Gold Pointless Promotion
 

I am beginning to think that the Valumags is a ¨pointless¨ promotion. Bad pun, yes. Anyways, my purpose of this post is to find out what others did successfully to get points posted.
I have called and left messages, I have emailed and I have faxed receipts twice. My balance is still 0.

------------------
"Fly me to the moon and let me earn alot of miles."

I've received all of my points for Valuemags purchases minus the double deductions. I had to fax my invoice copies several times, including once to Mr. Schrum. I'm still waiting for my points for paper Giftcerts. I was told GP is still working overtime to finish the processing.

Got all my points from Hickory Farms at gross. This is notable since I used a 40% discount. Got all my points for ValueMags at net, less a 15% discount. Hallmark is a totally different story. about 25% of the points for e-certs have posted and 0 poins for paper certs. I am sending copies of all receipts and statements today by express mail.

phoenix-

Yes it is indeed frustrating!

Phoenix--what do you mean by double deduction?

I, am some other FT'rs, have noticed two sets of point deductions for purchases that had been made during December. GP was giving points based on full purchase price, then later deducting points based on the actual purchase price (some vendors had discount going). The next thing we noticed were additional deductions for the same purchases. One thread mentioned a computer glitch causing the double deducts. Check out some of the other threads and you'll see what I'm referring to.

I've called the last three Monday's and each time promised that the missing points would post by Friday. (Twice by Pam). Well.. Friday #3 has come and (almost) gone, and I still don't have them yet.

My ValueMag points posted this week. My purchase date was 12/25

Ditto, my valuemags orders finally posted on Tuesday, from orders dating back to 12/22 & 12/23. My first order posted immediately in December, but my other 4 orders had not. After 45 days of waiting my patience turned to persistance. I had faxed over my receipts and a letter to Mr. Schrum a few weeks ago - no response, no points. Monday I was fed up and faxed my receipts with a new letter, some questionable comments about the Carlson computers, and I went ahead and calculated the points due in my account.

Tuesday I received an email acknowledgement letting me know that my account was being expedited and the points should post in 48 hours. My points posted later that same day at the gross amount which is what I was originally promised.

Hooray for Carlson and Goldpoints. They finally came through and I will be sending a follow-up fax thanking them for making things right.

My advice - if you are past 45 days and not happy with the state of your account write a detailed letter regarding your orders and a chronology of what has taken place. Calculate the points due and fax it to Mr. Schrum's office. Give them some time and if you receive no acknowledgement, follow up with a second, updated letter, sent to both Mr. Schrum and Ms. Marilyn Carlson Nelson.

It's unfortunate that the points could not have been more timely in their posting. I do not mind being patient and waiting. But with no feedback and seeing a '0' balance in my GoldPoints account for over 30 straight days I asked for their attention and was finally bumped to the front of the line.

Good Luck, and Thank You Carlson Marketing.

worldbanker: What explanation has Goldpoints given you for not posting any points? Did they not receive any reports from Valumag? I got the remainder of my missing points this past week,(not without a hassle.) I was told they finished with everyone. I definitely would send those faxes to corporate. I have another idea which I'll email to you, assuming your email address is in your profile.

Thanks for the info. I am also patient but sometimes do need an answer or some feedback. My calls all went to voicemail and none of them have been returned. Out of several emails, only the one to Gold Points has been answered. Their only response was to fax the receipts again. So I stand at 7 phone calls, 4 emails and 2 faxes of receipts and I do not remember how many posts on FT about Gold Points.

What just gets frustrating is to be in Europe for a couple of months and having to make $4/ minute calls to an 800 number which no one seems to answer, emails that do not get results, etc. This is why I posted the question of how others have been successful as I may be spending too much time doing the wrong thing possibly? That is why I think it is a pointless promotion.



------------------
"Fly me to the moon and let me earn alot of miles."

4 out of 5 orders posted at net.
double deductions taken on all 4.
Missing over 1 million miles, 2 million posted tp BA and AA already.
No phone calls about points discrepancy yet (2 calls to redeem miles).
2 faxes, one earlier on gross, second one on the 8th on net with lots of details.
1 email to [email protected] 1 week after second fax, got a reply that fax had been received, was given a case number and was told that it could take up to 4 weeks for missing order to post and for erroneous deductions to be credited back so that I would at least get points on the net amount spent.
All orders were placed between 19th and 24th of Dec.

Call Valuemag @ 800-684-5373 and talk to Shari, give her your goldpoints account number. Ask her to sent an email of your magazine order with the confirmation number, with the dollar amount and your goldpoints account number, to goldpoints.com and to yourself. It would be helpful if you can provide her the date of purchase and dollar amount. Within 5 days after I got her email, all of my missing points showed up.

double post deleted

[This message has been edited by Neal (edited 02-16-2002).]

