What Happens When Promotions Go Bad – A Look Into the Consequences of Manufacturing Miles

By

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February 1, 2020

UPDATE: February 4th, 2020

Shortly after the publication of this article, Aeroplan looks to have unlocked all accounts that were affected by the freeze. No communications between Aeroplan and it’s affected members have occurred so it is unclear as to whether or not Aeroplan has decided against further action.

Of further interest is that those that had their accounts unlocked have managed to hang onto the miles that they have accumulated through the Black Friday hotel promotion. There is the potential that those miles may be clawed back in the future pending an investigation but that is simply my speculation.

I for one am happy to see this at least temporarily resolved without the need for the nuclear option of account shutdowns.

During my time at WestJet, I experienced first hand how difficult it is to create and launch a promotion. There are many aspects that you have to keep in mind to run a successful promotion including:

Will this promo resonate with customers?
Will the offer be too rich or not rich enough?
Are there any legal requirements you need to consider (I’m looking at you Quebec)?
Do we have enough marketing money to advertise this promo effectively?
Is this too similar to a promotion we ran before and if so, was that promo successful?
How do you even measure success?
How do you know if the promo creates incremental spend?
Will I be able to pull this promo off on top of the 12 other ones that are launching on the same day/week/month?

All these questions need to be answered along with countless more … and that’s just the beginning.

The next part is often the toughest.

How do you write the terms and conditions of the promotion such that you ensure that it isn’t abused by people that intend to game the system?

In my experience at WestJet, these terms are written by the analysts, specialists and coordinators within the Loyalty department and after they are written, they are vetted by Legal. These terms are often done along the way but if you forget about doing it or rely on previously written terms, it can lead to a LOT of problems.

In my estimation, there were a whole host of problems with a specific promotion that Aeroplan ran during the week of Black Friday 2019 which has led to an untold number of accounts being shut down.

The Promotion

During Black Friday 2019, Aeroplan ran an “under the radar promotion” that, if I were to guess, wasn’t expected to get a lot of traction.

One of the many Black Friday Aeroplan Promotions

This promotion was one of 26 promotions running concurrently during Aeroplan’s Black Friday Event. I have saved the screen capture of the promotion here for posterity but if the page is still alive, you can check out the official Aeroplan page at https://www.aeroplan.com/blackfriday2019.do?CID=INT:DSP:PRJ31000687:BANNERS:112519:120319:AEVOKEN#/.

As you can see, there were a TON of promos running during Black Friday so it’s no wonder why something might have been missed.

Take a look closely at the image above. Do you see anything missing? That’s right … the legal terms and conditions are completely missing for the promotion. Usually, you see a symbol such as an asterisk (*), ampersand (&), tilde (~) or some other symbol in superscript in the promotional language to denote that there are further legal terms that govern the promotion.

These legal references are completely missing from the hotel promotion.

The Issues

I’m no legal scholar but here’s where you start to see issues with this particular promotion.

Notice how the other promotions (AC Gift Cards and Avis rental) both have an asterisk at the end of the write-up? Well, there are a few problems here.

The first promotion where you Earn up to 2 miles per $1 spent on Air Canada gift cards has the incorrect reference. It should be a ± symbol but they used a * symbol. This is problematic because according to the above, the legal terms for this promotion are governed by the terms referenced by the * … and they have nothing to do with the promotion.
Through the use of the * in the two promotions that sandwich the hotel promo, Aeroplan demonstrates knowledge that they needed to include terms with the hotel promotion but yet, did not do so.
There is ambiguous language in the hotel promo – specifically the phrase “Earn 1,500 bonus miles per night on hotels booked with cash via aeroplan.com from Nov. 25 to Dec 3 (emphasis mine) – does the consumer read this as earning the bonus based on the booking itself or, as normal practice suggests, when the stay is completed? The wording seems to indicate that it’s the booking.

Does the improper reference to the terms below invalidate the rules associated with the promo or is the intent enough? Someone with some legal background is better suited to answer that question than I.

When A Crowd Sees Weakness

Imagine you are a crack team of dodgeball players and you have 12 people on your team. If you faced off against any other team in the world, you would win handily. Every single person on your team has a role to play and they play it well.

