Mom to 2, pottery artist, world traveler, sweepstakes afficionado, blogger, jewelry artist, card maker, chief cook and bottle washer

Thursday, March 29, 2012

First iPad blog

This is actually her daughter (secretary/home apple genius) typing here setting up her blogger app. This is strange and foreign... I'm going back to my tumblr. Have fun mom!

My new jacket from backcountry.com

Here's what's shipping soon.

And now for a completely different experience...

I got my jacket from the sweeps win from Outside Magazine that they ordered from Backcountry.com. It is a beautiful jacket but was a little tight so I went on their website to see about exchanging it for a larger size and a chat window popped up, "Can we help you?" I also saw their website had 100% guarantee. After a very pleasant online chat, I printed out a return UPS label, got an RMA # and have the larger jacket ordered waiting to ship. They will ship as soon as the return package is in UPS system. I don't have to wait for the returned jacket to get to them!

What a difference good customer service makes! I would order from Backcountry.com in a heartbeat. Wow!

June Trip Two Sisters Dream Vacation Update

The trip in June is progressing nicely. We have airline tickets booked, hotel stay booked, rental car booked and are finding out about fun things to do like zip lines and places to hike. Parks, mountains, gardens, farmer's markets and maybe a short cruise are on the list.

The plan is to arrive in Seattle and stay for 4 days. We'll drive to Vancouver and stay 4 days. We'll go back to Seattle for one night (to use the hotel stay at the Seattle Grand Hyatt I won) and then drive to Portland to stay for 4 days. Drive back to Seattle and stay one night before flying back home. I rented from Avis at a great price and they have pick up and return at our hotel in Seattle. We're staying at a Hilton in Seattle because I won 100,000 Hilton points and I can stretch it by using the 15,000 points +$50 per night offer they have. Mary and I have won money as well as airline tickets and hotel stays so we'll use that for the rental car and 2 nights in Portland. I won $250 from Marriott Residence Inn and we'll use that for the other 2 nights in Portland. Vancouver hotel is at a Best Western which we'll pay for with the money we've won.

I won a sweeps from Outside Magazine and included in it was a pair of Vasque Rift shoes which I ordered by sending Ali from Outside Magazine the size and choice of color, using info from Zappos.com and also included in the prize is a Stoic Monolith Softshell jacket which I ordered from her using info from Backcountry.com. I got the shoes and they are great! Fit well and very comfortable - good hiking shoes. The jacket should be here soon. The shoes came a week after I got the email that I won the sweeps which is really fast for sweeps prizes.

My Tretorn prize nightmare was disappointing but we'll see how everything else goes. So far, we're on a roll and everything should come together for this trip.

Don't ever order from Tretorn!

I won a sweeps that IFC Portlandia was having. Included in the package was a $100 gift certificate to Tretorn.com. I thought "great" and looked on line to see what they had. I also found an email from Tretorn saying the next day there was a sale. When I looked online, they had a Metro Raincoat on sale for $50 and I need a raincoat for our trip to Seattle this June.

This was the start of terrible customer service at Tretorn. I called to see if the coat would still be on sale the next day so I could place one order and get some shoes as well. "We don't know what goes on sale or for how long the sale items will be on sale." I figured I would order the coat now (in case it was not on sale tomorrow) and included in the gift certificate was free shipping so I didn't have to worry about extra shipping charges. The coat was on sale for $50 which meant I had $50 remaining on the gift certificate.

The website is not set up to be easy to use or find items and there are no sizing charts anywhere for the coats. While I was on the phone to find out about the coat on sale, I asked the person if they could take the order on the phone since I was ready to order. After much hemming and hawing on her part, I finally said "you'd rather I order online, wouldn't you?" I've never had a company not take an order over the phone! This was after she said since the coat ships out of the CA warehouse and she was at the OH warehouse, she couldn't check to see if the coat was in stock. What????

The next day I found 2 pairs of shoes on the sale section for my daughter. The selection of what was on sale wasn't the greatest but found some that came to $60 ($30 ea.). I thought for $10 shouldn't be too bad since I had $50 to use up. The ordering system wouldn't take the certificate number now and I had to make another phone call to the company. The person I talked to said she would be able to issue the credit for the gift certificate and would call me back. Lo and behold, no phone call and no credit. Two days late, I called them again. The person I spoke to said she would do me a "favor as a courtesy" and issue the $50 credit to my credit card. A favor? A courtesy? For a gift certificate that is the equivalent to money? What is wrong with these people?

So today, I get the coat. Women's XL... and it doesn't fit. I'm a size 16-18 which is normally Women's XL. This is in actuality a Large. Do they have sizing charts online? NOOOOO! Does the company do exchanges? NOOOOO! Will they send the coat in the next size up for the same price? NOOOOO! (They don't have the next size up in stock and probably won't be getting anymore.) Will they send a Men's coat that would be the equivalent to the next size up? NOOOOO! I can return this one and use the $50 credit towards the full price of another coat ($225). In other words, I'm s--t out-of-luck.

I hope the shoes fit because I DO NOT want to deal with this company's customer service again. They are very sorry - yeah, right.

My advice - never order/buy from Tretorn! What a nightmare.