I can't help but wonder if the double deductions,(which affected me too,)was intentional. First, they reneged on giving points on the gross, no doubt to help cut their losses. Perhaps they figured some people wouldn't notice the double deduction. Just think how much more money this would save them if even a few members didn't catch it. Their losses from so many people taking advantage of the promotion must be staggering. I assume Goldpoints is on "the up and up" yet I still wonder about it.



[This message has been edited by Neal (edited 02-16-2002).]

The goldpoints that I should receive for my valuemags purchase from December have not yet posted. The goldpoints that I should receive for my hallmark.com purchase from December have not yet posted. I respectfully waited the requisit 30 days before I sent goldpoints a fax memo along with copy of the emails confirming the purchases. Two days later I sent a email to follow up. Two days after that, I receive an email from goldpoints advising me it'll take them about 6 weeks to take care of my complaint. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif To say that I am upset is an understatement. I didn't even buy thousands of dollars worth of stuff -- just a few measly hundred. You'd think it wouldn't be hard to take care of my account.

Just so you guys don't feel alone, I am missing over 2 million points. Lots of reassurances, but no results yet.

I think some kind of extra compensation on the part of GP's is definitely in order to show good faith to those of us who have waited the allotted 30 days (after having already paid).

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/rolleyes.gif

cactuspete,

i for one am sick of your attitude toward people who are asking for what was agreed upon. these people have been waiting for, in some cases, up to 60 days to get their points posted. we all know that goldpoints said 30 days and we all had our credit cards charged on day one.

goldpoints has breached a contract, and, for some people, there could be damages (inability to redeem desired awards, for one). when a contract is breached, compensation is due. volunteering to be bumped works along this principle, except in that case you and the airline are agreeing to breach the contract of carriage. i don't recall goldpoints asking permission to not post points.

for the record, all of my points have been posted and transferred, so i have no particular bone to pick with goldpoints except that they honor the terms of their agreement with their customers.

THANK YOU, ENDER.

And this week's auto transfer of points didn't occur on Sunday as usual. I called this morning asking why and they said there was a delay and they should transfer by the end of the week. I then asked about my missing ValueMags points for 12/20 and they said they had been received from VM and they should also post by the end of the week, but only on the discounted price. Seems they are trying to delay transfering miles even longer by not doing the auto transfers.

Pat

ender83, I for one am sick of the attitude of you and many others here. Greed, greed, greed. Be real.

well, you are always free to take your sanctimony somewhere else.

Well, if Pete is headed out I'll drop by with a little sanctimony. Golpoints has to be the best case yet of the invasion of the greedbags into FT. On a much smaller scale check out the threads on the Automall where it gave 62000 Hilton points instead of 500. There are folks over there claiming it's their divine right to these points.

In the case of Goldpoints, those who ordered before changes were made are of course entitled your points even if you were unfair to the companies involved if you ordered millions of points worth. But the general attitude is of small, impatient minds who are self deluded into thinking they are 'important customers' You're gougers that true capitalists have to cover with real customers who end up paying for you, just like shoplifters (not in the legal sense, the moral sense)


[This message has been edited by wormwood (edited 02-19-2002).]

Sorry, no such luck.

And thanks for the compliment.

Once again, wormwood states the case far more eloquently.

If you order $100 of magazines you are an ethical saint, if you order more than that you are unethical.

Who needs to get real here?

[This message has been edited by Mvic (edited 02-19-2002).]

Mvic,

It isn't logic at all. It's fairness.

Mvic,

You seem to have removed logic from your comment. Fair enough.

As to ethical, yes, a reasonable purchase is ethical (though I never mentioned beatification) a huge purchase is unethical in my opinion. It wasn't done as a 'customer' it was done as an attack on the program (admittedly within the rules as I have said all along) with no purpose other than to gouge Goldpoints for their mistake. Takings advantage of someones mistake is, well, unethecial and immoral.

Mistake? Since when was the GoldPoints promotion a mistake? This was not a web site error - this was an ESTABLISHED triple-point promotion. There was no 'ethical violation' involved. Suppose someone is buying dollar bills for $1.50 each, no limit. Why is it wrong to go to the bank, get $100 (or $1000) in bills, and get 50% back on your investment?

GoldPoints and ValueMags came up with the promotion to SELL MAGAZINES. I BOUGHT MAGAZINES. Nothing unethical there. Yes, I bought a lot of magazines - so? I could afford it, they could afford to sell them to me at that price, and my local library got a nice donation out of it (IMHO).