Now imagine you take that team and you match up against 1,000 smart people that have never played as a team before but that team is allowed all 1,000 players on the field at the same time.

Who’s gonna win? The team with 1,000 will win every single time.

This is what it’s like to work in a Loyalty department.

Essentially you’re facing a one to many relationship and if you aren’t on top of your game (specifically with your terms and conditions), the crowd will see blood and attack, as demonstrated by mcbg1, a user on RedFlagDeals on the Aeroplan: 1500 miles for each night booked at hotel thread.

As the thread progresses, you see a user by the name of asbraich ask the question that many had been thinking (apologies for the language):

As we move down the thread, we see a couple of things happen in the last post. First, Joelm72 finds a hostel in Ho Chi Mihn City for $7.98 for a one-night booking. If you value Aeroplan at 1.5¢/mile, the 1,500 miles you would earn would be worth $22.50, making this an interesting value proposition. The second thing that happens is that Joelm72 highlights the phrase “Your miles will be credited to your account 2-4 weeks after hotel check-out or 2-10 weeks after car drop-off” at the bottom of his confirmation.

The addition of these words at the bottom of the confirmation suggests to me that whoever was in charge of this promotion saw the gap in the terms and added this phrase as a bandaid fix in hopes that it was enough to dissuade gamers from capitalizing on the oversight.

It wasn’t.

The Other HUGE Issue

Notice one other glaring issue with the hotel promotion? There were no limits set on it, meaning someone could theoretically find a $5 per night hostel in a low-cost country like Vietnam and book an unlimited amount of nights because people were operating under the assumption that each “booked” night would result in 1,500 Aeroplan miles.

Hindsight being 20/20, the proper phrase to be used in the promotions would have been something like “booked from Nov. 25 to Dec. 3 with stays complete by x date“.

If one were able to find a hostel for $5/night and earn 1,500 Aeroplan miles per night, you would essentially be buying an unlimited number of Aeroplan miles at 0.33¢/mile which is about 1/10th the cost that Aeroplan charges you to buy them directly.

If I were looking for Aeroplan miles and I could buy them at a 90% discount, I would jump at the chance.

The Financials

It’s unclear who is footing the bill on these bonus Aeroplan miles, but whether it be Aeroplan (Air Canada) or the hotels themselves, my guess is that when they ran the financials on this promotion, the thought was that this promotion would be a loss leader. If you aren’t familiar with the term, a loss leader is a product, service, or promotion that loses the company money in the short term but earns them money in the long term.

Think of Gillette razors as an example. The starter razor kit that comes with the handle, a battery, and a couple of blades can usually be had for pretty cheap – nobody knows for sure except Gillette, but many people postulate that they lose money on every single starter kit they sell. Where they make their money is in the replacement blades for the razor and you guessed it … each one has a proprietary connection so you can’t use an off-brand blade. They offer you a great deal in hopes that you continue on with their product in the long term.

Again I’m guessing here, but I assume that Aeroplan was losing money in the hopes that you would continue making all of your future hotel bookings through the Aeroplan portal, thus earning Aeroplan commissions for all future bookings.

The Fallout

What’s happened in the past few days has been nothing short of nuclear winter for many Aeroplan users.

In an effort to minimize the financial fallout, Aeroplan has begun to identify accounts that took advantage of this promotion and have unilaterally shut down these accounts without warning.

There has been no outbound communication on the issue. Locked out users were met with this terrifying message after they attempted to log in.

When users called, the were told by the call centre agent that their account was being investigated by Aeroplan’s Compliance Department and that they would be in contact shortly. All requests to speak to the Compliance department directly have been denied and call centre supervisors have held the line with the same response.

I have not heard anything first-hand about the Compliance Department at Aeroplan actually returning calls as of yet so many people are left in limbo.

Who’s Right?

To be honest, I’m a bit undecided on this issue. On one hand, I completely understand why Aeroplan is taking the stance it is taking. As a business, you need to protect your bottom line and the users that took advantage of this promotion are not necessarily the ones you covet in your program.

