Starwood Lurker III

Dear members,

Sorry for the delay in updating this thread.

Please see below for the answers to your inquiries.

Q: Are spg members not members of Velocity Frequent Flyer program eligible for this promotion?
A: SPG members will have to be Velocity members to participate in this promotion.

Q: Are reservations made prior to February 17 through SPG and at hotels participating in this promotion for stays from February 17-May 17 eligible?
A: Yes. The promotion is retroactive to stays booked before 17 February, 2014.

Q: if I have booked 2 rooms on the same night then would that count as 2 eligible nights for this promo?
A: No, it has to be two consecutive nights. Please be advised that a member can earn up to 6000 Starpoints for this promotion as a maximum.

Please check the updated terms and conditions following this link: http://www.spg-asiapacific.com/veloc...Y_SPG_VELOCITY

Best Regards,

Christina Zhou
Social Media Specialist
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

[email protected]

remymartin

Wow, that is disappointing. The original T&C as I saw it was:
- no Velocity membership required
- no specific address requirement
- no 6000 bonus cap!

3544quebec

Disappointing is a bit of an understatement - deceptive/pathetic would be more appropriate.

The original Ts+Cs were totally different from the ones listed now - as you say there was no cap of 6000 points for the promotion, there was a very specifically worded condition which stated clearly that the maximum bonus was 6000 points per stay and there was no restriction on the total bonus/number of stays to which the bonus would apply.

Really poor form to dramatically alter the Ts + Cs after commencing the promotion.

There is also nowhere to enter a Velocity membership number on the registration page so how would SPG know who satisfies that condition anyway.

Is SPG outsourcing the organisation of its promotions to IHG? This one is very The Big Winnish.

luna6

This must be a joke right?

1.) I called the SPG Platinum phone line and was told by your official phone representative "SPG Members are eligible as long as they register and make bookings after Feb 17"?

2.) I registered for the promotion by following the instructions on the SPG landing page and was given an email from SPG that states clearly " You’re now entitled to receive 2,000 bonus Starpoints® on all eligible 2 night stays at any Starwood hotel or resort in Asia Pacific when you book by 31 March 2014." The email even says "all" eligible stays, rather than "1-3" eligible stays or "a maximum of 3 stays" or up to "6,000 points".

3.) Quoting one of your own lurkers here:
I went ahead and made several re-bookings relying on all this incorrect information given out by platinum phone rep, spg official email and even by a lurker here?

Surely, if a customer calls that company's customer service representative and he is told he is eligible and he receives an email welcoming him to the promotion from that same company and reads from that company's official social media representative on a popular forum that he needs to make reservations from a certain date to become eligible ... that creates reliance upon the customer to go and follow those instructions in good faith and that he will indeed become eligible?!?!?!

nongsom

New T&C
Good : no re booking,retroactive effect
Bad : limit only 6000 in all range of promotion period
Q : if book 3 room with 2 consecutive night how many *point that i will get? 2000 or 6000
Note :
-didn't see Velocity membership required in new T&C
-made several re-bookings already -_-'

jli

This is certainly deceptive.
First saying that all SPG Members are eligible and now change the T&C saying that we have to be Velocity Members in order to eligible for the Promo.

SPG should honour what originally stated in T&C. All SPG Members registered for the promotion should be eligible.

kevinflyaway

In the T&C is stated that promotion fall under SPG T&C, which can me updated from time to time. It's nowhere stated that the T&C of the promotion itself can be changed during the promotion.

I have registered before the T&C change, so I would state that I fall under the old T&C. I guess SPG saw the amount of registrations and now tries to control the damage. A first real time disappointing step from SPG to it's loyal customers, at least for me!

I spread my stays to enjoy the most out of this promotion. Non changeable, non cancelable rates. So I chance my travel plans to enjoy a promo, SPG changes the promo and I'm stuck with a different itinerary since SPG decided the promo would cost to much.

This stinks...

remymartin

Me too. And I fully agree, a T&C change shouldn't be retrospective.

hendricks

Agreed that this is not ok - people have already made decisions based on the promotion's T/Cs. SPG should at least honour the previous T/Cs for those who had signed up before they were updated.

On the current T/Cs:

- I also don't see anywhere it requires members to join Velocity
- I don't see an address/residence requirement that was mentioned above.

Am I missing something?

remymartin

I thought this:

"To participate in this Bonus Starpoint offer, Velocity members must register online at www.spg-asiapacific.com/velocity by March 31, 2014 and be a member of the Starwood Preferred Guest (“SPG”) Program. If Velocity member is not a member of the SPG Program, a free membership may be obtained at www.spg.com."

was rather poorly worded as meaning Velocity membership is a requirement. It is very ambiguous, though.

Velocity membership is to addresses registered in the Pacific.

uanj

I registered successfully and I am a Velocity member, but how would spg ever know that? Velocity's T&C prohibit them from turning over the entire database to spg to double check who is and is not a member....

kevinflyaway

Yes, but IF they update the T&C again then they can add that as well. That you give them permission to verify your membership with Velocity. Good luck with the privacy act, if they add that to the T&C new chance and then do that to everybody that has registered BEFORE the T&C chance

hendricks

I see where you're coming from, but for me, that condition is clearly aimed at ensuring that Velocity members know they need to be SPG members - and quite logically so because it's impossible to gain Starpoints (and then transfer them to their Velocity account) without SPG membership.

I think the non-presence of a similar condition in reverse - i.e. SPG members must be Velocity members in order to...- is a clear indication that it's not necessary.

Christina says otherwise so I guess that's where we are despite it not being indicated in the T/Cs. I would still argue though that any member who expects to gain the points without Velocity membership has a strong case. I know it's a promotion so we should, in some respects, not complain too much, but as I said before the promotion is swaying customer decisions and consequently bringing additional revenue.

remymartin

I completely agree with you, I was just trying to find some indication on where Christina's opinion is coming from.

The 6k cap is my real beef - there's no incentive doing anything different than normal stay patterns for this promo anymore.

3rdworldresident

New T+C???

Ok, im quit.