my letter to party (long), and their initial response

[phillydilly]

earlier this moring i was rediculously bored at work, so i decided to write a letter to party about the bonuses this month. I tried to be courtious and helpful, while saying I would not be playing there. I'll post my letter, and there initial response, if there is a followup from their "management team" i'll post it.


Date: 2005-10-06 08:30
To: bonus@partypoker.com; info@partypoker.com; marketing@partypoker.com
Subject: General Comments[#3749508]

Party Poker Promotions Department,

I recently received an offer from Party Poker for the following:

From Wednesday, October 5 through Monday, October 31, 2005, you can earn 4525 Regular Party Points and receive 380 dollars in cash!

I do appreciate this offer, however I will not be making use of it. As Party Poker was one of the first poker sites I played on, and I enjoyed it very much, I thought I'd take a few minutes to point out why I will not be playing on Party Poker for this offer. This is not to be critical, but to hopefully show how you can improve to bring my play back to Party Poker.

First of all, I am currently a no limit holdem player. According to the party points website, I earn 4 points for every 20 raked hands. This means I would need to play 22,625 hands for $380. Currently there are published reload bonuses for a Party Poker Skin for $500 for 10,000 hands. Half the hands, more money.

Secondly, there are other money back per hand plans worth roughly 2-3 cents a hand (assuming playing at the NL25 game, this would be more at higher stakes). $380 for 22625 hands works out to 1-2 cents a hand. While this may not seem like much, over the course of 22,000+ hands this is $200+ dollars difference.

With two offers worth more money and lower hand requirements, while still able to play on the Party Poker network, there is not much motivation to bring my play to Party Poker.

As far as solutions to these issues go, I would propose a few. The first would be to raise the bonus amount. The second would be to lower the hand requirements. Another change would be to change the point structure for no limit, instead of all no limit games being 4 points for 20 hands, make a no limit point structure similar to the limit point structure, with more points being awarded per 20 hands as the limits increase.

My last solution is to make party points more valuable in of themselves. Currently party points can be traded in for clothing, or freerolls. As the freerolls are for relatively low dollar amounts with thousands of players, these have negligible value. Now, if I compare the party point system to other poker sites, I can find the following:
Pokershare.com, points can be traded in for a world poker tour tournament entry
UltimateBet.com, points can be traded in for $10,000.00
Hollywoodpoker.com, points can be traded in for entries into 10+1 and 20+2 multitable tournaments, not just freerolls.

These are just to name a few. If Party Poker started having some nice high end prizes, it would increase play a great deal.

Those are some of my suggestions on how party poker can win back players it has lost such as myself. While I am only a low stakes player, and do not generate anywhere near the rake of some other players, these are sentiments I have seen expressed by players from .5/1 up to 100/200.

Just my thoughts,
Nick



their response:




Dear Nicholas,

Thank you for contacting us.

We are happy to know that you enjoyed playing at our site. We value you as a player and also see that you have been a very good player on our site.

We have forwarded your comments to our Management Team who will decide on the best course of action. Your feedback is very important to us and helps us to continue to provide the ultimate online gaming experience to all our players.

Thank you very much for taking the time to share your thoughts with us.

Note: Please do not disclose your password to any individual/organization claiming to represent us. We will never ask you for the password to your account. If you receive any email or phone call from anyone requesting you to provide your password please report it to us immediately.

Our Customer Care Department is available 24/7 to assist you via email.

Thank you for choosing us as your online gaming site!

Ajay P
Poker Customer Care

[jrz1972]

Nice email, and a surprisingly on-target response from Party.

FWIW, I don't think the "give me more bonus money with fewer raked hands required" suggesting is going to go anywhere. I can understand why Party wants to scale back their bonuses a bit and I can't say I blame them for it. This month's "solution" isn't the right way to go, though.

[buriedbeds]

I actually did the same thing last night, but the tone of my e-mail was quite different, and my reply was very different - much more personalized.

My e-mail:

"Let me get this straight - $75 for about 10050 raked hands (at the lower limits/sit and go tournaments that I frequent)??? That is a really, really bad bonus, in terms of the industry standards. At7x I would have had to play 525 hands. Do you actually expect me(or anyone else) to be happy with that, considering what we've beengiven in the past?? Especially when anyone who plays regularly also frequents the poker forums and knows for a fact that other peopleare getting *far* superior offers, seemingly arbitrarily?

I can see why you would act this way towards "bonus whores" who use your site only during the week that you offer the bonuses, but as someone who has NEVER done that, as someone who plays all month long at several different levels, games and formats, and as someone who has referred players to your site in the past, I need to say that I am *very* disappointed, and I am now considering taking a step I hadn't yet taken - taking my business elsewhere.

A formerly loyal Party Poker user-

-(my full real-world name)"

Their response:

"Dear (My name),

Thank you for contacting us.

