Just got an email from ebay,an auction I was participating in for a suite upgrade coupon for Hyatt was canceled due to the suspension of the seller!
I hope this is not the end of folks selling"white envelopes with the gift of,,,"on ebay!

I actually hope it does end EBAY auctions for these travel products. If not, sooner or later, airlines and hotels will start putting even more restrictions or reducing what they offer. They assume a certain level of breakage... and EBAY sales does not help that.

William

William,I think that the coupon connection is a marvelous service for this board.
However a lot of folks who get these travel certs have no idea that such a thing is available.And I think alot of travel certs get tossed in a drawer and forgaotten about.
Ebay has been around for what?10 years?Travel coupons have been around a lot longer and will continue to be used as a lure for the travellers dollar.
The hotels lose nothing by these auctions,Yes they are usually in violation of T's&C's on the backs of the coupons-but I would guess so are some(a very small number I am sure)being bartered for on the Coupon Conection-It is no skin of my nose.Nor does it really impact the day to day operations of FF/FG programs.Those are strictly controlled by market forces.
I will be staying at a canadian Marriot on a OTP rate,there is some confusion but it looks like my Bonus Buck cert($100)is good only for a stay in Canada within the next six months-I have no plans to stay in Canada during the next six months.So should I just chuck the cert?Then it is a loss to me,and perhaps a loss to Marriott as well.
Of course I might see what someone would trade it for in Coupon Connection!

I understand wharvey's concern about award becoming less frequent if coupons are to be bartered when it's not supposed to happen. When coupons come with restrictions, they are emitted by the hotel with the hope that they won't be used. It's the same with airlines miles. Many unfrequent flyers gather say 5,000 miles and will never be able to attain the minimum to claim an award. WIth hotel, the amount of the coupons is not sufficent to pay for a stay, so it will benefit you ONLY if you come back, and spend additional money. It's a lure and try to build loyalty. If the coupon can be sold :
* it can be used by anyone, so it WILL be used and a 100% use rate was perhaps not what was intended in the first place
* it will not buy your loyalty, because you might be staying elsewhere anyway.

So there may be a risk for the frequent guest program here : let's say an hotel can use $100,000 for a promotion. If they can expect a 60% usage rate, they will issue 2,000 coupons each worth $80. If they know the coupons will be sold on ebay, and that every guest will have one simply because he looked on the Internet, they will emit coupons worth 50. It will penalize the guests that used to benefit from the coupons because of their frequent guest habit, and I understand why they should be angry by the bartering of untransferrable awards.

Worse, the hotel could decide that since the award is benefiting anyone through e-bay, it's not worth the hassle to make a $100,000 promo and cuts the cost altogether.

Well - let me add my 2 cents here. Recently there were quite a few "auctions" on Ebay for Hyatt 5,000 points that were given out during last year's joint promotion with Mastercard. Unfortunately, Hyatt staff didn't control these 5,000 point certificates propertly - using one single code for the promotion without any serial number. Some people, apparently including a Hyatt employee, had figured this out and were selling these codes on Ebay. Subsequently, Hyatt traced all the people who redeemed these certificates but had not won the 5,000 points in the promotion and pulled the points from their accounts. So it was a major mess with lots of problems created for both Hyatt and Ebay.