How To Move An Elephant: Getting Reward Points

[kaneohe]

A restaurant we go to belongs to a rewards plan where you register your credit card(s) and the plan automatically tracks spending and awards points based on spending. In the past, it has worked flawlessly with points updated and an e-mail message even before we return home from the restaurant.

Recently I registered a new card a few hrs before the restaurant visit. When we got home, no points movement or e-mail message. I contacted the rewards plan via their contact us link on the rewards site. I got autoreplies that they were behind and would fix the problem. When no progress was made, I called their tollfree number. No one answered so I left a message.
Again no progress .......not even an autoreply as far as I could tell.

I then got a brilliant idea........the tollfree number has a consumer vs business choice. I had previously chosen the consumer side and never got a person. This time I would choose the business side. I figured that they made their money from businesses so they would surely have a person to capture the prey that blundered into range...........and I was right.......a nice person apologized and promised to send the info to the relevant folks. I soon got an apologetic reply from someone who promised to fix the issue if I would send them a copy of the reeipt. Being technologically challenged, I sent all the info on the receipt (but not the receipt itself). Since then, deathly silence.

What else would you do? Normally I would escalate to a supervisor but somehow I got the idea that this is a small company w/o access to such a person.

Perhaps this is not an elephant. You would feel resistance if you pushed such an obstacle. Feels more like a ghost.......no resistance, no substance, just nothing at all.

 

[rodi]

I'm wondering how much effort it is worth to track down some reward points. What is the value of the points you lost in their blackhole of a rewards system? What is your time worth?

 

[COcheesehead]

Take a photo of the receipt on an iPhone, email it and ask for a status. That should take about 2 minutes. Repeat as necessary.

 

[kaneohe]

I'm wondering how much effort it is worth to track down some reward points. What is the value of the points you lost in their blackhole of a rewards system? What is your time worth?

This is fun! Time is free and available. Dysfunctional systems bug me and when I was working, customers always tried to fix us. Now is payback time.....this company needs some kaizen education and some process improvement for sure. I tried to leverage the restaurant to help me.....not coming back until I get my points .....so we're in the same boat. The manager was sympathetic and said he'd always gotten good service. I think that's where I got the idea to contact the business side. May go back to manager if nothing continues.

 

[rodi]

If it's fun for you - go for it.

 

[Sunset]

Is this AA dining ?

 

[athena53]

I can be pretty persistent when I feel that a business might be saving beaucoup bucks by chiseling a whole lot of people a little per person. It adds up and not everyone notices or has the time to pursue it. I've complained to e-Rewards when I get kicked out of a survey after I feel they've collected more than demographics and the info they need to determine whether you're a consumer of a particular product or service. I didn't lose much but they need to know when their clients aren't being fair to their survey-takers. To

 

[ERD50]

...

Recently I registered a new card a few hrs before the restaurant visit. ...

It's certainly reasonable to think the system just didn't have the info yet. Things like this may get batched up and maybe even run overnight.

It sure doesn't look like anyone had it out for you, it's a rare one in a million case maybe, not a 'trick' to catch people. Can't be more than a few bucks (if even), right?

Move on? I could see pursuing it if it was a significant matter of principal, but I really don't think you should expect that a new card has all the benefits linked to it in a few hours. I can get hung up on principal myself, but I'd let this ride.

-ERD50

 

[ERD50]

This is fun! Time is free and available. Dysfunctional systems bug me and when I was working, customers always tried to fix us. Now is payback time.....this company needs some kaizen education and some process improvement for sure. I tried to leverage the restaurant to help me.....not coming back until I get my points .....so we're in the same boat. The manager was sympathetic and said he'd always gotten good service. I think that's where I got the idea to contact the business side. May go back to manager if nothing continues.

Is this really worth making the business owner go through gyrations for a small amount of $, that was no fault of his own?

It might be 'fun' for you, but I bet he has better things to do with his time. I think you are being a bit selfish.

I can understand wanting a business to fix their problems, it's one of the reasons I will complain about something. But this doesn't sound like something that is happening regularly. And 'fixing' it might not be feasible (cost of improving the time response over the one in a million that go dining within hours of setting up this particular reward system?).

