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join:2003-11-07
Long Beach, CA

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[Rant] International Hotels Group IHG Priority Point Restriction

Pissed that Candlewoods Suites won't let me use my rewards points to pay for my rooom. I specifically chose a IHG hotel to use the points, but I had to book with my corporate travel. Now they tell me there is a limit to the number of rooms available to use points. I was polite to the call center rep and got hung up on.

Very disappointed. I would not recommend IHG rewards program to anyone.

r81984
Fair and Balanced
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join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX

r81984

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Re: [Rant] International Hotels Group IHG Priority Point Restric

That is just crappy.
Whats the point of having a point reward system if you wont let people use it.
I would try to email the CEO and other Execs asking them to fix this issue.

I get points through my capital one card and never have any problems. They even apply points after the fact to the charge of my choosing for hotels, flight, or cars.
I dont bother with the hotel points. I just stay at the most cost efficient hotel I can find regardless of brand.
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join:2003-11-07
Long Beach, CA

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I got a mailer for the capital one travel card. Will look into it.

As far as this IHG card, its clearly not worth the annual fee.

r81984
Fair and Balanced
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join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX

r81984

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Wow, you pay an annual fee and they still screwed you over. That is really messed up.

Also, that capital one card has 0 international fees when traveling.
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join:2003-11-07
Long Beach, CA

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Its free for the first year, but a little more than $60 if I don't cancel the card.

Took your advice and sent some correspondence. I travel semi-frequently for business so they are likely to lose a long-term customer.
TheMG
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said by r81984:

Whats the point of having a point reward system if you wont let people use it.

To lure people into staying at that hotel chain instead of others.

By the time people realize that the points are not very useful, the reward system has already done its job.

dvd536
as Mr. Pink as they come
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join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ

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said by banner:

Pissed that Candlewoods Suites won't let me use my rewards points to pay for my rooom. I specifically chose a IHG hotel to use the points, but I had to book with my corporate travel. Now they tell me there is a limit to the number of rooms available to use points. I was polite to the call center rep and got hung up on.

Very disappointed. I would not recommend IHG rewards program to anyone.

Kinda like the airline programs where you're lucky to get a seat with points[course theres that $50 points redemption fee should you find it]
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join:2003-11-07
Long Beach, CA

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said by dvd536:

said by banner:

Pissed that Candlewoods Suites won't let me use my rewards points to pay for my rooom. I specifically chose a IHG hotel to use the points, but I had to book with my corporate travel. Now they tell me there is a limit to the number of rooms available to use points. I was polite to the call center rep and got hung up on.

Very disappointed. I would not recommend IHG rewards program to anyone.

Kinda like the airline programs where you're lucky to get a seat with points[course theres that $50 points redemption fee should you find it]

Yep. BS restrictions make IHG Preferred plan SUCK.

banditws6
Shrinking Time and Distance
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join:2001-08-18
Frisco, TX

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said by r81984:

Also, that capital one card has 0 international fees when traveling.

That's actually the reason we got a Cap One card. We were going to live 6 months in Thailand and I didn't want to pay a foreign transaction fee on everything I purchased.

I have also used the Capital One rewards for travel and it couldn't possibly have been easier. More recently I have redeemed points for Amazon gift cards. Never any trouble.
TheMG
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said by banditws6:

said by r81984:

Also, that capital one card has 0 international fees when traveling.

That's actually the reason we got a Cap One card. We were going to live 6 months in Thailand and I didn't want to pay a foreign transaction fee on everything I purchased.

"Foreign transaction fees"??? First time I've heard of those.

I have traveled and purchased stuff abroad using various different credit card and was never charged such a fee. I only paid the bank's currency exchange rate and that's it.

banditws6
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join:2001-08-18
Frisco, TX

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Different experience here. At the time -- this was about 4 years ago -- every single credit card I already had was charging (or started charging) foreign transaction fees. In those days I traveled overseas enough that it was sufficient motivation for me to apply for a Capital One card specifically for that reason.
banner
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join:2003-11-07
Long Beach, CA

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IHG correspondence submission response stated they would get back to me by three days .... Its been that long but I have yet to receive a response. Their website states:

No blackout dates for Reward Nights, so you can stay any time


»secure.priorityclub.com/ ··· tentOnly
A parsing of that statements provides IHG legal wiggle room, but also provide a management lesson of marketing creating expectations that [foreign] customer service cannot deliver.

I should be able to pay for the hotel I am staying at with the points I earned, I do not think I am being unreasonable. I am currently a Platinum member. I was not rude to the CSR, I was polite and asked to be transferred to a supervisor, waited for about five minutes, then was transferred to a survey - which makes me think the CSR hung up on me.

When I travel on business in the future, I will avoid Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza, Hotel Indigo and Candlewood Suites out of spite.

I will update this thread if their correspondence department gets back to me.
TheMG
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said by banditws6:

Different experience here. At the time -- this was about 4 years ago -- every single credit card I already had was charging (or started charging) foreign transaction fees.

Well I Googled around a bit, and it seems that foreign transaction fees are a common thing for US credit cards, and quite rare for Canadian credit cards.

