The Mystery Shopping thread - part 6

gerkin

blindman wrote: »

Trust me you are not missing much:

No fee
No mileage
Dinner will cost you more than the allowance, even if you go by yourself. :rolleyes:
140 questions:eek: One of which asks you about the speed of the Internet, but you are not given an allowance to pay for it!

But it lets you have a hotel stay in a proper hotel with breakfast in the morning.
Lets you have drinks at the bar, lets you have a three course dinner.
Dinner has never costed me more than allowance. If you do not use internet, you can skip internet questions by replying - not used.

Its not as bad its made out to be and I enjoy these assignments more than any other.

tizzy79

The pay dates for December on RE are showing as 10th December and the 25th December.

blindman

gerkin wrote: »

Dinner has never costed me more than allowance.
Depends on the hotel and BTW you are not supposed to have the set menu but eat A La Carte and have a glass of wine.
Its not as bad its made out to be and I enjoy these assignments more than any other.
Not done many hotel jobs then for other companies?

If you do not use internet, you can skip internet questions by replying - not used.
Which is what I do, however with 140 questions it would be nice not to answer one which is irrelevant

I take it you walk to the hotel then so as to not incur petrol costs?

How long does it take you to fill out the 140 questions?

I was prepared to do these jobs despite of the negatives as initially one could collect the Hotel rewards points.
They've now changed the scenario so these points are now not given as the bill is refunded by the hotel. (Unless of course you know different).

RE now also say you can take someone with you, but they don't pay for their dinner.
(They will get breakfast).

Also they used to have the 'posher' type of the hotel chain available, but these seem to have gone.

IMHO there are too many negatives to make this a "must do" job.

Each to his own.

tigergold

I think the hotel jobs are worth doing if you're going to be in the area and fancy making a night of it. But saying that these hotel visits on RE - are VERY VERY short notice.

blindman

tigergold wrote: »

I think the hotel jobs are worth doing if you're going to be in the area and fancy making a night of it. But saying that these hotel visits on RE - are VERY VERY short notice.

The more remote ones usually hang around for a few weeks, RE just change the dates.

gerkin

blindman wrote: »

I take it you walk to the hotel then so as to not incur petrol costs?

How long does it take you to fill out the 140 questions?
Each to his own.

I do mystery shopping for the free dinners and shopping not to earn money. Of course I have to spend a few hours reporting ( I do detail everything properly ) but then if I was not writing a report I would be sat in front of a telly anyway.

As you said, each to their own, I am quite happy with the RE assignments.

tigergold

Thats so true gerkin - some people do the MS for the money by taking on the more profitable jobs like banks, mortgages etc. I'm like you gerkin, i do it for the food and shopping as I probably would never go to restaurants unless its a special occasion, so its nice to go out more than I would. And if I spend the evening writing up a report, yes it takes time, but I probably would have been watching rubbish TV. I also do it for the experience as it really makes it look at how stores function and why they maybe not doing as well. For example I went shopping in Wollies today (not for a job), they've made improvements but the pricing was all over the place, there were boxes all over the floor, i got my change in 20p pieces all £4 of it ! the list could go on !

blindman

tigergold wrote: »

Thats so true gerkin - some people do the MS for the money by taking on the more profitable jobs like banks, mortgages etc. I'm like you gerkin, i do it for the food and shopping as I probably would never go to restaurants unless its a special occasion, so its nice to go out more than I would.

I also do MSing for the perks and not the pay (good job too!)
IMHO you are selling yourselves short as

1) It costs time and money to get a "free" dinner.

2) There are better hotel jobs out there.

mysterious_girl

What I would do for a night away from the kids and the hubbie and sleep in a bed by myself without being woken by crying, nightmares (the kids - not me!) etc. Give me hotel visits and ten thousand questions - I don't care!

Went to do a cafe visit for Aba and it doesn't exist anymore. All that petrol and time and I wont get anything for it!

RE have some restaurant jobs for 2 people for tomorrow night only.

tigergold

:rotfl: :rotfl: mys girl.
Did you take a pic of the closed site, just in case.
I don't understand why RE have such short notice visits, I like to prepare for my visits, reading the questionaire a million times !
There are some very good companies out there that do pay a good fee, travel expenses and nice stuff to buy but they do not always have work available and sometimes you just want a night out with out having to pay for it yourself (apart from your time and travel money, which isn't that much as I use the bus & if you do a number of jobs in 1 day). So I don't consider selling myself short, as its all good experience for a novice like me - well a year old novice.