Hotspex ending partnership with Points.com
 

I just got an email from Hotspex. It's a newsletter update. Here's the bad part:

But what’s old? We have ended our partnership with Points.com. What does this mean for you? You will have until August 28, 2009 11.59pm EST to finalize all transactions between Points.com and Hotspex. If you have any questions or need more information or help swapping or redeeming your BUX please contact Points.com directly, as they can help you out best. You can visit their online FAQ section or contact them via email using the following link:
https://www.points.com/static/html/support_email.html


They also try to assure you that, in the future, you can get cool prizes, but folks if I were you I would trade those points to miles ASAP!


What else are we doing? We are using our creativity to tailor programs that will let you trade in your BUX and make sure that you always get something cool for the surveys you do! Until this change happens you can still participate in the XChange programs listed above or simply save your BUX for the amazing new programs to come!

-Kinglobjaw

Got that one too. I guess it won't be too much of a loss since I only have around 2,000 bux anyway and haven't gotten a survey for months.

I'd cash them in as soon as you can if I were you. From the sounds of it, FF miles won't be one of the "cool" prizes offered under the new scheme.

2000 miles is nothing to scoff at. Depending on what airline you're redeeming to, they could net you up to 1088 miles via Points.com. Maybe that's peanuts to you, but I'd take 1,000 FREE miles any day of the week! ;)

Great for topping off an account to get to the next award level and for keeping an account active so you don't lose all the other miles you have accrued...

Best,
TMichaels

Safe to give FF Account Info?
 

In the past, I have redeemed Hotspex points for Amazon.com gift cards instead of frequent flier miles. I don't have enough points for an Amazon.com gift card, I noticed that you have to provide Points.com with your frequent flier account information, so that your balance appears on the Balance Tracker section of the website, just like your Hotspex account points. Do you all think it's safe to provide Points.com with this information? I notice that you have to do the same thing with the Starbucks option if you want to redeem points to reload your card. I'm a little concerned about security and what could happen to my points. Because of this, I'm not sure whether to redeem my 1600 Hotspex points now through Points.com or take a chance on new programs Hotspex may offer.

Been with points.com and transferred from them for years. The transfer ratio really is poor but sometimes you have no choice. Too bad about hotspex moving away from points, I always used this as an activity to keep expiring miles alive. Time to transfer all my bux to ff programs.

Thanks King for the headsup. Checked the email account and the hotspex notification was buried in the Spam folder, so probably wouldn't have ever caught it b/4 the deadline.

Now I'm a whopping 700+ AA miles richer. :p

It's not that I won't cash them in. I just meant that I don't get significant activity from hotspex that the change would actually matter to me much.

I just joined Hotspex for the upcoming US Grand Slam promo. I can't see anything on the Hotspex home page about them pulling out of Points.com.

http://www.hotspex.com/points_home.asp

The only issue here is the date given above of 28 Aug and the start date of the US Airways promo of 1 Sept clashes. I don't need a lot of points, just want to show a "hit" of any amount.

I couldn't get Hotspex to link with points.com today after several tries for the current Priority club partners promo - ended up swapping a handful of AS miles instead.

It worked for me when I signed my non-computer savvy husband up so I could swap some points into PC. I use Firefox for my account and IE for his. I sent about 75 Hotspex to his PC account for 40 points.

I saved 70 Hotspex points just in case I can still use them for the US promo in Sept, if I can't, I will donate them to charity.

Hey Tiki, just a heads up! They are ending the Points.com xfers as of August 28th, so don't save them! They won't be there for you to use for the US promo in September anyway. :(

I saw what the others had posted, I am just wondering why neither Hotspex nor Points.com mention it on their websites. I already sent some to Priority Club for both mine and hubby's accounts and held back about 70 Hotspex points to try to trigger a "hit" in the upcoming US promo.

They would only get another 40 PC points so if they cancel the partnership with Points.com, I will send them to the Rainforest charity they have and be done with it. I got an email from Hotspex called Newsletter Volume 9 and no mention was made that they are leaving Points.com.

I'll take the chance because for an Aussie (even with dual US citizenship) I am struggling to be able to get "hits" since most partners are US based and don't like non-USA credit cards. I found a couple who take Paypal though.

I received the same message as kinglobjaw. I would trust if Hotspex states that they will be terminating their relationship with Points.com via E-Mail, I would take them at their word.

After immediately receiving the e-mail from Hotspex, I cashed in all my Hotspex points via Points.com for 150 AAdvantage Miles. The Points.com transfer posted quickly to my AAdvantage account.

Of course, there is the chance that Hotspex will offer frequent flyer miles as an award in the future. However, the e-mail was vague as to what new prizes will be.

If Hotspex offers frequent flyer miles in the future.... great, and I hope they do. But if they don't, and I didn't cash in my points via Points.com, then I would be losing the frequent flyer miles I could have earned before the 1 week change annoucement.

It's a noble idea to send them to the rainforest charity, but considering that Hotspex already kindly plants a tree for surveys taken, I have less guilt earning frequent flyer miles. :D

sorry to see the relationship end. It was great to keep activity in airline accounts. I just got rid of all of my bux. Glad tI was home when the email came and not camping in the woods or I would haved missed the whole thing with only 1 week's notices.

That's not going to work. If you want to use your bux, then transfer them into some other points.com partner that lets you transfer into US Airways; then do the transfer as you want to do in September.

It's already over, two days prematurely :(
Just logged in and saw I cannot swap Hotspex points anymore

LOL, I did exactly that! I am parking them in AS for a few days until the US promo starts. I'll lose about 100 US miles but get the all-important "hit".

I found another way to help the rainforest, I can use Dividend Miles Mall to donate to a rainforest project via Gaiam!

