VIP Gift Certificate Change

[lhbrown]

Hi Mountie, claassanam, travel2fun,

Time will tell what will happen with the LL Community and where we are going with it.... I am surprised LL has not made the VIP Contributor announcement yet, but notified the winners by e-mail only.

I applaude your graceous attitude towards the slashing in half of the VIP gift certificates. I think there is little we can do to change LL's mind on this decision, but it would be interesting to know why this decision was made. Nonetheless, I maintain that you attract more goodwill with Giving than with Taking Away---. I have enjoyed participating in this travel forum and will probably continue, but the pressure to do so is somewhat off. (A $250 certificate at the of the quarter is not as valuable as a $500 certificate and doesn't go as far, especially in Europe). I would have rather seen the VIP status symbol with the red ink seen taken away for the quarter a contributor does not make the cut than the incentive. To me this would make more sense.
I think the "VIP Status" symbol is meaningless, if you do not do the work in any given quarter, you are really just "coasting"... and from the looks of it, you can coast indefinitely... there is no statement on LL on when they intent to cut off non-contributors. There are a few VIP Contributors who have zero contributions in one or two quarter but they still show the VIP status. To me, this is misleading...
LL policy states that you have to do the work to maintain your VIP status... to keep the VIP status beyond the quarter was only clarified by Juno Hart in an answer to my post under "LL Rules Revisited"... nothing was changed on the LL VIP policy site itself...

claassenam, I think your fears of abuse in the form of flooding, cuting and pasting, etc. just to get the VIP certificate are probably unfounded, or we would have seen it already... furthermore, someone could take this attitude even for a $250 VIP certificate.

As far as Luxury Travel is concerned, Luxury Link offers some nice packages at good prices. However, I have found, that if you belong to the Clubs of the Leading Hotels of the World, the Small Leading Hotels of the World and the Relais&Chateaux 5C Club, you can get comprabale deals. Last March, we paid LL a $1000 at the Hotel dela Ville in Florence for 4 nights including a deplorable dinner and having to ask for our bottle of wine. When LL did not offer anything in Naples, I reseved (on the suggestion of a LL contributor) at the Grand Continental in Naples with my club card at LHW a room for 4 nights.The price tag was $800.(Note, Dollars, not Euros, the reservation was made in the US and prepaid). The hotel included a superior room with a view of the sea, excellent buffet breakfast every morning, a bottle of champagen, a box of chocolates and access to the spa. With the extra $200 we could easily eat at the hotel's magnificent roof top dining room and not surpass the $1000 we paid for the Florence LL property. So, you can find good deals elsewhere, but you need to do your homework just like on LL.



Message Edited by lhbrown on 01-06-2008 05:07 AM

[kyshel]

I have really taken to heart all the comments on this subject--I agree in part with some and not with others.
I am disappointed that the incentive cut was so deep.
I am disappointed that I had to "discover" the change without a community notice. LL has a way to go in providing excellent customer service--here in the forum as well as answering email CS requests. I saw the reduction several days prior to asking if anyone else was aware of it--not sure if I would rock the boat, since someone else would see it eventually. But, I wanted answers. Thank you all for your opinions.

We are not without the cut/paste/post contributor, who, I believe, is frivolous with frequent and somewhat meaningless posts. We have seen old threads dredged up for the sake of a post/reply just for a "count". I choose to ignore those "contributions" because they are useless and there is nothing I can do about them.

This is almost like a "job" for me--I enjoy it and reap all the benefits the community shares with their informative posts. I promote LL because there are great values here and I like to have my friends and airline associates get good deals. It's not the only place to get great travel packages. The quarterly incentive decrease will probably make me buy less now. (see combining GC post from imbues). That's too bad.

[Mountie]

Good to see the special $1,500 bonus is still being given to one lucky VIP Contributor. Congratulations, bonniejoy03! I guess it is still possible to win this drawing even if you don't qualify for the new $250 VIP certificate. Could that be correct?

