When you click on one of the GP shopping categories (for example "food" or "books"), it is at the bottom of the page.

Thanks. I guess that technically gives them six calendar weeks. I'm not sure I can be quite that patient, given that most point postings take only a few days.

yeah - if you ask me, it's incredibly stupid.

it's just a matter of entering a few numbers into a computer. what could possibly take so long? it's not like they're counting cereal certificates

I am only guessing, but wouldn't you think that all of this would typicallly be done automatically and electronically? I just can't believe that there would typically be any manual input involved. So that leads me to believe that GP is intentionally holding up these postings. Curiously, my recent GP transactions (within the last week) have posted within a couple of days. Also, I have one transaction from 12/27 that GP says has been "credited" to my account but the points "won't be available" til the end of 30 days.

but then what was all this talk of "backlog"? do you think it was all smoke?

i'm inclined to agree with you cactuspete.

I just hope that they aren't delaying the postings while they dream up a program "enhancement" that limits our ability to use the points (like LatinPass seemed to do while they killed the Marriott transfer option).

I suspect that GP may be holding up the posting of certain accounts to manage the timing of their expenditures.

Those FF miles cost them money. If they had a budget problem in 2001, I don't think it would be unusual for them to incur those expenses in 2002. So maybe they put a large batch of transactions in the queue for 2002, and are just trickling them out because of system capacity issues, etc.

How many miles do you need to get lifetime status on AA, UA and CO?

Thanks
Spaceboy

These are the only ones I'm familiar with:

AA Lifetime Gold: 1,000,000 "program-to-date" miles from any source.
AA Lifetime Platinum: 2,000,000 "program-to-date" miles from any source.

UA Lifetime Premier Executive: 1,000,000 actual flight miles to date.




[This message has been edited by Neal (edited 01-16-2002).]

The flight miles have to be paid miles, right? (No credit for miles from flights entirely paid with mileage award certs.)

Kathy

NWA is generally about 1 week

Does anyone know if the radisson / goldpoints conversion is accessible for europe-based customers ?

For those still waiting, I placed an order with Valuemags/Goldpoints for $800 on 12/26. The points had previously posted at 150/$. After sending in the requested fax to Goldpoints, and completely ignoring Valuemags request that I agree to a new return policy, the full 450 points/dollar posted today.

When did you fax your email confirmation receipts?

I have experience with LinkShare, the "middleman" used by GP and many of their online affiliated stores. It is all automated & electronic, but unfortunately LS is notorious for losing and delaying the reporting of online sales back to the site from which they were referred, GP in this case. They do send out monthly "reconciliation" files to their bigger referring sites, which pick up some of the lost data, and this may be part of the basis for the 30-day wait. Anything that doesn't show up in this data from LS probably needs to be manually investigated by the GP customer service department.


------------------
An infrequent flyer trying to change that by earning my miles via alternate methods!
and webmaster at http://www.RewardsLookup.com

Does anyone know how long it takes for goldpoints to make use of the automated FF withdrawl? I've requested it a few weeks ago but the points just keep accumulating in my account... I heard 3-4 weeks. Is this true?

My experiences (2) are they happen during the same week. I recently had 20k GP points post, three days later they transferred out to AA.

Well. that may explain some things. Like why GP is so quick to manually change points where the wrong amount has been awarded, but makes you wait the 30 days where points are missing altogether. Call me skeptical, but it just seems too "convenient" that all of the big orders at the end of the year got hung up.

You should give them a call. When I called to set up the automatic transfer it took less than a week for it to kick in. The way it works (for AA at least) is that any time you have over 2k GPs in your account on a Sunday, it should take the points out of your account in 2k increments. The AA miles then post on the following Thursday (with some nice 500 mile bonuses at certain levels).

While it took a few phone calls (and more than the stated 30 days), thanks to GP, Valuemags and especially FT, I was able to book my C class LAX-CNS-MEL-SYD-LAX trip this week!!! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I found out some interesting info when I called GP. Apparently any account with more than 100k points was put on hold since Jan 2 for 30 days so you can't withdraw any points until Feb 2. 250,000 miles per week was the max they could post to the airlines. Anyone else hear this story from Goldpoints? Thanks.

Not true, based on my experience. (GP acct has >100k points, and I've made 2 transfers since Jan 2.)

Either Friday the 28th or Tuesday the 2nd. Can't remember exactly - the fax confirmation is at work.

Did anyone here still waiting for (proper) points to post from ValueMags transactions (as I am,) catch this from the transcript of the live chat the other night?


MileKing
Have you learned any more about the GoldPoints/ValueMags situation, i.e., who forced them to pull the 450 pt. promo early and will they offer anything of that magnitude again in the future?


Randy Petersen
very interesting question and one that's likely to be resolved by legal means. Shows again that people underestimate the intelligence of FlyerTalkers and how powerful we are as a group. I do know this: A new Vice President just came in and doesn't appear to like the way things were done. I'd let that bookmark expire.

Would someone care to translate the meaning of the above RP response?

Yeah I saw that, and was wondering what he meant when he said that it would likely be "resolved by legal means." Hmm. I think he's referring to the big-time orders of the business venture that started up to take advantage (or "rape", as someone else said) of the GoldPoints triple promotion.

And Randy has all but confirmed that we'll never see anything like this again. I saw that one coming after all the flurry of activity that erupted on Flyertalk from day one that this deal was announced.

As for my order, I'm happy to report that my 300 missing pts per dollar posted on Jan 17 (I only got 150 pts/$ in the days following my orders) after a couple phone calls and faxes. And I never started a dispute with Amex after reading the advice of others here, and agreeing that a charge card dispute can be started much much later, after I've exhausted all other options.