Whoa..... you're right! I just went to look as I did my transfer last night. I can't see Hotspex as a potential swap partner anymore either. Sneaky B*******!!

I zeroed out my Hotspex last night luckily and now have a whopping 23 miles in AS which should net 2 or 3 US miles.

All may not be lost!

Even though the link is gone from Hotspex, log onto Points.com and see if hotspex is still viewable -- mine is -- and your total number of points/bux earned probably is still reflected!

So, the points presently in your hotspex account can still be transferred out -- but you must log into points.com and do not tarry!

Time is of the essence!

Ah, already done that. It says swaps are not allowed. You can see the points, but that's it.

I think Hotspex wised up quick, and pulled the plug early after a "run on the bank".

I don't use this word often, but, Man, that sucks!

The e-mail from Hotspec mentioning the witdrawal stated that you should call points.com I would try and do so and state that the swaps should have been ok thru 8/28 -- nothing to lose, right?

I got the same email stating 8/28, and tried to swap tonight and got could not proceed. I emailed HotSPEX through their site saying that they should go by the original date promised, but we shall see.

In addition to e-mailing Hotspex to complain, I also e-mailed points.com to complain and to ask them to manually make the exchange. It can't hurt, and who knows where the "blame" in this all lies. If both Hotspex and points.com get enough complaints, maybe they will stick to the original deadline, and our desire to make an exchange prior to the deadline will be documented on both sites.

Same here. For Mom's, Dad's and my own account it says:

Swaps are not allowed from Hotspex.

I hope this gets fixed by tommorow as I really wanted to top off my Priority Club points.

As soon as they cut off the link, I am emailing Hotspex that I will not do surveys unless they bring back points.com. I'll give them 30 days, then plan to cut off membership and leave the panel.

-Kinglobjaw

I don't see the point, as well. They have nothing I am interested in, at all.

I hate sweepstakes offers -- don't do them via Cokerewards or any other offer from Frequent Flier/Stay points.

Totally Useless.

Wow, same thing happened to me. Hotpex even removed points.com from their prize exchange. Do you supposed their position in that the exchnage can't be finalized by the dealdine? My first finalized by the next day, so thought today would be in time. This just proves that you can't trust these deadlines. I should have moved out all points right away instead of taking time to consider which program to swap into for the remainder.

Damn, that sucks! I transferred my points out but was planning on doing my wife's account today!!

The answer I got from points.com was as expected - nothing, in the usual envelope of nice words. I wonder why I bother.

I chatted with a customer service rep at points.com today, who was mostly non-helpful. But this is what I learned from the chat:

"We’re pleased to hear that you wanted to make a swap, but Points.com and Hotspex has temporarily paused the Swap program in order to offer you a better experience and serve you better. .This change was effective on August 26th,2009. .We apologize for any inconveniences."

"however, .I can assure that the option [to swap] will be available again....we just don't know when, because of technological upgrades."

When pressed on the fact that Hotspex is ending their participation tomorrow night, I was told, "Hotpsex has been taken off the site, any misinformation about swapping that was posted on Hotspex website, you'll need to contact Hotspex."
.

Pretty upset with Hotspex for sandbaaging us.

I let them have it in an email; sent pretty much the same one to points.com

This past weekend, I got a survey from Hotspex which I thought great, I can move some points to park to get ready for US Airways hit promotion. In the middle of the survey it stopped working. I went to try to restart the survey but it had disappeared from my list. Hotspex denied that I ever had the survey.

Without points.com anymore, I have no need to use hotspex.

It was the kind of thing was I concerned about.
I transferred all my hotspex to AA over the weekend.

I didn't want to get stuck without being able to transfer. I got a survey today and also found that it had ended early.

Too bad. This was a great method to transfer to all sorts of points programs.

Looks Hotspex is innovating itself out of existence:
No more prizes, only contests. Is it worth the extra effort to spend my BUX on contest entries before closing my account?

Don't trust points.com
 

I chatted with one of their agents on the 26th. She assured me I had until the 28th to swap my Hotspex points. Today I chatted with the same agent. She said she was sorry she was mistaken but there was nothing she could do.

When a company doesn't honor their word then they should be run out of business. Be careful if you swap with them in the future. I intend to delink my accounts later today.

Your reaction is a little over the top, isn't it? After all, based upon the above, it is clear that this was not what was anticipated. You are just mad at yourself for not pulling the trigger sooner.

If you want to cut off your nose to spite yourself you can do so, but Points.com is still good for point transfers to fulfill various promotions.

Hotspex on the other hand is another matter -- I would not waste my time with them unless they add some form of currency swap that is useful to you -- as I have noted above, none has been added that motivates me to complete any more surveys.

I'm not really angry with myself. I read in this thread about the 28th as the last day. So I went directly to Points.com to confirm the information. Points.com has a chat function in which you can ask questions and get quick answers. I used that function and based on that reply took the time last night to figure out how to spread those Hotspex out to my best advantage.

As you might know there are several partner deals going right now (Priority Club and soon US Airways). Since the US program had a Sept. start date I figured a few Alaska miles would take care of them. Anyway I came in prepared to do them today. That was well before the announced and confirmed deadline.

So why should I be angry with myself? However I no longer trust Points.com. And Hotspex is even worse for giving almost no notice of the change, and then not honoring the announced date.

Both of these companies are not worthy of my time in the future. On the other hand, E-Rewards has been very reliable and their redemptions are for much larger amounts.

Your loss. :rolleyes:

New option for exchanging miles coming soon
 

When I attempted to transfer some BUX to AA on 8/26 and was unsuccessful, I went ahead and emailed Hotspex via my account. I explained that they should still honor it given that the published end date was 8/28. Here is the response I got a response: