OK, so maybe the actual customer service (or at least customer interaction) isn’t bad yet, but I’m angry. Back in June I had a fantastic stay at the InterContinental LeGrand Paris on points, which someone else booked for me with their points, adding my name to the reservation and noting that I would be the one actually staying at the hotel. Everything was fine and dandy and no points were deducted from my account.
Being the type of person that checks every mileage account basically every day, I was a bit surprised to see that I had a negative balance in my Priority Club account tonight. At first I was laughing since I assumed it was some kind of glitch. Then I logged into my account and saw that they deducted 80,000 points for two nights at the IC Paris, which was already paid for!
I immediately called the “Ambassador Service Desk,” only to find that it’s closed till Monday. Fortunately they have an answering machine, so I left a polite yet very firm message stating my disappointment. The fact that they would just take 80,000 points from someone’s account without so much as notifying them or for that matter investigating the issue is disgusting, in my opinion.
I’m anxiously awaiting my response on Monday morning, and will report back….
Just odd, should never have to be calling the hotel for any of these issues. Worse case, open a guest dispute to get it resolved quicker, since that is based out of Salt Lake City...
Douglas, I agree. I've only spoken to the "Ambassador Service Desk," but they called the IC Paris.
I am not sure at all why the hotel would be at fault in any means. The system the hotel uses does not pull points, nor does it do anything other then bill the account team who bills IHG for the stay, depending on occupancy.
Total PC issue, and not hotel issue, and calling Paris, or anywhere in the world will not make points reappear or go away, since they do not do the actual...
I am not sure at all why the hotel would be at fault in any means. The system the hotel uses does not pull points, nor does it do anything other then bill the account team who bills IHG for the stay, depending on occupancy.
Total PC issue, and not hotel issue, and calling Paris, or anywhere in the world will not make points reappear or go away, since they do not do the actual deductions. They just submit who stayed where, and bill it out. Even then, it should not have hit you mistakenly as long as the original person did not redeem it, and later request that they not pay for it, resulting in them going after the guest.
I have booked 10's of room nights for others using points, never had a problem, other then a parking charge hit my card when I never stayed in the room. I would talk to the PC people more, and hotel less.
Gary, very good points, makes you wonder how far they'll go without taking other actions, of course in a case where there was indeed a problem.
Still waiting for a response from PC.... can't decide whether to wait and see when they respond to me or whether to call now.
Any thoughts?
A negative point balance? I often wondered how they'd treat such matters ... there's a not uncommon phenomenon where points can go back into an account at the conclusion of an award stay. Some folks have said that the points would be re-deducted later during an audit of some sort, but let's just say that this may not always happen. ;) But what if you've spent those points? And what if it's a whole lot...
A negative point balance? I often wondered how they'd treat such matters ... there's a not uncommon phenomenon where points can go back into an account at the conclusion of an award stay. Some folks have said that the points would be re-deducted later during an audit of some sort, but let's just say that this may not always happen. ;) But what if you've spent those points? And what if it's a whole lot of points?
I guess this is similar in a way to the historical ability of Senators to overdraft their Miles & More accounts.
Do you just abandon the account and start over with a new one, or do you work to pay it back? That's different than the situation here, of course, since you SHOULDN'T have a negative balance. But some folks SHOULD...