C’est si bon, say the French, about very nearly everything. Except, as it turns out, the terms and conditions of their own promotions.
The Novotel Nara**** saga has dragged on, through no fault of my own.
In early July, Accor launched its 7500 promotion.
For stays of 2 nights or more:
ALL Accor members: 1,000 bonus points (€20 value) ALL Accor+ cardhol: 1,500 bonus points (€30 value)
For stays of 5 nights or more:
ALL Accor members: 5,000 bonus points (€100 value) ALL Accor+ cardhol: 7,500 bonus points (€150 value)
They promised to pour on a hundred and fifty euros’ worth of points for every five nights.
The Terms and Conditions, as usual, were written in tiny print in Old French. Possibly Anglo-Norman.
A single shot of Grey Goose won’t get you through a casuistic salad like that.
A good hundred and fifty millilitres, with a bowl of Olivier salad, just to get started.
Even your man John from LoLo, when he went to get to the bottom of it, threw up his paws and said: “Au revoir, bloody hell.”
But for me it slotted in beautifully with July in Japan.
Prices in five-night blocks were the crème de la crème — €202, i.e. €40 a night.
C’est très bon!
“Pay €202,” they said. “And we’ll give you €150 back in points.”
“May we never see status again. We swear it on our croutons.”
They didn’t cheat me. Well, almost.
I had three stays of five nights each.
For the first and the third, they gave back 5,000 + 737 points apiece, the latter for the spend.
Once it was all done and a week had passed, I started working out why 5,000 had arrived rather than 7,500.
It turned out the points for the first and third stays hadn’t come through in full. Somewhere along the way there was a spot of shrinkage, or perhaps evaporation, and in total another 5,000 went missing.
It was obvious straight away: credited at the peasant rate, with my aristocratic Accor+ status ignored.
I asked my legal department to read the conditions and lodge a claim.
The conditions contained a little squiggle about which rates qualified for the promotion.
A brunoise like that in an Accor julienne came as no surprise.
What did surprise me was that, by some miracle, two of the three bookings fitted the rules.
The second one was on a rate that didn’t take part in the promotion.
Even though the prices of the three stays differed by a couple of euros.
Why not consult the lawyers beforehand?
A fair question, mon ami!
So I recommend this legal practice to you too, for future reference 🤓