If one believes that the promotion is ultimately ruled by Aeroplan’s Hotel Booking Terms and Conditions, then by rights, no miles should be earned for stays that don’t have a check-in.

Additionally, based on those same terms and conditions, Aeroplan can shut down an account if there are any violations or abuse of the terms and conditions (ie Fraud).

Though the question remains, do these bookings constitute fraud or do they violate the Aeroplan Hotel Terms and Conditions if they aren’t even referenced in the promotion?

I also see why a consumer that took advantage of this promotion could claim they did so within the letter of the law because the promotion in no way properly referenced any terms and conditions so nothing governed the promotion other than the words in the promotion itself, which clearly references the word “booking”.

I personally did not take part in this promotion so I don’t have a dog in the fight but if I were talking to Aeroplan’s Compliance Department, I would certainly call into question the fact that the promotion was very ambiguous in its marketing and lack of terms.

Ultimately both parties are to blame here – Aeroplan for not having tight terms and conditions and the folks that made the questionable bookings for being perhaps a little greedy.

In the end, what I would hope would happen is that any miles that were earned without a checked-in stay would be forfeited but that no further punitive actions are taken against Aeroplan members that participated but didn’t check-in.

If you ask me, Aeroplan should unfreeze all suspected accounts and place all miles earned through the hotel promotion “on hold” pending investigation.

Conclusion

I’m going to admit that this was one of the most enjoyable posts I have ever written. I love looking at these issues and flexing on my knowledge both from a consumer’s perspective and from my time as an insider at WestJet.

I have seen terms missed in promotions and now realize the minutia that has to be considered when writing terms and conditions so I am certainly empathetic to those that worked this promotion.

I can almost picture a VP dumping this additional hotel promotion on top of the other 25 promotions 3-4 days before launch and not having enough time to properly vet it. Working under deadlines when you have so many things on the go is incredibly difficult.

That being said, mistakes were made in the running of this promotion and it was inevitable that some industrious and smart people in Canada would find the weakness and exploit it, after all, Aeroplan did quite a bit to promote their Black Friday Event so a lot of eyeballs saw this promo. It was only a matter of time before someone asked the question “do we really get 1,500 miles for a booking?”

Are those people in the wrong? Morally maybe, but by the letter of the law … I really don’t think so.

What ultimately happens is yet to be seen but whatever happens, it’s going to take while to sort itself out, which is a shame. I know of some folks that have been affected that use their Aeroplan miles to fund their retirement travel and they are somewhat stuck until their accounts are unfrozen even though they have legitimately earned most of the miles in their account.

If anything, this situation should serve as a cautionary tale on how manufacturing miles can be dangerous because many lose sight of the potential consequences when tempted with easy/cheap miles.

Review – Centurion Lounge – San Francisco (SFO)

By

Jayce

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January 30, 2020

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I am currently in transit to Honolulu where I’ll be enjoying a nice break from the stresses of day-to-day life. I booked this economy (*gasp*) award using Aeroplan and used 45,000 miles and paid $156.81 in taxes and fees. I’m flying United and Air Canada which partially explains the low cost in taxes but because I completed the Air Canada Status Challenge that I wrote about, I am now an Air Canada 35K member. The biggest benefit of this status is that it comes with a YQ waiver for Canadian and US travel on Air Canada operated flights. The United flights that I chose just happened to be the most convenient connections.

So why am I flying in economy class? Because the flight durations are not long enough to justify double the amount of Aeroplan miles required to book it. Also, domestic and transborder business class on either AC and United are nothing to write home about.

As part of my routing, I have a 4-hour layover in San Francisco – long enough to go lounge hopping but not long enough to go into the city, which explains why I’m in the Centurion Lounge at SFO.

Background

I’ve visited American Express Centurion Lounges in Seattle, Houston, Dallas, and Hong Kong and have thoroughly enjoyed them all (except Seattle when it was a Centurion Lounge).

In my opinion, Centurion Lounges are the best lounges in North America. They are known for their exceptional food, bartending service and if you’re in Dallas, the choice between a free massage, manicure or pedicure.