Where's the ethical violation? We're not talking about Enron here.

- Sameer

BTW: for the record, I've received all but 81K of my Gold Points. Still waiting for the transfer to AA miles...

wormword,

On the automall mistake, I agree there is no issue and the corrections are valid.

On Goldponts, I assume you would say a $50 (22,500 GP) order is reasonable and $3000 (1,350,000 GP) is gouging. So where would you draw the line? Why do you think everyone would draw the line at a similar level? How are we supposed to know if this was a loss leader or an intentionally over-generous offer? Are they so naive? Its obvious to you, but haven't we have all seen FF programs do crazy things? If you need proof, look at the KLM board and see that they are matching status and UNLIMITED MILES for non-US based elites in other programs if you take a minimal number of flights. It's nuts, but it would also be nuts NOT to TAKE ADVANTAGE of the offer. Same with the LatinPass promo. Taking them up on these offers doesn't automaticaly make you a "bad" customer.

wormword has been blasting everybody who participated in the goldpoints promotion. he has even gone to the extent of starting another fake thread just so that he can continue his relentless and unceasing contempt -- as if all of his previous and numerous postings on EVERY single goldpoint thread were not enough. what is wrong with this person? why does he keep insist on reading the goldpoint threads and then spew venom? can he not just ignore it? he's been saying the same thing over and over and over. argh! must have lots of idle time. wormword, are you gainfully employed?

I guess it would be nuts not to take advantage if you define everything by whether or not advantage can be taken. I see the world differently from that. Not all advantage should be taken. A personal sense of fairness should guide participation in anything, frequency programs, promotions, whatever. We can argue different versions of fairness forever and I doubt we'll agree. No worries. At least people should be looking at the fallout from over working programs and promotions. As you mention LatinPass, look at the mutations that went on their for them to cope, and look how some people howled like stuck pigs at the injustice of it all (Dhacker I know you were not a howler). No matter what you think of taking advantage, it is UNGRACIOUS to then get petulant and demanding at the slightest glitch or adjustment. That is despicable behavior...I will take advantage of you , no holds barred, but hey, you treat me like a wonderful customer (when in fact you're a net revenue drain and most likely always will be.

You can fantasize all day but the million goldpointers cost somebody money, big time, they aren't customers, they are advantage takers who should be patient and polite as they do their screwing.

it wasn't a 'fake' thread. it was started to point out the self congratulatory, arrogant, impatient, ungracious behavior of the gougers. Ignore away, I am not asking you to pay attention, I will continue to state my opinion independently of your attentions. If I see something contemptuous or despicable I will speak up. You do as you please, just as I will.

and if I say the same thing over and over, what is it that all those starting yet another goldpoints thread are doing? What's good for the goose is good for the gander. I don't seem to be nearly as prolific a poster as most people on FT, I have a narrow focus and plenty of other things to do


[This message has been edited by wormwood (edited 02-19-2002).]

Thanks for the support, wormword, however, while I try not to howl, I have been known to get upset. I posted the Carlson motto in a derogatory manner the begining of the horror thread when the negative discount adjustment posted before original points. That would upset many people, whether or not it had anything to do with one of these big mileage bonanzas.

All my points posted in the end and I think the all the belly-aching helped to light a fire under someone's butt.

The problem I have with the fair-play argument is that I truly don't see how you can tell whether or not a program has done its math homework before launching a promotion. Is it unfair to take KLM up on their matching offer if you have millions of points for them to match? Is it unfair to buy hundreds of boxes of Kelloggs waffles at Sams? I don't think so. It certainly makes Sam's Club happy.

Wormword, I think you've gone at least a little bit overboard in trying to make evil-doers out of people who are simply playing the game by the rules (maybe I've been listening to too many Bush speeches lately!). You are trying to deny human nature. Its no different than when a airline charges a businessman $1500 for a last minute trip or when a hotel triples their rate for a special event. This is distinctly different from breaking the rules (e.g. using one FF card for two people or selling and trading miles and upgrade certs). While these activites have uncertainties and gray areas too, they are more problematic from a moral standpoint than simply buying alot of discounted miles, IMHO.

I wish all the mileage police would consider giving it a rest for a while. I suspect very few of us have a completely clean record. Please see my comments in the idiot thread to see how easy it is to find fault with others' behavior.

I also wish everyone would stop starting new GoldPoints threads. The existing topics are more than adequate.

[This message has been edited by dhacker (edited 02-19-2002).]

Wormwood, I didn't want to write something that could have been misinterpreted as a personal attack which is why I edited out the comment about your logic being addled.

