When Club Carlson/US Bank made their decision to eliminate the last night free on award stays (to credit card holders), that was certainly a blow to most of the people who held the card. Of course the annual points for keeping the card are nice but eliminating that benefit effectively cut the value of points by as much as half.
Still No Free Night
For me, I always booked two night award stays just because it ended up being half the points per night because of that benefit (see Club Carlson Nights Are Like Lay’s Potato Chips)! But, unlike many others at the time, I had not contacted them right away to express my displeasure (except maybe once or twice on Twitter – can’t really remember!). Those that did express displeasure starting receiving notice a couple of months later that they would be receiving a free night certificate. Pretty nice! Except those of us that did not contact to complain did not get that same certificate (the data points would suggest).
Waiting For The Office Of The President – Again!
So, guess who went ahead and contacted them? Me! I honestly told them that eliminating that benefit made the card worth much less to me and now that others were receiving a free night certificate, I was curious why I had not received one as well. I received a message in return thanking me for the comment and that
We have referred your inquiry to the Office of the President to ensure that we answer your concerns appropriately. An Office of the President Specialist will send a response in writing…
Well, that’s nice – never had an office of the President specialist help me out with something! True to their word, I received a letter (in the mail) from US Bank confirming that I would receive the certificate and it would be placed in my account and I would receive an e-mail about it. Except… I never did. After waiting several more weeks, I contacted them again. Here was their response:
We have referred your inquiry to the Office of the President to ensure that we answer your concerns appropriately. An Office of the President Specialist will send a response in writing…
Yep, back to the Office of the President! So, now I wait again to find out why I did not receive the certificate yet and will probably receive another letter in the mail and have to wait a couple of weeks after that.
In reality, by not sending out system wide certificates, they probably saved a ton of money since people would have cancelled their cards in the meantime and may not have heard about the free night certificates until after the cards were cancelled. Now, if they drag their feet again, they may be able to have the same result. But, my card is not up for quite a while so I will continue to wait…and write…wait…and write – until I get the certificate!
How about you? Have you received the free night certificate yet? If not, how long ago did you contact them?
What If You Didn’t Contact Them Yet?
If you have not yet written, all you need to do is to login to your US Bank online account and send them a message about it. You should receive a response similar to mine and then just wait. It could end up working out better for those of us who have not received them yet since they are good for 12 months from the date of issue.
haha the office of the president, still makes me laugh
I sent an email to USBank on the website, just a general email address and was told the same over a month ago… Waited and waited no sign of response, so I emailed them again using the same channel, this time besides a generic response, someone actually wrote back and said a letter has already been mailed to me.. Two days later the letter arrived and said I qualified for the free night and should watch for the certificate to arrive in 6-8weeks. A week later the email came, with a code!! I have already booked my free night using that code!