In order to access the American Express Centurion Lounges, you need to have either an American Express Platinum Personal or a Platinum Business card. Outside the generous sign-up bonuses (75,000 Membership Rewards for Business and 60,000 for Personal), I would value the lounge access benefits of the card to be the most valuable. If you aren’t familiar, both Platinum cards give you access to Priority Pass Lounges as well as American Express’ Centurion Lounges.

Centurion Lounges can be found in Seattle (SEA), San Francisco (SFO), Las Vegas (LAS), Phoenix (PHX), Dallas (DFW), Houston (IAH), New York (LGA), Philadelphia (PHL), Miami (MIA) and Hong Kong (HKG). In addition, AMEX is planning on opening lounges in Los Angeles (LAX), Denver (DEN), Charlotte (CLT), New York (JFK), and London, UK (LHR).

You can access the Centurion Lounges on your day of departure and recent changes to the terms mean that you can only access the lounge 3 hours before departure, though I managed to get in about 4 hours prior to my connecting flight to Honolulu (HNL). The agent at the desk asked me if I was connecting so my guess is that if you are connecting, there’s more leniency to allow you access more than 3 hours prior to departure.

With the Centurion Lounge and your Platinum Personal or Platinum Business card, you are allowed access and you can bring in two additional guests at no charge – a pretty generous benefit.

The Lounge

The lounge is in Terminal 3, Concourse F at SFO. You can find the entrance opposite of Gate F1 and F2, across from the Hudsons News.

When I read the initial reviews of the Centurion at SFO, I was a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to get a seat because many reviews cited overcrowding. As I sit here at the lounge, it is a bit busy but I easily found a seat in both the dining area to eat as well as in the work area, where I’m currently writing this post.

The Layout

The lounge is a bit smaller than I thought it might be at 8,200 square feet. In comparison, my favourite lounge in the world, the Turkish Airlines CIP Lounge is a mind-boggling 60,000 square feet.

When I was working in the WestJet Loyalty Department, I had a front-row seat to the conceptualization and development of the upcoming Flagship Lounge at the Calgary International Airport (YYC) so I completely understand how difficult it is to secure space for a lounge so I guess I can’t really hold AMEX’s feet to the fire on the size of the lounge.

The lounge layout is pretty standard for a Centurion Lounge. As you enter the lounge on the second floor, you are greeted at the check-in desk by some friendly agents. You will need to give them your boarding pass as well as show your American Express Platinum card.

As an aside, in the past, I have had success in showing them my American Express app with the Platinum Card displayed so you may not necessarily need to physically bring the card with you. This is a situation that will be “your mileage may vary” (YMVV) so it’s always prudent to bring your card.

Once you clear the check-in, you can turn right to the dining area which includes the bar and requisite bartender, or you can turn left to the work and seating area.

You may see some pretty worn “RESERVED” signs on seats, which are used to save space for Centurion cardholders. If you’re not familiar with the Centurion card, it’s a black colored, no limit card from American Express that is only offered by invite only. There’s a $7,500 initiation fee and a $2,500 annual fee – so ya … I don’t fault them for reserving space for those folks.

The Food

The food at the Centurion at SFO is pretty dang good with a decent amount of choice.

The Roasted Chicken, Spiced Crispy Fingerling Potatoes, and Roasted Broccolini were my choices for lunch and they did not disappoint.

AMEX has been know to differentiate their lounges through their food. Each lounge has its menu curated by a famous local area chef. In the case of SFO, it was Chef Daniel Petterson, a well-recognized chef in San Francisco. He has won many accolades including being nominated for the Best Chef – Pacific by the James Beard Foundation in 2009 and 2010.

Internet Speeds

One thing that I absolutely need in a lounge is reliable and fast internet access. I’ve found that most lounges are pretty good. The Centurion is more on the acceptable side of the scale.

It’s not crazy fast but certainly workable. You shouldn’t run into any problems streaming YouTube or Netflix from here. When you check-in, you will receive a business card with the wifi password. For most Centurion Lounges I have been to, the password has always been “MemberSince”.

Conclusion

The Centurion Lounges from American Express are always rock-solid in terms of the food, drink, and usable space. While I can certainly see how it can sometimes get crowded, my experience has been pretty good with no complaints about lack of seating. If you get a chance to connect through SFO, I would definitely suggest checking out the Centurion Lounge.