However, you again display faulty logic. According to your above post you believed the goldpoints promo to be a mistake. Yet you chose to take advantage of that mistake albeit on a small scale. Nevertheless, you were taking advantage of what you believed to be someone's mistake, something I try not to do and consider completely unethical. I would say that would make you far LESS ethical than allot of the people who participated in the promotion who took the promotion to be what it was billed to be, a legitimate promo and not a mistake. Some of these people even sought confirmation of that fact from both goldpoints and valuemags and got it prior to the termination of the promo.

If it was a mistake then someone taking advantage of that mistake at the $50 level or the $50,000 level is, ethically speaking, committing the same abuse. Put another way, someone pocketing erroneous change of $5 that should have been only $1 is committing the same moral crime of stealing that someone running off with millions is. They are both stealing. If someone is "given" the $5 in what they have been led to believe is a well advertised promotion they are not morally at any fault, the person who believes that despite the advertised promo that getting the $5 is taking advantage of a mistake is essentially stealing. The latter is basically what you did. Perhaps you should post your experience in that other self righteous and misplaced buzz thread "You knew it was wrong, but..."

So please get off your high horse. By your own standards you have shown yourself to be less ethical than most people who participated in the promo.

I just disagree. the point is the scale. I bought magazines I wanted to buy. Others bought thousands of magazines they planned on putting in the dumpster.

It is fairness not logic.

fairness

not

logic

Dhacker,

I agree it is tough to find the line on fairness. But I stand by the idea that some are over the line. For example, participating in LatinPass x10 would be unfair. So, buying dozens of copies of the same magazine to get points would be unfair. I don't expect you to agree necessarily but that's how I see it.

This is of course in addition to the damage done over time by decimating any offer that comes along. It reduces opportunities, fairly taken, for everyone.

Unless there is some objective (logical) criteria that defines what is fair and what isn't for each of us, fairness doesn't mean much. Without the anchor that logic lends, the definition of fairness can be changed to suit our needs of the moment. Repeating "fairness not logic", apart from not making any sense, certainly doesn't make a faulty definition (of what is and isn't fair) less faulty/or logical.

Nevertheless you have finally made your logic(basis for your definition of fairness) clear and we do indeed disagree. You believe it is OK to act unethically as long as you do so on a small scale. I do not. Unlike yourself I did not see the promo as a mistake, had I done I doubt I would have participated. You clearly saw it as a mistake, nonetheless you participated and acted in an unethical way according to your own definition of unethical conduct.

FWIW none of the mags I ordered are destined for the dumpster (still have yet to receive any of them) a few were bought for myself, friends, and family but the large bulk were bought for my local libraries after asking which mags they wanted (no tax deduction either due to the AMT). If I had not already promised the libraries the mags and faxed the agreement not to cancel in to valuemags I would have probably cancelled my orders and forfeited the goldpoints given all the confusion and given that I had my entire travel budget for 2002 at stake. However I was not about to shell out thousands of dollars to make my commitments to the libraries good due to goldpoints "possible" mistake. If they did infact make a mistake then let them live with the consequences (which they seem to be doing fairly admirably and I say this while I am still missing over a million goldpoints from orders placed almost 2 months ago now) or do you also advocate that others should pay for goldpoints mistakes as well?

Incidentally I would like to say that I respect the conviction with which you state your position, though I think the position itself is faulty and delusionally self righteous, and also commend your sincere effort at trying to be ethical, even if I think that by your own definition you are acting unethically, and wish that more people in society in general would make a similar effort so please don't take my words as anything other those of civil and respectful debate. Having said that I don't know that Milesbuzz is the appropriate forum for such ethical evangelizing though these days it seems anything, well almost anything, goes (not knocking the moderators who thankfully cull the worst excesses from the threads in Milesbuzz).

Wormwood:You must be a riot at cocktail parties.



[This message has been edited by Neal (edited 02-20-2002).]

Yes, I suppose I started another Gold Points thread, but my intention was to seek solutions or what has worked rather than gripe or start a fire like the current flame war taking place.

As I suppose we need a GoldPoints Forum, no, I have compiled a small list of FT topics with Gold Points below. Hope we all find what we are looking for, myself included.
And this is only under MilesBuzz!

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/005858.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/005868.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/005911.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/005916.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/005922.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/005930.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/006457.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/005931.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/005951.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/006052.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/005948.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/006162.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/006163.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/006211.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/006220.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/006246.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/006249.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/006251.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/006262.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/006266.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/006319.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/006377.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/006422.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/006430.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/006456.html



------------------
"Fly me to the moon and let me earn alot of miles."