Reader Question & Rant: Terrible Le Club AccorHotels Customer Service

LoyaltyLobby Reader Questions took off for fee weeks, but now they are back. Remember that you can always email me, sent a message via Facebook or use Twitter.

A reader contacted me regarding his issue with Le Club AccorHotels promotion and the lack of customer service for fixing issues.

Here’s the email:

I am undergoing a terrible experience trying to claim my missing points and stay credits from Accor. I’d appreciate it if you could give me any advice.

I have recently claimed missing stays twice. The first stay was paid by points plus a couple of pounds. I know that Accor has a 10-euro-minimum-spend rule in practice, but nothing in their terms and conditions prescribe it. The responses I got, with no surprise, told me that I spent too little on the room rate. When I asked them to provide me with the terms, they simply quoted something irrelevant (Points Scale and services paid by Rewards do not earn points). Well it was only a few points and I wasn’t desperate for a stay credit so I just left it.

Then I registered for the Q4 10k points promotion, and one of my stay was paid by 6000 points + £12.23. I knowingly spent more than 10 euros to made sure my stay was eligible, but still I received no stay credit or points. This time, after giving me the same silly reply following my claim, they claimed that the £12.23 I paid was all part of the VAT (roughly £16). This has become so ridiculous. I don’t understand why they think they could get away with it. I would rather say that my points paid all the VAT and the £12.23 was purely net room rate! In reality, however, the VAT should always be proportional to the money I paid I believe, which means only around 16% of the £12.23 was VAT.

Unlike Hilton, IHG or other hotel chains, Accor’s customer service is not designed to help solve customer’s problems. They are designed to work every way to find clumsy excuses for their mistakes so that they don’t need to make amends.

Do you have any suggestions as to what I should do?

Conclusion

The easiest thing for the reader to resolve this promo posting issue is to contact the property directly and request that they process the proper stay credit for the stay with few points. This would automatically trigger the bonus for the 10K fall promo as well.

As we have discussed before, there is nothing on the Le Club AccorHotels loyalty program terms and conditions that would mention any minimum spend to be eligible for the points. It is obvious that you don’t earn points for the amount paid by the vouchers, but that is not what you are asking here anyway.

My advise for the future would be to try paying the stays that trigger these bigger bonuses mostly using cash and then use the vouchers to pay for other stays. It is an uphill battle to have these issues resolved (it really shouldn’t be).

It would be best IF Le Club AccorHotels would clearly communicate to its members the minimum amount required to be paid in cash for the property having to post the stay. Also, I don’t like the fact that I am required to scan receipts etc. for a missing stay requests if the properties haven’t posted them correctly (I have one Sofitel stay that hasn’t posted that was paid without any vouchers).