Loyalty Traveler reviews the saga of the lifetime Fairmont Presidents Club offer that I posted the other day.
It does turn out that the lifetime status was included in the Presidential Suite and Penthouse Living Social packages in error. I’d be really curious to know how the error transpired, someone wrote the copy and presumably thought that’s what was intended.
They pulled the offer early, it was supposed to run until Tuesday. But though it was unclear for a bit how Fairmont was going to handle things, perhaps they would have cancelled the deal and refunded folks’ money? In the end they decided to honor the promotion.
Some folks got their status especially cheap, you could even go in on these things as a group and get a discount for referring people, so the cost went down as low as $1500. If you’re young, and you have a reasonable likelihood of staying at Fairmonts, and the status isn’t devalued too badly in the future, then it turned out to be a pretty darned good deal.
Barbara De Lollis does a wrapup on the offer, from inception to its getting honored by Fairmont, in her USA Today Hotel Check-in blog.
She quotes me offering kudos to Fairmont for stepping up:
He gives Fairmont kudos for “stepping up and honoring the offer and doing so quickly. Fairmont Platinum is a really nice status level, and permanent status should provide nice benefits well into the future.”
It’s important to commend travel providers for doing right by their customers, especially in situations like these, in addition to the usual griping after all!
Kudos indeed to Fairmont. I think it was 112 odd people who got this? So it probably wont kill them! But still the “right” thing to do. I was aware of the offer but was having tech problems and after looking into the benefits couldn’t quite justify it (the 5 day limit on suite upgrade in particular). But congratulations to those who got in. Good deal!
I’m in the lucky 112 club. Fairmont has a new lifetime fan in me!
It took them less than 24 hours from realizing they had a problem on their hand to publishing a resolution. Nice to see a company do the right thing.
Fairmont won’t come out so bad, either….I’ve already booked a new paid stay at a Fairmont (that would have gone to Ritz Carlton otherwise)!