Travel Hacking From Scratch – Part 10 – Weighing Convenience vs Cost

By

Jayce

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January 26, 2020

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Welcome to the Travel Hacking from Scratch Series – a series dedicated to getting those new into Travel Hacking up the curve as quickly as possible. Below is the layout of the series with links back to already published articles.

Today our topic is Weighing Convenience vs Cost – a look into the lengths that people go through to avoid taxes and fees and whether or not it’s worth it.

The Benefits of Travel Hacking

Earning Points

Credit Cards – Which Card and Why

Category Bonuses

Churning Credit Cards

US Credit Cards (ITIN)

Referral Bonuses

Manufactured Spending

Using Your Points

Alternatives to DIY

Understanding the Power of Partners

Weighing Convenience vs Cost

How to Avoid High Taxes and Charges

Sweet Spots

How to Travel Better

Why You Need Status

Leveraging Status

Understanding Your Rights

Beyond Travel – Financial Freedom

It’s my belief that a large majority of people that get into this hobby are looking for the best return on investment with their points. The lure of free travel (or at least very cheap travel) is very appealing, especially those that are on the two ends of the spectrum – younger folks that generally have less disposable income and a lot of time, and those that are in retirement that are on fixed incomes, have a lot of time, and a strong desire to travel.

This may be an over-generalization but I think it broadly covers off a couple of big demographics when it comes to people that are very interested in loyalty programs.

Outside of these two groups, there’s a large population that tends to be somewhere on the spectrum of having a decent amount of disposable income and a fixed period of time in which they can travel. This can be because of work commitments or having kids in school. Whatever the case may be, this group, more than any, faces the quandary of whether to prioritize money or time.

This post will hopefully bring to light the possibility of spending more money in taxes and fees to allow for a more convenient vacation.

How We Got Here

I’m going to be using a lot of generalizations in this post because I’m trying to speak broadly. I’m also using my personal experience to shape the discussion because I feel that the path that I am on, is a path that many of you may someday share.

I started out as the poor student that only wanted to travel as much as possible and doing so without the help of miles and points was very difficult because I was living off student loans and menial jobs that didn’t pay a lot.

As a student, I did everything in my power to understand things like which airlines ddon’t charge fuel surcharge, or which credit cards I should sign up for to earn enough miles for my next trip. I spent countless hours on forums, reading posts and reading the terms and conditions of programs so I could better understand how to best stretch my dollar (or in this case miles and points).

Because I had learned how to derive a lot of value from my miles and points, I grew used to the idea that my time was less valuable than the money that I saved.

Ultimately I didn’t mind because I could justify a Calgary (YYC) to Toronto (YYZ) to Montreal (YUL) to Instanbul (IST) travel day because I was in Business Class and I was being pampered along the way. If I’m being truthful, I still don’t mind it but I will feely admit that taking 2 days to get to my destination is less appealing than it used to be, regardless of how luxurious the travel is.

I had grown used to the mantra that “it’s not the destination, it’s the journey” and adopted it to my travel approach, however, in recent times, I have started to see the other side of the equation.

It Just Takes Money

I understand that many may not share this same sentiment but much like many things in the world, if you’re willing to throw money at the problem, it ceases to become a problem.

Let’s say, for example, you wanted to fly from Calgary (YYC) to London (LHR) and you wanted to travel in Business Class.

You have two choices. You can fly with Air Canada and get there pretty easily or you can fly with a lot of Star Alliance partners to the same destination but through a very circuitous routing that takes a significant amount of time.

Option 1 – Direct Flight with AC

If you search for something like Calgary (YYC) to London (LHR), you will pretty easily find award availability … but at a price.

Aeroplan reward ticket from Calgary (YYC) to London (LHR)

What immediately stands out here are the large taxes and fees associated with getting to London ($589.41) but what you don’t see is that it took all of 30 seconds to find this flight and no knowledge was required around fuel surcharges, taxes, etc. Remember, these taxes are only for a one-way trip from London to Calgary.

There is a certain bliss associated with no having to worry about anything except availability. Additionally, if you compare the taxes and fees to the cash value of the ticket, what you are paying in taxes is relatively minuscule.