[lhbrown]

Hi Mountie,
For your information, bonniejoy was a VIP contributor for the past 4 quarters, so she should have been eligible for the drawing. I congratulate bonniejoy on her winning the $1500 certificate. The new $250 VIP Contributor certificate will only come into effect the 1sts quarter of 2008. However, I think Juno Hart clarified somewhere that you are not eligible for the drawing if you were not a VIP Contributor in the 2 quarters before the drawing. Correct me if I am wrong.

[travel2fun]

omegaet, I understand you are along time customer,frequent contributor to this community, one of the first VIPs, as well as the winner of the first $1,500 bonus drawing. I enjoy reading most ofyournew threads andinteresting posting. I don't always agree with what you have to say, but I think youput time and effort into your writings.



I would like to ask you a couple ofpointed questions and see if you will givean honest answer:



"Do you think your thread started last September in any way influenced the recent decision by management at luxury link to reduce the amount of the VIP certificate from$500 down to $250 each quarter? Also, do your feel the threadinfluenced luxury link management in their decison to reduce the number of VIPs?"



I certainly mean no disrespect in asking these questions and I hope you feel comfortable in openly responding. BTW, I have not noticed any postings from you since the changes were announced and am wondering if you have dropped out of the community (in which case you would not see this and not not answer).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Community Members & LL_Moderators (if you are so inclined to comment)...we've traded several PMs and emails with another community member on this subject. So today, we thought we would just post the question and see what, if any, thoughts or ideas others might have on the matter.



Whatis/are the benefit(s) toLuxury Link to operate, administer and incentivize participation in the Luxury Link Community? Of course, we know they have developed a couple of ideas and incorporated them into past changes......but are a few ideas now and then what motivates LL? Thereare certainly costs associated with LL_Moderators and LL_Editors monitoring and corresponding (it is doubtful these individualshave beensolely hired to function asmonitors....they must have other positions of responsibility within the company....and if so, then there are direct costs associated with the added work load). There are costs or at least "lost revenue" associated with the quarterly VIP bonus awards (these numbers are probably not one to one, since some of the recipients might not have ultimately made a purchase without the $500 inducement).



So what say you? Why is LL continuing to operate this community? Do you see it growing and expanding.....if so, what direction(s) might the future hold?



TheSeptember 4, 2007 Luxury Link news release is informative and interestingin terms of innovative and collaborative marketing effortshttp://www.luxurylink.com/about/abt_news_pr.php?val=news&id=1024

[jsattapr2]

lhbrown, mountie and other interested members, there seems the potential for conflict of interpretation between what lhb is saying and what Mr. Hart said in his original posting follow the first $1,500 drawing. Mr. Hart does say the drawing is held every six months and in order to be considered for the drawing, the VIP must be active. Perhaps active simply means the VIP has not has his/her VIP status revoked. It is not clearly stated the VIP has to have been active for the prior six month or must have been awarded the $500 certificate, now reduced to $250, during the prior three or six month period. Does anyone read this differently?



Possibly Mr. Hart could clarify.

lhbrown wrote:
Hi Mountie,
For your information, bonniejoy was a VIP contributor for the past 4 quarters, so she should have been eligible for the drawing. I congratulate bonniejoy on her winning the $1500 certificate. The new $250 VIP Contributor certificate will only come into effect the 1sts quarter of 2008. However, I think Juno Hart clarified somewhere that you are not eligible for the drawing if you were not a VIP Contributor in the 2 quarters before the drawing. Correct me if I am wrong.

Dear Community Members & VIP Contributors:



First off, I want to thank all of you for your thoughtful posts and continued support of this exciting Community.



You touch on a lot if issues in these threads, and I will do my best to address them all.



We very much want the Community to be a self sustaining part of our website. Our goal is to provide a forum for LL users to communicate with each other and share travel experiences and exchange valuable information. To that end, we try to let the Community resolve issues on its own, without the interference of a Moderator. We read every post and are aware of most concerns. We will be expanding some of the forums in the upcoming months, and I can assure that we will be including a forum for Community members to interact directly with the LL staff. You are right when you say that we wear a lot of hats around here. We are a small company and the majority of our time is spent trying to make sure our users have access to the best luxury travel deals available. But we hear you loud and clear - and will makecommunicating with us easier in the future.



