Hoarding
 

Currently at the very top of CC:

H:4 Nights @ IC Vienna (Junior Suite) W: 2011 EVIP
boar started Today

H: 8 Nights @ IC Vienna (Junior Suite) W: 120k Miles
globaltrotter started Yesterday

Sorry but this is not nice. Perhaps we all should just book as many pointbreakers as possible and head to CC. :rolleyes:

Agreed, it's not in the spirit of FT is it really...(and you wonder why CC was suspended just a short time ago)...

Obviously I dont agree.

I certainly didn't book the hotel to trade the nights on CC
but as I am not going to use the reservation why not offer
them through CC.

Seems rather pointless to cancel the reservation given that
it may be of value to somebody.

Then offer it for 5K PC/nt - the amount you put in.

You could add to your trade "W:" 20k PC ~ then I don't think many would have an issue with that as you're back where you started, and there's no motivation to hoard as there's always a risk you won't be able to shift the nights.

The first one is somewhat reasonable but the second one :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:.

Also there is no way of guaranteeing that the upgrade that might be currently showing will be there at the end.

Agreed to a big :td:. Offering them for what you "paid" is one thing. Trying to gouge members is another.

And I do agree the first is _more_ reasonable, but would anyone really consider a 2011 EVIP to be comparable to 20k PC points?

The hotel in question is sold out in early October.
The rooms were only offered at 5k a night for a short period.
Surely there should be some premium involved?

I have traded several Marriott certificates where the vendor was
obviously making a profit out of me. I didn't mind as I was getting a
far better rate than I would normally have paid.

The same principle applies here. 4 nights at a sold out hotel may be
of value to somebody. I value EVIP's between $300-500 - I dont regard 4 nights with a face value of $800+ being an unfair exchange.

+1

The question of value and fairness will be answered if / when someone replies to either of the posts. If no-one can see the value the trade will pass the deadline and the OP will lose out. I guess there's nothing to stop the interested party to offer something else in return i.e. relevant number of points to make good the original booking.

I guess some people will have many miles to burn and fancy a jaunt to Vienna, whether they see this post is another thing...

Divorce this from the fact that I have been the beneficiary of a lot of sterling guidance from some members of FT and it's all been in kind. Likewise I've given some people the benefit of my experience (and lounge access) and wouldn't dream of taking anything in return.

Bad form if done for personal gain but you always have the option to ignore the offending posts (a bit of self-censorship if you will).

I moved the thread to the TravelBuzz forum, because it is not a special topic for the IC Forum.

szg
Co-Moderator ICHG forum

Given that the Coupon Connection forum has recently had the special attention of our founder, I'll move this to our ORP forum, with apologies if it's better discussed elsewhere. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.

Ah, my special attention is of attention! Thanks for the honor.

Yes, it had some special attention from me and I think at least a few were very surprised at the high number of concerned members regarding the over commercial attempts in the forum .. all who had supported that brief time out to get the attention the forum so well deserves -- when respected, it can be a huge and very beneficial resource for our members.

I'm not sure there is any need here for my comment. This somewhat showcases my decision to allow comment from other member in the body and process of the trades. Granted, there were some who thought I should disallow anything other than comments directed toward the exchange. But, while I respect that view, and frankly did hold it for some of the time of my examination, I did decide to continue to honor the age old premise that input from our members is exactly what can make most of the information valuable to our members. If an exchange or gift is not up to a value that can benefit the member, especially from someone who might be relatively new to FlyerTalk, then respectful input from other members can provide something to consider, just as it does in analyzing a bonus offer from any of the many programs featured on FlyerTalk. What I don't like is any uncivil sniping and I hope that any active member of FlyerTalk knows that. Anyway, I found the exchange of the comments above to be educational for me and admire the reasoning that was given to the value of this post by boar and hope that any ensuing comments are done with the respect that can still be part of any disagreeing comment.

The things we learn on FlyerTalk. I love us all!

After re-considering the two CC threads, I can't blame boar for his valuation. There is an inconvenience factor where if it were me I would be better off cancelling than having someone owe me some points/miles/etc. It certainly is at least in the same ballpark as what was spent for the nights.

