My wasted trip to Wandsworth for IHG’s Big Win

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• Iain says:

  1 May1 May 06:06

  No public transport nearby? What about the Wandsworth Town (Zone 2) railway station across the road and the numerous buses which pass the end of the street?

  This was my hotel of choice when on work trips to London – outside the congestion zone, pretty good transport links, a car park (and one across the road), two good traditional pubs round the corner (one on the river) and cheap prices.

  That hotel never charged me in advance, so it was probably your Platinum status.

  • Oh, Matron! says:

    1 May1 May 08:57

    Yes, it is a hell hole, although that McDonalds is well, placed for a cheeky breakfast!

    And it’s a 20 minute walk to the busiest train station in Europe.

    However, we’ve all done things like this…. Booking an stupidly cheap upper class flight with Virgin and then, when checking in to return home for work the next day realising that you’d booked for the day after, thus mandating the use of 40,000 FC miles to get home in time for work (and associated taxes!).

    It’s how you deal with these which makes the person you are (or the other way round). Chin up, have a laugh, and realise that, not a 3 minute walk from here, is Old Wandsworth Town, a quaint street with some great restaurants, including a fantastic Thai that does an amazing Tamarind Duck…

• Neil says:

  1 May1 May 06:10

  Has anyone actually received the 20k points for applying for the Visa card and paying for a stay? I got in January and paid for a stay at the start of Feb but no sign of it registering on Big Win or the points.

  I’m a little reluctant to chase it up however as this was the only stay I’ve paid for using the card and it earned me 16k points from bonus codes. Don’t want then to look into the stay in case they decide I’ve abused the system and close my account (loosing around 300k points).

  • Paul says:

    1 May1 May 06:53

    Yes but took almost 5 weeks and 3 email to customer service. Points were credited yesterday and email to advise me that all resolved.

  • Alan says:

    1 May1 May 08:14

    Nope I haven’t received my bonus for this challenge either. I emailed them and they confirmed my stay was eligible but that I had to wait 4-6 weeks, so I’m going to get back to them in a couple of weeks to say it (not surprisingly!) still hasn’t posted.

  • Thunderbirds says:

    1 May1 May 08:36

    Yes, also had this problem. I had to ring in to get my 20,000 points posted for a stay at the beginning of February. Whilst on the phone the lady at the support centre said they were having technical issues with posting of this bonus (no surprise there) but the problem will be that the extra 20,000 being a recovery of service deposit has not triggered the completion of this task on my Big Win account. I suspect that many people will also have to chase their final Big Win bonus if they are relying on the credit card bonus to complete their Big Win.

    • FlyingChris says:

      1 May1 May 15:01

      I too took out this card, booked & paid for a stay over 8 weeks ago – still no sign of the 20k Big Win bonus.

      I called this morning chasing it & despite spelling it out very politely – was put on hold 3 times and told she didn’t understand what I was saying twice…before simply hanging up on me. What completely awful customer service.

      Sent through a Missing Points form – but who knows. Anyone else got any tips/other email addresses to accelerate the issue as rather keen to book rooms for an upcoming holiday with the points…

      • Alan says:

        1 May1 May 17:04

        I went for the IHG Care team via Twitter. They’ve confirmed my stay was eligible under the Black VISA Big Win offer and will add it manually one six weeks post-checkout has passed.

• Sam wardill says:

  1 May1 May 06:34

  Hey don’t dis the HI Wandsworth! It’s 2 mins from the river, 2 mins from Wandsworth town station (which is 10 mins to Waterloo), 2 mins to the pubs, cafés and restaurants of old York road and 10 mins walk from shops and cinemas of southside (and 1 min from b & q in case you want to catch up on DIY browsing).

  • Oh, Matron! says:

    1 May1 May 08:58

    See, Sam’s also right 🙂

• Chris says:

  1 May1 May 06:35

  I’ve also had trouble with missing bonus points with this promotion. I’ve successfully completed all the Big Win challenges, and although I’ve paid for all my stays using my IHG Rewards Club card, the 1500 points for the use of the credit card and hence also the additional bonus of 33,000 points for completing all challenges have not posted. I have contacted customer services who have so far not been terribly helpful, unfortunately!

  • Sam Wardill says:

    1 May1 May 09:29

    I had problems with this promo as well. After many emails I got the 10,000 for using the card plus the 48,000 Big Win bonus as a recovery. Eventually the points posted via the proper channels as well!

• Paul says:

  1 May1 May 06:48

  Had similar issue with crowne plaza. Booked before Christmas using BAPP and forgot all about it. Stay was at Easter. By The time of stay I was close to triggering 241 voucher and was very careful to not to spend on card as didn’t want the voucher till August.
  Not only had crowne plaza not charged the stay but they then made a mistake and charged double!
  Despite them reversing the transaction immediately it triggered the voucher (the charge and refund went through on same day) and the ever helpful BA would not even consider stopping the voucher despite spending, even today being short of the £10k target.
  You live and learn!

• Froggitt says:

  1 May1 May 06:51

  Next time, thin layer of melted candle wax or spray plaster over the chip, and you’re back onto a mag stripe auth, with a signature, not a pin.

  • takke says:

    1 May1 May 09:09

    In my experience at a few retailers when the chip doesn’t work and you try the stripe, it has given me an error message something like ‘this is a chip and pin card, please insert in the chip reader’. I think the issue is that if that wasn’t the case, any fraudster would use the trick you describe and circumvent the security benefits of the chip and pin system. As far as I know, the signature can only generally be used in machines that don’t have chip and pin capability (mainly abroad eg USA) or some parking machines etc.
    I may be wrong but this is my understanding of how it works

    • tim says:

      1 May1 May 14:26

      AFAIUI, it is up to the retailer if they accept payment using swipe and signature. If they do and the transaction turns out to be fraudulent then the retailer and not the card company takes the hit. Some retailers do and some don’t.

    • Luke says:

      1 May1 May 19:36

      Actually after the 3rd attempt with a chip failing, it’ll say “CHIP ERROR, SWIPE CARD”, it’ll then you let you swipe the card just fine.

      A good way to force a terminal to let you fallback is just to insert your card in backwards 3 times and then it’ll let you swipe it.

• James67 says:

  1 May1 May 07:11

  Did your black visa paid stay register on your big win dashboard? Still waiting for mine for a stay over 3 weeks ago. How long did it take your points to come over from Barclays for card application? Have not got mine yet and CS have told me twice I must wait 6-8 weeks. I think this is trash, was not my experience when I had card before.

  • Rob says:

    1 May1 May 09:43

    The 40k from the card application have not appeared yet, but I haven’t received the points from the first month of card spend yet either! Barclays are very slow unfortunately.

    • Chris says:

      1 May1 May 10:39

      For the last seven months my points for the CC have all posted on the 23rd/24th of the month. My statement date is 12th if that helps in anyway.

• Rich says:

  1 May1 May 07:26

  Can you give IHG customer services a call and explain the situation? From my experience I’ve always found them quite amendable. If I ever fail or neglect to earn points on a program I usually make a call, worst they can do is say no 🙂

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