we woke up this morning at 5 am to take advantage of an alleged internet promotion at “Leading Hotels of the World” - the berri had read about it on the la times travel blog – and the offer was for two nights at a hotel for $19.28 per night.
for the first 50 straight minutes, the following page appeared:
“Sorry! Due to the overwhelming number of consumers currently trying to access this promotion, your request is being delayed momentarily. Please be patient, don’t get discouraged, and retry in a few seconds by clicking here, or by going back to http://www.lhw.com/1928.”
i then received the following addendum, from time to time, after being redirected to http://www.lhw.com/promoload/technical.htm:
“More information is available by dialing 1-800-643-8881 within the USA & Canada. Elsewhere please use 1-407-681-6134.”
Eighty-three minutes after i began my tireless attempts to get through, appeared the following:
“Thank you for your interest in the 1928 Promotion.
We regret to inform you that the more than 6000 room nights available at the start of this promotion have all been sold. Congratulations to the lucky participants who were able to get a reservation as part of this great offer!
Still interested in travelling with us? While we can’t offer you rooms at USD 19.28, we can still offer some great values, including bundles of 3 nights for the price of 2, 4 for the price of 3, or 7 for the price of 5, as well as discounted weekend rates and other Leading Offers.”
as a grizzled veteran of the golf tee time telephone/internet reservation wars and a relatively savvy internet surfer, this whole thing is sitting quite poorly with me.
at NO point during the “80 minute” promotion did i get through to the actual website.
a couple times i was redirected to http://www.lhw.com/1928_SIGNUP.aspx?ext=1928 from the lhw.com/1928 address, but in all that time, not once did I see anything other than the little page their webperson created – ADVISING me to be “patient,” SUGGESTING that I “not get discouraged,” and DIRECTING me to “try again in a few seconds.”
with my new google chrome browser, it was very simple to keep opening new windows at an incredibly high rate of speed, (and i was absolutely relentless), but not once, NOT ONE SINGLE TIME, did i get anywhere but their little – “oh, we’re so very, very sorry, that you can only access this little page that our webperson so creatively put up so that you would keep trying, and trying and trying to get through”
q – so, do I think they actually sold “more than 6000″ rooms during their promotion?
a – i’d have been much more impressed if they gave me an exact number – like the $19.28 number that was the basis of this whole thing.
q – do I see myself visiting one of these “leaders” anytime soon?
a – um, probably not.
q – do they care?
a – is Sarah Palin qualified to be the President, or even Vice President of the United States of America?
i guess this is where having a highly trafficked blog could make publishing a rant feel like it might do something, but it’s also nice to just get this crap off one’s chest, too.
oh yeah, it was also great fun sitting around the kitchen with YB before sun-up, listening to Dylan and getting screwed over by huge, multi national leisure conglomerate…
a scam? unfortunately, in my mind, that’s what i feel i was a victim of today
.
.
update: have gone back to the latimes website where i discovered the “deal” and they direct us back to the offending website where this is now the apology of the hour:
Due to the overwhelming number of consumers participating in this promotion, we have indeed experienced technical difficulties. Despite our efforts to carefully manage and prepare for this worldwide promotion, we were unable to meet the demand.
Please accept our sincere apologies. You will be receiving another opportunity to participate in this offer shortly via the email you provided to register for this promotion.
In the meantime, please rest assured that we will not be saving your email address in our database for any future solicitations.
Thank you for your understanding.
The Leading Hotels of the World, Ltd.
back at the latimes, we obviously weren’t the only cranky socal socallers early this a.m., check out the short list of commenters…
http://travel.latimes.com/daily-deal-blog/index.php/roundup-leading-hote-2897/
October 3, 2008 at 10:47 am
I always try to find the good in people. With Corporations that is another matter entirely different. If I were to give Leading Hotels of the World the benefit of the doubt the least I could say was that their CIO is a complete idiot. If I would have done this at my company I would have been fired the next day.
So for those of you that say its a scam it was definately one thing great SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Not only did they launch a massive advertizing campaign but they raised their name to the top under several keywords searches that are unrelated to their industry.
I received several emails from the company even though I had pre-registered and one from the CEO who is cancelling the promotion till they can figure out how to carry it out. So unless you want to send letters to your Attorney General because not only is this fraud in the US but it also crosses state lines making it a Federal offense. I have one simple suggestion to LHW. Take your intial registration data base and contact them directly by email and have them submit their request to an email address created for this purpose. Then filter the email address to run off the database of original registrants and you will be guranteed your orginal base. I would also tag the document with a PDF watermark just to be on the safe side. That is my advice.
As for the moderator of this blog, if you don’t approve this comment then you are just as bad as they are.
October 3, 2008 at 9:23 pm
no problem, Juan. all I said was “I fell as if” I was scammed.
if not approving a comment on a blog is “as bad” as offering a deal, soliciting MY TIME, not IMMEDIATELY making clear that there is a problem, but consistently telling me to try, try again, eventually wasting 80 minutes of my life, making an announcement that “6000″ room nights have been sold, then admitting that none of the participants got through and no rooms at all were sold, then offering me a replacement, then revoking that as well – well, we have different concepts of being “bad.”