The other offer to me is excessive, and earned a spot on my do not trade list for what I feel is profiteering off FTers. However, I agree with Randy that it really isn't/shouldn't be an issue of if it is allowed or not. The OP has free nights in exchange for a flight. At the surface, it is no different than any other trade in CC. I just hope noone rewards this behaviour by trading with the OP, good deal or not.

Boar: Please understand that we (at least I) are not saying you booked with the intention of trading, but many of us fear such a situation arising where we cannot get legit PointBreaks because of other people making speculative bookings knowing they can make a profit off of them, or cancel them free. I have only managed to get one PB so far (IC Buenos Aires) and look forward to more in the future as long as they aren't cancelled due to abuse.

[QUOTE=azepine00;12419353]Currently at the very top of CC:

H:4 Nights @ IC Vienna (Junior Suite) W: 2011 EVIP
boar started Today

H: 8 Nights @ IC Vienna (Junior Suite) W: 120k Miles
globaltrotter started Yesterday

As I am reading through this thread, I tried the links but they are not working. Have they been deleted? Thank you.

OP here ;) Surprised to find the thread in this forum, to be honest, IMO it belongs to IC as it deals with the pointbreak issues specific to Priority Club.

As most PC members know "pointbreaks" are heavily discounted (50-87.5% off) awards offered at limited number of properties a few times a year. As a result some of the better hotels exhaust their award inventory within days and drop from the list. IC Vienna is a prime example - regular award goes for 40K and pointbreak is 5K.
There are no limits on awards so anyone can easily book dozens of nights when the list is published (I recall reports of a 2 month stay booked on PB rate). As long as this is done for personal use it's all good.

What alarms me is the creation of a marketplace to trade those nights on CC. Due to restricted PB availability it really gives an incentive to book as many nights as possible and come to CC to profit from those bookings. Along the way many other members who legitimately want to book the discounted awards find out that they are too late and the awards are gone.

I have no fundamental problems with the posts I quoted in OP (or the market value of those nights) but I don't really want to see FT turning into a marketplace for scalping.

The solution is pretty obvious of course - PC and other hotels should make the awards non-transferable once booked (as with the airlines) so perhaps if we move this back to IC forum some lurkers would consider this as my personal feedback.

[QUOTE=janehoya;12421124]As yet you are unable to view coupon connection posts as you don't have the requisite number of posts (90+ I believe).

regards,

J

I think they should either make a limit on how many pb bookings you can have or something because it seems that the really good hotels go way too fast and it mostly just because people book them for every weekend during the pb period and the cancel the ones they can't use.

Most definitely a wrong forum. Should be on the PC one for sure.

They should just make them non-transferable and non-cancelable.

Since you asked, no.

Points arbitrage is better suited for eBay.

Well said.

Read this thread so you know why the referenced threads in CC are not viewable to you: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/techn...onnection.html

IMHO, you've raised two issues: CC trades and IC policy of award bookings.

As you know there have been more than one threads recently in CC and ORP that specifically discuss what's expected in CC (market place vs. community spirit). I am not going to reiterate the whole debate here. All I can say is it's no surprise your thread got moved to ORP now.

This seems to be your main focus but I failed to recognize it in OP. It appears you are advocating a policy change in Priority Club. If I were you, I would resort to more effective channels to communicate with IC officials.

A standalone thread in our IC Forum may help, if there are resident IC representatives on board, like what we have in SPG Forum.

[QUOTE=Flyersj18;12421683]You learn something new every day. This is especially true since I discovered FlyerTalk this summer. I appreciate your response. Thanks. :)

Absolutely. There's a always a premium if your intention is to gouge, same as I could charge a 15% markup when bringing duty free back to the UK. I don't, but at least if I did then it would be more appropriate than abusing the CC forum.

If you come out on top after a CC trade when you had an option to be back even (IE cancel the reservation) then that's an abuse of the forum. And specifically stating that they feel their reservation justified a 'premium' rather shows one of the poster's intentions.

For ordinary award nights it's not such a big deal because inventory is less limited, but I feel the solution here is to only allow PB bookings where the account holder is present. Multiple rooms is fine, but as now, only where the PC member is staying too.