As for the $1500 contestprize. All of the eligible names were entered into a computer program that randomly selects a winner.We had our President, Diane McDavitt,run this program and come back to us with the winner's name. It was very important to us here internally that no one involved with the Community be involved in the selection process. We run this contest every 6 months - and to be eligible to win, you must be an active VIP contributor at the time of the contest. I apologize if this was not properly communicated to the community.But as you can see, the perks of VIP status are only extended to those with an active status - which we announce in the Community and to each VIP Contibutorpersonally at the end of each quarter.



If you do not attain VIP status at the end of the quarter, then you are not awarded the $500 gift certificate. Thus far, I have allowed the VIP icon to stay in place as that was earned by hard work and thoughful posts, and I still consider that person a valuable resource to travelers looking for advice. The Community is so young at just 10 months old now, and we have not been presented with a scenario where a VIP contibutor completely flakes out on us. When that time comes, we will remove the LL VIP logo and they will go back to a regular user status.



As for the VIP event and the VIP blog -- at this point in time I do not want to restrict access to the VIP blog as I am quite impressed by those posts and I do not want to limit them at this point. As you all know, we are trying to expand the blog posts and are willing tocreate a blogin any category that you would like us to.The VIP event has been tricky for us. We have been workingon a number of venues and locations, but we have not found a viablesolution to date. We are still working on this- and are very excited by your enthusiasm, but there are many details for us to still work out and we appreciate you patience.



I can assure you that we are listening to your concerns and suggestions. I think you will see a lot of your ideas in play on our website and Community.A new forum for you to communicate directly with LL will hopefully help here.



Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns. However, once we sort out all of these administrative concerns, I hope that we can focus more energy on creating great travel content to benefit the Community as a whole. With that said, I do have a treat for you...



Shortly, we will be providing a tool for you to be able to easily upload images and video to create slideshows and mini-movies of your travel experiences. More to come...



Regards,

Jono Hart

Managing Editor

[omegaet]

t-2-f....the short answer is: No! I doubt my September posting influenced the change in the value of the VIP Certificates for 2008 nor did it provoke them to reduce the number of recipients. We've allread a number of posts in the community regarding changes and it is likely we still have many changes yet to come. From the start, this community has always been a work in progress.



Maybe LLis contemplating other options for rewards or incentives. Haven't given any thoughts toleaving the community, justtrying to pick up some extra change to bid on more auctions.

[travel2fun]

Well, the end of another quarter is just around the corner. Any bets on how the chips will fall for the next round of VIP Certificates? In my case, I keep holding out hope there will be more contests offered in the future. Something like "Your Worst Travel Experience," might be nice, since the last contest involved "Your Best Travel Experience." I have a long list of "Worst" I would love to contribute. I'm not going to say anything else on the subject, since the staff might actually read this post and offer the contest!

[CMDAVILACLI]

I was fortunate to reach VIP status and recieved one of the last $500.00 certificates - which I am using for an LL purchased trip to Sonoma in July. For me, this was an added bonusas the main "gift" I get from LL is the wonderful LL boards and postings-- the first thing I do each day is go to LL and read all the new comments/posts.... andof course, check out the great packages and offerings.Sometimes I am able to contribute something to a post(and hopefully it is worthwhile) and other times, I feel I don't have anything to contribute and ergo, do not contribute. I would hate to see the quality of the contributions decline just to acheive some sort of status or bonus. I have learned so much about specific places/locationsfrom the community and truly appreciate the time the community members have contributed to the overall improvement in the nuances of traveling world wide.

So keep it up, everyone, whether or not there is a certificate or status as a "reward". I want you all to know thatI'm givingeveryonea blue ribbon for first place for all your wonderful contributions.

cmdavilacli

[BamaBoy]

Since I am new here, I guess this will seem like a silly question. I don't quite understand what you are expected to do or how you qualify to be selected for one of these certificates. Would someone point me in the right direction?