Retail cost of the same direct flight with Air Canada

What’s interesting here is that the taxes and fees from the cash price of the ticket ($547.41) are virtually identical to the ones you would pay for the award ticket ($589.41).

Note the travel time of 8:45 for this direct route as we look into what an award flight might look like.

Option 2 – Circuitous Routing to Save Taxes and Fees

For those that want to travel around the same time but want to save money on taxes and fees, you’ll be in for quite the trip. Because of the nature of the trip and the limitations of the Aeroplan booking engine, I cannot show you the results through Aeroplan screenshots but I can show you what I pieced together.

As you can see, it’s quite a lot of travel. The total time you would be traveling would be 30:45 and while some would argue that you could meet up with some friends in Vancouver (YVR), explore Los Angeles and enjoy quite a lot of time in Swiss (LX) and Lufthansa (LH) Business Class, to me, this is a very unattractive itinerary.

Unfortunately, I cannot tell you what the taxes and fees would be without calling into Aeroplan for a manual calculation (which currently takes forever). Based on experience, I would presume that the taxes would be in and around $200-$250. Another word of caution with these types of flights – when you land at a lot of airports, you are still on the hook to pay the airport taxes, which can quickly add up.

While you could certainly find a better route such as Calgary (YYC) to Los Angeles (LAX) to Zurich (ZRH) to London (LHR), I didn’t want to spend 2+ hours finding the perfect itinerary for a hypothetical trip.

To find this itinerary, it took me about 20-25 minutes using tools like Award.Flights but for those that aren’t familiar with Alliances and routings, this would be a much more challenging task.

Both routings will get you where you want to go but the direct flight is significantly more attractive in terms of travel time but a little less attractive in terms of cash outlay.

What’s the Answer?

The crux of knowing which is better for you is that you have to understand how to properly conduct an award search so you know what options are available to you and what the taxes and fees are. Only then can you truly understand what your best option is.

With an award search, there are two time factors you need to consider:

The time it takes to conduct the search (including the time required to learn the skill)
The total travel time

I’m still at the stage of my travel life that I am still interested in trying out new products and experiencing the luxury associated with premium award travel but, to be honest, I’m getting to the point where I’m favoring more direct flights even if it means paying more in taxes and fees.

I can tell you quite honestly that my wife shakes her head when I tell her things like “we have 8 hours in Cairo so we’re going to get out to the pyramids, look around, and head back to the airport”. She will ask me why we are even going to Cairo if that’s the case, and my answer inevitably is that we need to go to Cairo in order to get to Istanbul and we need to get to Istanbul to fly the new Turkish Airlines 787.

I may have played that card too many times.

Conclusion

Ultimately the decision is yours as to whether you just bite the bullet and pay the taxes and fees associated with a direct flight (especially on Air Canada) or try to piece together an itinerary that values money over time and effort.

In either case, one should not dismiss either option when it comes to finding the right solution. It has become too easy in our hobby to simply search for the non-YQ routing without even considering the more expensive but direct routing and in the long run, that attitude may have a detrimental effect on how much you love and embrace this hobby.

Understanding How to Negotiate with Anchoring

By

Jayce

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January 22, 2020

3

This entry is part 14 of 14 in the series How To

Join us on February 16th, 2020 for the PointsNerd Reader Meetup with special guest, Ricky Zhang from Prince of Travel and Ian Davis from US Tax Resources. Learn more about this unique opportunity at https://www.pointsnerd.ca/pointsnerds-reader-networking-meetup-february-16th-2020/

Let’s try an experiment.

I want you to guess whether the population of Nigeria is greater than or less than 25MM.

Now I want you to guess what the actual population of Nigeria is.

What did you guess?

The actual population of Nigeria is ~191MM people and it is the 7th most populous country in the world but I’m going to guess that you assumed the population was between 20-40MM or somewhere in that range.

This is what is known as anchoring.

By planting the number of 25MM in you mind, your natural inclination is to assume that the true population must be close to that number.

How Does This Help Me?

