Dear Speedway,
I’m a Speedway loyalist. If I’m running low on gas and there’s a Sunoco, BP, Texaco, or Mobil, I take my chances and keep driving until I find “the way.” Over the past few years, I’ve accrued 42394 points. At 10 points per gallon, that translates to 4239 gallons, roughly. At an average of $3 a gallon, that would be $12,718. If you use a rough average of 13 gallons per fill-up, that’s 326 fill-ups.The reason I write, as I was filling up tonight, I noticed something that I’ve never noticed before. I purchased 12.965 gallons. You gave me 129 points. You rounded down. Conventional mathematics suggests that we round up from “X.500” or more, and round down for ”X.499” or less. You rounded down.
Why do you round down? I figure, statistically, half of the time, my fill-up is an “X.499 or less.” In these instances, it would make sense to round down. It would be very cool of you to round up, but I get it. The other half of the time, my fill-up would be “X.500 or more.” This would be a round up situation. So for 163 of my 326 fill-ups, instead of giving me the round-up point, you kept it.
What do you do with our round-up points? They have to go somewhere. Are there little children in Honduras with Speedway accounts who are collecting our round-up points? Because that’s just not fair. It’s intolerable, unsavory, and downright naughty.
Does SMI, as a corporation, not understand the round-up/round down principal? Do you need to go back and look at your book-keeping? Is your $44.5 million in earnings from 2010 accurate, or did you round some stuff down?
We the people of Speedway want our round-up points back. I want my 163 points back. I want my round-up points from here on out. I’m sure it seems tiny to you—a little point here, a little point there, across several million loyal customers. It’s big to us. It’s big to all of us. We’re all up in arms.
Let’s get this fixed ASAP!
Sincerely,
Jerry
---------------------------------------
No reply. I sent the note below on July 10th:
Dear Speedway,
I sent the note below on June 17th. Your website states that you respond within two business days.
It's been over three weeks. What's going on over there? Not cool.
Sincerely,
Jerry
Dear Jerry,
This is an acknowledgement of your E-mail. I apologize. Our system
does not show us ever receiving an E-mail from you.
When Speedy Rewards points are calculated on fuel purchases, our system
only recognizes the points earned up to a tenth of a gallon. For your
purchase of 12.965 gallons, your total points earned calculated to 129
total points.
Again, I apologize for any inconvenience. As a one-time courtesy, I
have added 250 points to your Speedy Rewards account
Thank you for taking the time to write us. We are always interested in
hearing from our customers whatever the reason.
Sincerely,
Robin
Speedway LLC Customer Service
----------------------------
Subject: RE: Feedback From Speedway.com Sent to: Speedy Rewards
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2011 19:31:16 -0400
Robin,
I appreciate your response, and the points. I'm just curious why you only round to the tenth decimal place. This rounding convention goes against all that we learned in school, in classes like accounting and chemistry.
My concern is, people throughout industry are going to adopt their own willy nilly rounding conventions. Suddenly my $4.99 salad dressing and $2.99 chocolate chips are going to cost $8.87 because of the "Floogleburger" Rounding Method. My employer is going to "Round Way Down." Why? Because rounding conventions are out the window.
And then, vocabulary conventions will go away. Suddenly, the strudel that I order with my coffee is a cold and intrusive colonic nozzle.
And lastly, traffic law. A green light in Town A will mean "go." Guess what? In Town B, it's now yellow. Who knows about Town C--nobody is driving there because of all the strudel.
My point is, conventions are there for a reason. In this case, to make people feel like they aren't getting ripped off. If you're showing three decimal places, you should be rounding to three decimal places.
Thanks again for responding- sorry you didn't get my first note. Maybe the IT Guy is on a coffee break.
Sincerely,
Jerry
I appreciate your response, and the points. I'm just curious why you only round to the tenth decimal place. This rounding convention goes against all that we learned in school, in classes like accounting and chemistry.
My concern is, people throughout industry are going to adopt their own willy nilly rounding conventions. Suddenly my $4.99 salad dressing and $2.99 chocolate chips are going to cost $8.87 because of the "Floogleburger" Rounding Method. My employer is going to "Round Way Down." Why? Because rounding conventions are out the window.
And then, vocabulary conventions will go away. Suddenly, the strudel that I order with my coffee is a cold and intrusive colonic nozzle.
And lastly, traffic law. A green light in Town A will mean "go." Guess what? In Town B, it's now yellow. Who knows about Town C--nobody is driving there because of all the strudel.
My point is, conventions are there for a reason. In this case, to make people feel like they aren't getting ripped off. If you're showing three decimal places, you should be rounding to three decimal places.
Thanks again for responding- sorry you didn't get my first note. Maybe the IT Guy is on a coffee break.
Sincerely,
Jerry
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