I guess that explains our two totally different experiences.

banditws6
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said by TheMG:

Well I Googled around a bit, and it seems that foreign transaction fees are a common thing for US credit cards, and quite rare for Canadian credit cards.

I guess that explains our two totally different experiences.

Aha. Yeah, that would explain it! I didn't notice your profile location before.

U.S. banks screwing us? What a surprise, never saw that coming.

Oh_No
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join:2011-05-21
Chicago, IL

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said by TheMG:

said by banditws6:

said by r81984:

Also, that capital one card has 0 international fees when traveling.

That's actually the reason we got a Cap One card. We were going to live 6 months in Thailand and I didn't want to pay a foreign transaction fee on everything I purchased.

"Foreign transaction fees"??? First time I've heard of those.

I have traveled and purchased stuff abroad using various different credit card and was never charged such a fee. I only paid the bank's currency exchange rate and that's it.

Each card does the exchange rate different. Some do at the time of purchase, others do daily average.
Amost all cards have a foreign transaction fee that I guess you had no idea you were paying unless you were lucky to get a card with fees without even knowing it.
said by »www.creditcards.com/cred ··· 1276.php :
Visa and MasterCard each charge 1 percent of purchases as a foreign transaction fee. Most banks add an additional 1 percent or 2 percent, leaving your total fee at 2 percent or 3 percent.
If you click the quote link there is a table that shows all the fees for popular cards.
Capitalone is one of the few cards that does not make you pay any international fee.

I had no idea that canadian's get better deals for credit cards.
but...
said by »blog.rewardscanada.ca/20 ··· ign.html :
Most of the Foreign Exchange fees on Canadian credit cards hover around the 2% mark, so for someone who travels a lot or does a lot of online shopping outside of Canada the 2% fee can add up really quickly
I think you were just lucky with having no international fees as it seems canadian cards have them.
»www.fcac-acfc.gc.ca/eng/ ··· -eng.asp
This also states that canadian credit card companies charge extra international fees.

EUS
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join:2002-09-10
canada

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I had a US Visa for vacation purposes, took a while to set up.
I also have voip.ms ( a Montreal company) that bills in USD no matter where you live.
When the time came to refill my voip, I paid with my USD Visa, (to the company in the same city as me), imagine my surprise when Visa charged me a 3% cross border fee.
When RBC sold their US branches, I canceled the accounts, and Visa.
Stupid, shortsighted business decisions.

Sarah

join:2001-01-09
New York, NY

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I am pissed at this rewards program too, I got a credit card from them earlier this year because I usually stay at their hotels when I'm in NYC, and literally while the card was in the mail to me, they jacked up all the rewards-points rates on every hotel of theirs in NYC I'd ever stayed at, making the points I was getting from the card worth suddenly much less to me. Nice. If they'd waited two weeks I could have booked all the nights I wanted, used up all the bonus points I got for signing up and gotten so much more value out of it. Kind of a bait-and-switch.

I will probably keep the card just because you get one free night a year and that's worth much more than the annual fee. Right now I only use it for things that you get double points from (e.g. groceries) because it is still good value, but for all other purchases I use a 1.25% cash back card because I get more out of that. That one is the Capital One card with no foreign transaction fees that other people have mentioned. My old card started charging 3% on every foreign transaction, so I got rid of it.

Capital One is OK except they have really bizarre fraud algorithms on my account. Spending $80 on ticketmaster.co.uk at 5AM in my time zone? Fine. Buying a tank of gas in rural Texas when I do not own and have not rented a car? Fine. Buying Advil at the store near my office which I have shopped at 500+ times previously? Well, that's gotta be fraud...

banditws6
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join:2001-08-18
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said by Sarah:

Capital One is OK except they have really bizarre fraud algorithms on my account. Spending $80 on ticketmaster.co.uk at 5AM in my time zone? Fine. Buying a tank of gas in rural Texas when I do not own and have not rented a car? Fine. Buying Advil at the store near my office which I have shopped at 500+ times previously? Well, that's gotta be fraud...

Actually this is my one sore spot with Capital One as well, except that I wish they'd be more proactive about their fraud prevention measures. I had somebody use a clone of my Capital One card (literally like three months after I got it) to buy a bunch of crap and Capital One suspended my account without notifying me the night before I was set to leave for a 6-month stint in Thailand. I was pretty pissed. Is this typical for credit card companies to just let you find out at the least convenient time that your account's been deactivated, rather than be proactive about informing you?

I do have to say though, Capital One was good to work with through the whole investigation process that followed and I didn't have any trouble with responsibility for fraudulent charges. The fact that I had to do it all on Thailand time (read: in the middle of the night) sucked, but that's not their problem...

Sarah

join:2001-01-09
New York, NY

Sarah

I had my card number skimmed as well, and they seem to have turned up the fraud protection on my account, except that it flags all the wrong things. I would understand if it flagged some of my odder purchases, but it flags completely normal things that I do all the time.

They also never de-activated my account, they just contacted me to tell me they detected potentially fraudulent charges and they sent me a new card right away. It wouldn't have done much good in your case if you were leaving the country the next day, but as you say, that's not really their fault...