Six Flags GAdv Customer Service Kudos

Six Flags, Great Adventure and elsewhere, sometimes takes a bad rap on customer service issues. I've had mostly good experiences on the occasions when I've had to deal with Guest Relations. So I thought I'd share what happened Columbus Day.

Monday was my 10th visit to SFGadv this season. Many CoasterBuzzers are familiar, I'm sure, with SF's Funatics Rewards program, which issues "rewards" to season Pass Holders for qualifying visits. For those who don't get to SF often or are not passholders, I'll break the rewards down. Qualifying visits are between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Each reward is issued following the qualifying visit and usable thereafter:

1st visit..Skip The Line Pass for one ride

2nd visit..two free soft drinks

3rd visit..parking upgrade

4th visit..bring-a-friend free pass

5th visit..20% discount on next year's season pass

As stated, Monday was my 10th visit. However, only four were within the qualifying period, so I was not eligible for the discount. I went to GR and told the woman I was hoping she could give me a discount anyway, as I'd made so many visits AND hadn't actually used any of the rewards I DID receive. After going away for a few moments, during which she probably asked her manager for the go-ahead, she comes back and hands me a pat line about "I'm not going to bother asking my manager because of all the red tape involved. I'm just going to go ahead and do it for you."

Ya'll may know that GAdv's Season Pass is one of, if not the highest priced in the chain. Although they are running a special of 79.99 each and free parking, that's only if you buy four. Doesn't do me a helluva lotta good. The individual pass is 89.99 and tax..close to $100 total. I got it for 77.00 and change including tax. I haven't bought parking yet, but I'll do that either on Halloween or first visit next year.

As someone who works in the "customer service" industry and does things like this for my clients on a regular basis, I thought it should be noted and recognized. Is it a drop in the bucket for a business like that? Yes. Does it make me even more likely to keep on coming? Yes. And so does keeping El Toro into infinity...and beyond.

I didn't know there was a qualifying period this year, I know last year it was from the middle of May to Labor Day but this year I thought any time you visited the park qualified since I earned all 5 rewards by April.

I wish I could say the same about the customer service. I wrote a letter in 2008, got a response back. I wrote another letter in 2009 with more serious issues, a ride op with a cell phone out looking at his cell phone while a flat ride was running among other things and they completely ignored my letter. I never asked for anything for free but I would have liked an acknowlegment that they got the letter and would deal with the problems.

YoshiFan said:
I didn't know there was a qualifying period this year, I know last year it was from the middle of May to Labor Day but this year I thought any time you visited the park qualified since I earned all 5 rewards by April.

I don't know how you managed that, because I got no rewards from my April visits. Sounds a little odd to me. I had understood that the qualifying period was longer this year, but I got my fourth reward after a late July visit. I didn't get back to the park until Sept. 19th, have made three visits since that date, and never got the fifth reward.

I don't know, I figured it was just automatic but it sounds like they should have e-mailed you the 5th reward since if you went in April you earned it a while ago. I just realized I actually earned my first reward in March since I used the skip the line pass on April 1st. I heard there were a lot of problems with people getting their rewards and that is 1 reason they are discontinuing it.