This is, I know, still more suited to an IC thread, but the non-cancellable thing has been touted before - someone else there made the valid point that making them non-cancellable would only increase the likelihood of people trying to transfer them, so this'd only work if you implement both of your suggestions and enforce the former rigorously...

This surely isn't the first time on FT someone has attempted to grab more than what they can use themselves and it likely won't be the last. Past hotel errors saw a few posters with zero intent to actually use the reservations themselves grab whole month blocks to, in effect, hold the reservation hostage for some eventual compensation. I agree hoarding for personal gain is to be frowned upon but it doesn't surprise this poster.

I do believe people should start following CC more closely.

It has always been full of offerings where one side is trying to secure an extremely favourable deal for themselves whether its' trading Marriott 7 day vouchers, Hotel nights for sold out events such as Obama's inauguaration, (both of these cases are definitely hoarding) people trying to get 2 2010 EVIP's for 1 2011 EVIP - how on earth can that be the case in early September. I also saw somebody successfully getting 75k AA miles for a $500 AA voucher. The list goes on.

It's full of these type of trades. Cant/couldnt see too much evidence of the same people, who highlighted the IC Vienna cases, focusing in on those trades.

If I nominate another person to stay at the IC Vienna instead of myself and this person fails to show I am still responsible for the First night's stay in cash. I think this is worth something to me. Call it a premium or whatever you like. I have been on the wrong side of bad trades on CC so I believe I have right to expect some form of extra compensation. I dont call a 2011 EVIP for 4nights at the Vienna IC an excessive deal, certainly not gouging.

I certainly didnt make the original booking in order to gouge FT'ers. If I was in that game I would be using my points for all the major sold out events that I referred to previously.

My OP was not specifically directed at you although your offer was obviously cited. A stand-alone trade is really not a problem but if you book and trade 4 nts and another poster 8 and perhaps I'll book a dozen next time and so on and the future awards will be gone in no time since we'll have an opportunity to trade later on therefor why not grab as much as possible.

I can see two way to minimize this - one, as I mentioned, is to change T&Cs on PC side another is to draw attention to those trades here on FT and perhaps generate a collective thumbs down that can reduce FT marketplace for those trades.

Some examples you cite represent the deals between two parties (evip or miles trades) - if they agree there is no harm to the rest of us whatever the valuation is. But hotel nights/sold out event etc speculation is quite different as the inventory is limited and shared by all of us and I really hope not to see this on FT.

I certainly agree with your sentiments. I am not into hoarding.

One question.

Let's say I have booked 3 nights at a HI in the Miami area for
next year's SuperBowl (75,000 points) where the terms explicitly state that
I will pay for the stay should I not turn up.

If I then decide that I am not able to go and decide to offer this
stay on CC, am I obliged to offer this stay for the exact no
of points I originally used given that I will have to pay for the stay
should the other party not show?

In my book the no show aspect of the trade has to be worth something.

Nor has janehoya been here 90 days (joined in July of this year).

It's a 90 days, 90 post access area.

EDIT: Here's a much, much better explanation of CC access

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/12018017-post138.html

All trades or gifts on Coupon Connection are to be treated as interactions between friends, and no member shall seek to push people to the wall, practice deception, or deal on unfair terms. Although e.g. Royal Ambassador referral certificates may not be transferred, bartered, or sold, [i]the notion of "community spirit" has seemed to trump the bartering language.

In short, I have the impression that intention of CC is the place to swap items of comparable value on trust basis.

Let me talk about terms “community spirit” and “comparable value”.

In PC forum there is a master-thread about different (targeted) promotions which help followers to boost their account substantially. IMO it’s much easier to collect than redeem wisely; we are hoping to grab a “PointBreak” (PB) for 5K PC points/night at a prime IC which is priced for 40K PC points/night regular. It goes without saying that these offers are available for a couple of days only.

I hope it is fair to say that it’s in the “community spirit” of the follower of IC forum that every member have a chance to redeem one of this prime awards. But maybe I am wrong and it’s in the “community spirit” that some FT-members grab as many PB nights as possible and swap these at “comparable value” on CC.

How do friends interact and compare values? Do they compare the cost of the item (= 40K PC points) or the value of the item (=8 nights at IC Vienna)? To solve this problem, swaps could be done points/miles for points/miles and nights for nights.