Wish I could oblige.

I don't know what it means, but it certainly doesn't make me feel any better about the status of my account-- nearly a dozen reassuring e-mails from ValueMags notwithstanding.

JonNYC: i completely agree.

i'd say i've been very patient with my order. yes, i was very fortunate to do this before all the major hype (i think it started after i posted to Buzz!...am i right?), but i had to make one additional purchase and waiting and waiting and waiting is making me cranky.

i emailed valuemags last monday and they said:
anyone else with a similar experience?

I'll take a stab at interpretation: Those who were depending upon the Goldpoints/Valuemags 450 pnt per $ promo ending 12/31, and didn't/won't be getting that, might choose to sue. And don't expect the new VP to be offering any more huge incentives such as that promotion offered.

JonNYC, have you contacted only ValueMags? If so, I would urge you to get in touch with GoldPoints customer service.

In the pursuit of my missing 300 pts/$, I never dealt with ValueMags at all...I dealt strictly with Goldpoints. From reading what others were posting here in Flyertalk, it seems that GoldPoints holds all the cards. ValueMags does little more than forward your requests to GoldPoints.

The number for GoldPoints is 1-800-508-9000, dial 9 for customer service during business hours. After hours you will only get an always full voice mail box recording.

I will certainly take your advice and do that first thing in the morning. ValueMags had sent me no less than 9 different replies-- all saying "all is fine," "points will post in a week," "we will get this straightened out," "no need to worry," etc. So, foolishly, I waited patiently.

For my purposes this whole thing was a major waste of time and major pain in the butt. I kinda hope some people end up suing, as Randy alluded to-- so that ValueMags/Goldpoints can have some of their time wasted as well. What a stupid situation.

I certainly hope there aren't to many folks who made ValueMags purchases beyond the date when the promotion was withdrawn-- they really have their work cut out for them.

JonNYC: looks like you and i will be having a similar morning tomorrow.

i have no points and you don't have the right amount of points. i wonder how this will all shake out?

i have no worries about litigation. when i make my purchases on 12/19, the offer was completely intact and on the website.

That would suggest that you've never before been involved in it.

Assuming that you believe that your damages exceed a few thousand dollars (that is, more than small claims), do you have any idea what the (1)costs and (b)time would be?

Actually, it would be interesting to see if you could find (or would want) an atty who'd take the case on a %+cost basis rather than hourly fee + cost.

That's why god invented class-action lawsuits.

And while I certainly don't think it will come to that, I will say that my conversation this morning with GoldPoints was not particularly reassuring.

JONNYC: What did they say to you please?

Well the CSR I spoke to was very polite, friendly and apologetic. However:

* She couldn't explain why points were deducted from my account just this morning.
* She couldn't explain why two of my transactions never posted at all.
* She couldn't explain why none of my purchases posted at 450 pts. per $.
* She couldn't estimate when things will get straightened out.

She made reference to "meetings" and "conversations" that had been taking place and that she would pass on my info to her "sup."

I had a pretty good feeling about the conversation until she said the following (verbatim) "we're just hoping that, in the end, it will all come out on the warsh (sic)"

That does not comport with the 100% confident answers I had been getting from ValueMag's CSRs. She also said "no one's really been able to explain this to us."

She sounded very confused and stressed out. She was quite apologetic. Maybe I'm reading in too much.

JonNYC:

Thanks for the detail (vague tho the rep's answers were).

This morning my GP balance also says zero with no transactions posting. I didn't have enough points for the auto transfer of 2000, so hopefully something posted from Valuemags or Hallmark.

Still waiting. . .

[This message has been edited by paradocs (edited 01-21-2002).]

See my posts in the Point Conversion thread onthe Radisson board my account shows 0 balance too should be only 1790 since yesterdays redemption. It appears they are taking back the points for the amount of your discount ie you get points on the $ value AFTER the discount.
Mike

I am missing around 500,000 points from two Valuemags orders (Dec 18th/19th) and a Hallmark order (Dec 29th), I also jsut had 14,000 points removed from my goldpoints account for no apparent reason.

I called Goldpoints and spoke to a polite CSR who gave lots of information but was unable to do anything to help. He told me the following:

1) Due to the massive response to the triple points promotion they were overwhelmed with orders at the end of December.

2) On January 4th "Goldpoints, the intermediary and the affiliates" agreed to put a 30 hold on the posting of points as allowed under the terms and conditions. The 30 days is from January 4th NOT the date of the order.

3) Before the end of the 30 days they are going to audit all the transactions from the triple points promotion and ensure everything is correct.

4) After the 30 days (Feb 3rd) if points are still not correct then we should call then to get discrepencies looked at.

5) The CSR did not know why points were deducted (I did not use the 15% off coupon so it is unlikely to be that).

6) Points currently in the goldpoints account can be transferred to an airline.

I was reassured by the CSR that I would get my points (hopwefully not in the same way that the CEO of Enron reassured his employees that they should keep buying stock while he was cashing out).

I hope they do get this all resolved soon otherwise my honeymoon to Australia is gonig to cost me a lot more for travel than I anticipated http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Mark.

my big problem with this is that i'll be in australia on feb 3 until november...that makes it VERY difficult to deal with this issue.

they said thirty business days from the date of transaction...for me that's the 31st of this month.

well, the story seems to change regularly.

i spoke to jim at goldpoints. he told me that the delay was because of the computer system.

to ensure customers dont cancel at valuemags, they're holding the points for 30 days. they can't put the values into the computer at all, because the system wasn't designed for that. consequently, once the thiry days expire, they are then MAUALLY entering in points. he told me they are 2 weeks behind in manually entering points.

*sigh*

at least he was polite http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

but the story keeps changing.......