I would like to inform you that it is basically the "Marketing Team" that selects a particular group of players randomly each time they have a new bonus or a new promotion. The bonus you are referring to is only for a few players selected randomly by the marketing department. Each player gets one or the other bonus at a particular point of time apart from the regular bonuses we have.

This is not a bonus, it is a Player Club Points promotion. PartyPoker is known for offering the best bonuses in the online poker industry. Not only that, we are the largest online gaming site in the world. This is mainly because of the bonuses and special promotions that we offer to our players. Also, due to the trust and goodwill that we have. We will continue to offer the bonuses with raked hands restrictions from time to time as we have done in the past.

(My Name), while I was going through the account I see that you are eligible for IGMPAY bonus. To avail this bonus you have to make a deposit through the iGM-PAY deposit option and use the bonus code IGMPAY. This bonus would give you 20% bonus up to $100 maximum and you need to play raked hands equal to 5 times the bonus amount in 30 days.

I also see from my records that you are an avid player at our site and play at PartyPoker.com on a regular basis. Unquestionably, you are a valued player at our site. However, you need to understand that a whole lot of effort goes into the configuration of a promotion. The requirements/restrictions for a particular promotion are also formulated according to the regular feed back that we receive from our players that also involves a whole lot of extensive research.

All the above inputs are then taken into consideration and then the promotion structure is designed/formulated. We actively encourage feedback and constructive criticism from our customers in order that we can improve our service.

We sincerely appreciate your patronage and hope you enjoy playing with us. Also, you have our assurance that we are working 24/7 to make sure that you have a fulfilling Poker experience.

Note: Please do not disclose your password to any
individual/organization claiming to represent us. We will never ask you for the password to
your account. If you receive any email or phone call from anyone
requesting you to provide your password please report it to us immediately.

Our Customer Care Department is available 24/7 to assist you via email.

Thank you for choosing us as your online gaming site!

Sid
Poker Customer Care"

I only play at Party, and while I take advantage of all the bonuses I'm really not a bonus whore - I play a lot (for someone with a full time job, at least) all month long, and at a fair range of different levels (up to 3/6 (occasionally 5/10) and 30/3 SNGs, plus the mtt) and games, so maybe that's why I got the more personalized response...

Anyway, I think that players should send in complaints, since they "value feedback."

Also, I don't know how I missed that bonus, so that's a nice upside...I'll clear it this month, and see what's what in the future.

-bb.

[krazyace5]

Sounds like they might be testing the waters so to speak, I bet if no one complained it could be an all points sytem down the road.

[phillydilly]

[ QUOTE ]
Sounds like they might be testing the waters so to speak, I bet if no one complained it could be an all points sytem down the road.

[/ QUOTE ]

well, it look like two letters got a response, so, lets keep complaining.

[Exsubmariner]

"Management Team" = e-mail deleted.

[paperboyNC]

I emailed them twice already and got almost identical responses.

Am I the only one that thought this new bonus promo was cool? It is NOT a deposit bonus, there are no cashout restrictions and I do not have to dpoesit money.
I am a mid limit player that plays an average amount per week. I dont like to deposit because I just dont have to. I withdraw once a month (usually) and when I do take part in a deposit bonus it is usually not for the full amount (i'm on a budget!) The idea that I can get a somewhat rakeback deal from party by playing the same amount that I have been sounded incredibly great to me!
Of course, I didnt get the phone call, so I am happy today burning off this bonus. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[SoCalRugger]

[ QUOTE ]
Am I the only one that thought this new bonus promo was cool?

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes. I'm guessing you're also the only one that didn't bother to do the math.

The REALCHANCE bonus was $150 for 1,050 raked hands. 7x playthrough requirement.

My offer this month is $80 for 935 player points. 20 raked hands = 12 player points at 3/6 and 5/10. So I'm looking at 1,560 raked hands for $80. Basically a 20x clearing requirement.

They're offering me half as much money with a 20x instead of 7x requirement.

Yeah, I'm [censored] ecstatic about this new offer.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Am I the only one that thought this new bonus promo was cool?

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes. I'm guessing you're also the only one that didn't bother to do the math.

The REALCHANCE bonus was $150 for 1,050 raked hands. 7x playthrough requirement.

My offer this month is $80 for 935 player points. 20 raked hands = 12 player points at 3/6 and 5/10. So I'm looking at 1,560 raked hands for $80. Basically a 20x clearing requirement.

They're offering me half as much money with a 20x instead of 7x requirement.

Yeah, I'm [censored] ecstatic about this new offer.

[/ QUOTE ]

I must be the only one not comparing this to a deposit bonus.
I did NOT have to make a deposit.
I do NOT have cashout restrictions while I clear this bonus.

For someone like me, and I suspect the majority, I dont want to have to deposit money each time a new bonus offer comes around. And I suspect the fish dont either. It appears that this offer will be embraced by the players that you make your living from, and not the people that make their living.

I appreciate a bonus that is based entirely off of my play and not on my ability to increase my bankroll through a deposit.