All Red Spotty Hanky loyalty points expiring 31 December

Takecareofthepennies

I found yesterday that my Red Spotted Hanky loyalty points balance had been removed. My query and the response from RSH:

From: Takecareofthepennies
Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 3:29 PM
To: redspottedhanky
Subject: Removed loyalty points


Hi,

You removed 117 loyalty points earned since 16/09/13 from my account on 02/01/14.

I am not aware of an expiry period for points earned and would, even if this exists, certainly expect it to be longer than three months. Could you please look into this and let me have my points back?
Thank you.

Best regards

---

Subject: RE: Removed loyalty points
Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 17:49:41 +0000
From: [EMAIL="redspottedhanky@atos.net"]redspottedhanky@atos.net[/EMAIL]
To: Takecareofthepennies

Dear Takecareofthepennies

Thank you for your email concerning your Loyalty Points.

Unfortunately all points expire on 31st December each year.

Management have been consulted on this matter and a decision has been made that all points will not be re-instated as we do not have the facilities to accommodate this request.

All points expirations dates and full details are within the terms and conditions once agreed to when entering our loyalty scheme.

We apologise for all inconvenience caused.

For any further complaint or comments , please write it to us at.

Redspottedhanky
1 Trinity Court
Broadlands
Wolverhampton
WV10 6UH



Kind Regards,


Customer Support
Redspottedhanky

---

I have now taken a look at their T&Cs and the expiry clause is indeed there. Nevertheless, I decided to share my feelings with them:

From: Takecareofthepennies
To: [EMAIL="redspottedhanky@atos.net"]redspottedhanky@atos.net[/EMAIL]
Subject: RE: Removed loyalty points
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2014 09:26:23 +0000

Good morning,

Firstly, please allow me to award you full marks for you very speedy response.

Secondly, may I ask you to make "Management" aware that I feel a loyalty scheme that takes away points earned, in my case, as late as 04 December at the end of that month, is counter-productive as it does the exact opposite of inspiring loyalty.

OK, we are only talking about £ 1.17 here. OK, I did not read the T&Cs in full beforehand. A loyalty scheme, however, that takes away points earned, in my case, as late as 04 December at the end of that month, is counter-productive as it does the exact opposite of inspiring loyalty. Given that RSH offer no better fares than I can get from competitors or from the train companies, why should I continue to use it if, frankly, I feel cheated?

Best regards

---

While I can live with the loss of £ 1.17 (I had redeemed my points several times during the year), this may be a larger sum for others. I spent £450 with RSH since July 2013; my 2014 rail spending will very likely go another way.

WTFH

Many hotel & airline loyalty schemes work the same way. If you don't spend the points by year end, you either lose them or you lose some of the privileges (unless you've done enough nights/flights during the year to keep your membership at the same level.

hpuse

There is not much margin in train tickets anyway for a loyalty program to sustain longer than a year.The price of a ticket never dips down even if the inflation rate slows.So no wonder it expires every 31 Dec.

Takecareofthepennies

WTFH & hpuse:


I agree with what you say. Most airline / hotel / car hire loyalty points I am familiar with have an expiry deadline. I have yet to see one though that is shorter than 12 months from the date of earning the points.


In the case of RSH, however, points you earn on 30 December would expire the next day. That seems, to say the least, quite unusual to me.


But maybe I'm the only one who got caught out or who cares enough about it to post.


Life goes on.

brendon

Oh that is annoying, but I've only lost 36. I too wasn't aware of any expiry -- I've checked last year's points in my account and I didn't redeem them until March. It would have been nice to let us know by email that their policy had changed this year.

dzug1

I think (but ICBW) that any points could be converted to a voucher with a longer expiry date before the end of the year


I was a bit annoyed to receive an e-mail on 3 January saying I had x points - only to log on to RSH to find I had none.

Liliya

Well, that's annoying. I lost about £10. Thanks for this OP, I hadn't realised that these expired. I'd only been collecting them since October. Oh well, I'll know for this year

transient

I have lost about £18 of East Coast Mainline loyalty points.... Done every year

korky69

just vote with your feet (or mouse hand)
i usually check other train companies as sometimes have more cheaper tickets options anyway,
just last weekend i paid £28 on east midlands website,and that was 1st class for most of the journey, the cheapest on rsh was just over £50

ewan_c

Takecareofthepennies wrote: »

But maybe I'm the only one who got caught out......

No, you're not. It's the first I knew about when I read your post so I've lost mine too!

bod1467

Have they CHANGED their T&Cs with respect to loyalty points? i.e. is this 31st Dec expiry a new term? If it is, and you signed up prior to this change, and they haven't notified you about this change, then they are in breach of contract.

Maybe use the Wayback machine or similar to look at previous versions of their T&Cs page? or check the physical/PDF copy of the T&Cs you were sent? (If you were - I've not used RSH so I don't know their modus operandi).