex, one week later, Standard Kit arrived, so i have two BOGO Cert per year
This year: received only replacement.

camsean

I had this problem for the current year. It took me emailing a marketing manager in the US to finally get the package. All up, it was something like 4 and a half months from sign up.

The problem was so bad, I probably won't sign up again. It doesn't seem worth the hassle.

johhenrik

You sign up for the welcoming package? I mean, you get the benefits of being an Ambassador from the day you become a member, even if you don't get a luggage tag or membership card in the mail.

lcpteck

There is also the BOGO cert in the welcome pack and the 5K points.

johhenrik

Well, those aren't worth $200 anymore I would say. Sure, they had a good value before they introduced the Amb Cert Weekend rate, but now that rate is usually just the same as BFR anyways in my experience. But yeah, if you need to book a weekend on a short notice and can't get an advance saver rate, I guess they can be good.

redshift27

My renewal pack just arrived on time, about 6 weeks after payment, without need for chasing. A first.

BRAISKI

So they told me...

So far its been about 5 weeks, I guess I will wait for 2 more weeks and contact them and ask for a "second" BOGO

uk1

Against all the other IT defects they have built in, resulting in points theft etc ... they have built in a wonderful set of fully ripened conditions for both Ambassador box theft and therefore weekend cert theft, plus from their point of view a perfect RA kit theft environment.

If someone in the chain is stealing boxes and selling them for example on eBay ... and some characters have had access to a puzzling number of RA certs, then having this lovely period of 7 weeks before they investigate gives whoever is intercepting these boxes a very leisurely opportunity to sell RA certs.

The bad boys have a box with the RA cert, a membership card and therefore referral membership name and number to write on the cert, to use to assist the referral and 7 weeks grace to sell it and collect the cash before the slow wheels of IC then gurgle to a start and send out a new one. In my wife's case highlighted in the earlier post, they admitted to having sent out 9 RA boxes where they had no idea where they went but confirmed that they knew my wife hadn't received any of them. They admitted that things were going seriously wrong. They seem to have a process where many people don't receive them and many people are selling them.

They could of course action the stolen boxes ... but do they ever do anything competent or coherent on this front? If they did they would be able to cancel some of the duplicates that some here regularly admit to receiving and use ... wouldn't they?

BRAISKI

Thats the thing too is the RA box has a different colour! But even the AMB boxes they can always get the BOGO and sell it.
I wouldn't be surprised that some RAs here have unknowingly already "referred" someone and once they get their package they get to refer again someone "again".

If they only ship them via registered mail and or parcel then they wouldn't have this issues, but I guess they are too cheap to do this!

uk1

Call me a cynical old bugger, but this process is so odd, that you wonder whether the people preserving the process are the people "benefitting" from it. What other explanation could there be for something so tradable and often traded so much to be sent by normal mail that is planned to take 7 weeks but then seems so often not to arrive? And it is been going on for years, and years etc and no one seems interested in doing anything about it.

Is that not too strange ...