-ERD50

 

[lemming]

I was at a restaurant last week where the waitress helped the people at next table set up a rewards link on their phone so they got the points for the meal they were having. So it can be done in real time.

 

[ERD50]

I was at a restaurant last week where the waitress helped the people at next table set up a rewards link on their phone so they got the points for the meal they were having. So it can be done in real time.

Sure, but every system may be different. And this was something about a registering new credit card - that might not have been the case with the what you are talking about.

I noticed getting my new Costco Visa and new Fidelity Visa all working the way I want (alerts, Full View on Fidelity site), took a few days for everything to process. I planned to wait it out a while before calling, and it all got settled OK, w/o a call.

-ERD50

 

[kaneohe]

1st multi-quote....never even noticed that before

Take a photo of the receipt on an iPhone, email it and ask for a status. ........

iphone? what's that? no have and no know how.......gave them all the info on
receipt tho

Is this AA dining ?

No, name is in the last 25% of alphabet

I can be pretty persistent when I feel that a business might be saving beaucoup bucks by chiseling a whole lot of people a little per person. .......................

Don't think that's the case here. Just a technical issue..........

It's certainly reasonable to think the system just didn't have the info yet. Things like this may get batched up and maybe even run overnight.........................
-ERD50

Agree....later found some words like 72 hr delay to be expected with new card
registration somewhere.........did not appear w/ new card registration tho.

Is this really worth making the business owner go through gyrations for a small amount of $, that was no fault of his own?
-ERD50

May not have written clearly enough. The business I want to fix the problem is the rewards biz, not the restaurant. I agree that the root cause problem (getting more timely linkage for new card registration) may be a difficult technical problem that will take time to solve. However, there should be a
manual override that allows them to make corrections for glitches like this.
They asked for a copy of the receipt so it seems like there is a system but I haven't seen any results yet.

 

[ERD50]

...

May not have written clearly enough. The business I want to fix the problem is the rewards biz, not the restaurant. ....

Ahhh, that is much different then.

But still, it does say 72 hours required, even if it is in the fine print, so I still think you should just suck it up. But maybe they can be pushed into allowing the reward as a customer courtesy. But I can't see taking the effort for this small amount.

OK, so I re-read your post, what did I misunderstand?

I tried to leverage the restaurant to help me.....not coming back until I get my points .....so we're in the same boat.​

I took that to mean you are not coming back to the restaurant until you get your points? Just seems to be going too far for too little, IMO (and I'm often guilty of that, so I ought'a know!).

-ERD50

 

[kaneohe]

OK, so I re-read your post, what did I misunderstand?

I tried to leverage the restaurant to help me.....not coming back until I get my points .....so we're in the same boat.​

I took that to mean you are not coming back to the restaurant until you get your points? Just seems to be going too far for too little, IMO (and I'm often guilty of that, so I ought'a know!).

-ERD50

Poor marketing.......don't think I said that to the restaurant manager (hope not anyway). Was just trying to say I'll be back sooner if I get my points and was
hoping to see if he had any tips for dealing with the rewards folks.

Actually met the manager on the last visit. They have marketing techniques too......a free dessert coupon on the rewards site and when you use it the server alerts the manager who comes by , introduces himself, and makes you feel like you are one of their VIP customers which is supposedly why you got the coupon.Never hurts to personalize things, I guess.

Anyway , a happy ending. Finally got hold (by e-mail) of a sympathetic rewards rep with time on his hands. I had the wrong idea...I thought when you registered a new card, after 72 hrs, they could go in and siphon out the transaction. I think it's more like it takes 72 hrs to register the card and then they can capture future transaction.

In my case there was no way to capture transactions in that 72 hr window so providing them w/the info on the receipt did not help them. They wanted the receipt just to see that it was a real transaction. Side benefit is that it forced me to renew my scanning/attaching skills which I was trying to avoid. Fortunately
my one and only tool works here......for some reason the printer doesn't like to work with the computer unless I reboot the computer.

.....so thanks to one rep, everything is fixed. When I went to the rewards site, the first thing I encountered was a survey. I assumed it was for the rewards site/process so I gave them an appropriate review so they could think about the customer more. Now I'm wondering whether they thought I was evaluating the restaurant and will ignore the suggestions for improvement because they think it's them, not us.