I love learning about how people think and behave so that I can leverage that information to help me achieve my goals. Using anchoring can greatly assist you to social engineer your way to a better outcome

If you’ve traveled a lot, you are bound to have run into a situation or two that wasn’t ideal. Perhaps the in-flight entertainment (IFE) was malfunctioning on your transatlantic flight or you found a used bandaid under the bed of your hotel room. Whatever the case may be, you are often left feeling jaded.

This is most likely because when you complained to the manager of the hotel or the airline itself (if you complained at all), you left the resolution open-ended. Here’s an example of what someone that doesn’t use anchoring might say in a complaint email:

Dear Hotel Manager,

When we arrived at the hotel last night, we were given a room that clearly had not been cleaned. When we complained to the check-in clerk, our concerns were met with a shrug and we were hastily given a key to another hotel room. When we got to that room, the key didn’t work and we had to walk back to the front desk to get a functioning key. I feel that this stay is off to a bad start. I would appreciate a response to the situation.

Sincerely,
Mr. Fife

The most likely outcome of this situation is that the hotel manager may call you to offer their apology and, if you’re lucky, give you a credit towards a pay-per-view movie or something else fairly inconsequential to the hotel.

The reason for this is that you didn’t give a specific desired outcome and left the hotel manager with too much discretion to try and make you happy.

Think about it.

How many times do folks in the service industry go beyond your expectations to resolve a complaint? Not very often. At best, they meet your expectations but rarely do they exceed it. When brands exceed your expectations, you remember and you tell all your friends about it because it is so out of the ordinary. Brands like Ritz Carlton and Disney come to minds as brands that really understand how to go above and beyond but most others just don’t get it.

So why not take control of the situation yourself?

How to Anchor

Much like my Nigeria example above, you need to anchor the hotel manager to a lofty expectation for a resolution. The theory here is to ask for the stars and settle for the moon. Sometimes you may even be pleasantly surprised when they give you the stars.

It should be noted that this is more of an art than a science. If your proposed resolution is outlandish, there’s a chance that the hotel manager feels so offended that they don’t offer you anything more than an apology so tread carefully.

Remember, there are no guaranteed outcomes here – this is meant to provide guidance to help you achieve your goals.

Here’s an example of how Mr. Fife might want to write his email:

Dear Hotel Manager,

When we arrived at the hotel last night, we were given a room that clearly had not been cleaned. When we complained to the check-in clerk, our concerns were met with a shrug and we were hastily given a key to another hotel room. When we got to that room, the key didn’t work and we had to walk back to the front desk to get a functioning key.

I feel that what we experienced at check-in was not up to standards that your hotel has demonstrated time and time again. I have read very positive reviews across many review sites and I must say that I felt rather disappointed in the service that we were provided.

I would respectfully ask that as a gesture of goodwill, the hotel provides compensation of 40,000 points as well as breakfast in the hotel restaurant for tomorrow morning. This gesture of goodwill would certainly go a long way in resolving the poor start to our stay.

Sincerely,
Mr. Fife

Tips and Tricks

There are a few things you can do to better your likelihood of success:

Know the standard resolution – if you know what the airline/hotel/car rental agency offers as a resolution to a complaint, you will have a better understanding if what you should ask for. Check things like TripAdvisor or Flyertalk and search for keywords like “complaints” and see what other people have received in compensation.
Have a story – the more detail you have in your complaint, the more likely it is to be taken seriously. If you demonstrate how you were negatively affected and communicate that well, the person deciding your fate is more likely to be responsive because they can empathize with your situation.
Loyalty matters – if you have status or have stayed/flown/rented many times with the same company, let them know that. Companies are more likely to try to fix issues with returning customers.
Be courteous – don’t be a jerk – plain and simple. Nobody wants to deal with the obnoxious guy. Make it easy for people to connect with you and want to help you.

Conclusion

Learning how to write effective complaint letters when things don’t turn out as you expect is a valuable lesson but a huge part of that is understanding how to anchor your request. If done correctly, you stand a much better chance at being satisfied than if you left it to chance.

Your mileage may vary depending on who you deal with and the brand that they represent but remember, if the issue isn’t resolved to your satisfaction, you can always escalate it if you feel it is necessary.