Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Outrageous And Unfair!!!

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deoxysfan

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We have just been informed that the 3 Belgian champs will get 1000 € each in travel awards. Just to remind you... all 3 champs are minors and will have to travel with an adult. The cheapest tickets are around 1100-1200 € each and as you all know, the hotel isn't exactly cheap eiher. So for a 1000€ we will have to pay 2 tickets + the hotel!

We never expected the travel awards to cover everything but we find this absolutely unacceptable - if I didn't know bette, I'd think it was a very very poor joke. How can Pokemon USA possibly justify having a contract with a distributor who has proven over and over again that they have no will, nor intentions, to do anything what so ever for this great game. This has got to be the final straw.... or....?

Has the Belgian distributor not heard of equal treatment and equal opportunities?? Suppose not.

Furthermore, my son hasn't played tournaments since he won the nationals so that another Belgian player would have a better chance of qualifying through rankings. So it now looks as if the other player (3rd in the nationals) will get his invitation + FULL travel awards.

Am I missing the point and the fairness in this at all or does this sound wrong to you too?

regards from
An absolutely furious and outraged pokemum
 
One guestion: Did Distributor told what prices will include BEFORE or AFTER your nats?
We had same thing on Master group, 1000€ support , but we told that over 2 months before our Nats.
We had full travel awards to Junior and Senior group and we told that also 2 Months before on our official website.
I think that if they have told prices before tournament, its nothing u can do, but if there is no anykind of official annoucement of prices, it will be more complicated situation.
 
So let me get this straight. Your local distributor is paying for your travel awards, since the win in Nationals, but the travel award for ranking invites is a better deal? I realize it sounds fishy, but perhaps the distributor can't afford more.
 
The ratings invites are funded by POP.
The nationals places are funded by the distributor.

I don't know if there is anything anyone here can do to help. Hawaii is expensive: its over $3000 for the hotel and two flights. A lot will depend upon what the distributor promised or led you to expect.

Its not easy to send money to Europe but I can pledge 50euros. If enough have sympathy with your plight we could collectively go a long way towards filling the gap between the award and the actual cost.

In defense of the distributor they are a business and not a charity. All the prizes have to be funded out of the profits from sales.
 
I'm sorry to hear that you don't have a free trip to Worlds.

It's funny. Not to go off topic or anything, but the USA players keep making a fuss about other nations gettings invites and they don't even realize that many of the invites don't pay for everything. heh, let's take even more away from non-USA countries /sarcasm.

Again, I'm sorry for your problem. Hopefully you can still make it to Worlds. Worlds would be at a loss without everyone.
 
I am not sure if you will get much more than sympathy on these boards. We feel for you, and want everyone to be at Worlds who can be!

Your better solution is to contact the distributor directly, and organized play (international) at PUI to see if there are any further options (taking the ratings trip instead of the Nationals trip) that can be afforded to you.

I think the proper links for Pokemon USA can be found at go-pokemon.com

Good luck.

Vince
 
Thank you all for your sympathy. I know that there's really nothing more you guys can do.

What really bothers me is that the Belgian Nationals took places on the 21st April and on that day - as the winners received their trophies - the organiser told us that there might be a slight problem with the travel awards, but promised to let us know asap. Apparently today is asap! And now they ask us to inform them if we want to go or not by Monday. So they take 7 weeks giving us an answer and we have just 4 days.

I have to check the papers we were given to fill out for the worlds but I seem to remember them stating something about travel awards etc. then again my memory might be playing tricks on me.... I'll check he papers tomorrow
 
Ouch, that's ridiculous. At least if they'd let you know in advance, Frederik would have had another shot through the ratings or whatever. I think your best bet is to contact POP International or Organized Play, they're pretty swift with email replies these days. I'm really sorry this happened though. Hope next year, wherever Worlds will be, it will NOT be in Hawaii to prevent stuff like this happening again. $3000 trips are ridiculous anyway :/

slightly OT: If Finland did this too, then I can understand why Esa would want his trip through the rankings and didn't play his Nationals ;)
 
Well Anna, did you looked closely to the Dutch announcement?
I did.
It doesn't mention a travel award for a companion if winner is under 18, and to be honest it scares me, that line is missing.
 
You're right Lia. In fact, it doesn't say anything about hotel costs, just the air travel. Surely it can't be acceptable if only half the trip is payed, in any country?

Actually, I had trouble with the Guardian trip last year, but going through PUI/POP/whatever I managed to get it sorted out. Surely POP will not allow minors to win trips without guardian trips?
 
Question:

If they don't show, do their invites get put into the grinder?
 
^Are you sure of that???? There is still a cap on the # of players @ worlds (last I checked).

It is horrible if the winners of these countries Nats dont get to go to Worlds bc the LDs are cheapskates. I guess it would be better to drop before top cut or concede the finals to stay in line for the POP paid rankings invites. IMO, this is bad precedent.

Keith
 
As the OP coordinator for Belgium:

- We warned players during Nationals that the trips weren't certain yet, and that the amount could be less then the full amount (though it wasn't sure at that point, and even I was still hoping everything would turn out fine).
- We've had to wait untill last week to get the info we needed from PUI (not POP), hence why we couldn't confirm anything yet.

There are some current issues with the Belgian market that we've been discussing with PUI for a while now which are responsible for us not being able to spend another 6000€ to cover all the Travel Awards. I'm afraid I won't go into details on those - suffice to say we don't have a solution yet.
 
Jann said:
As the OP coordinator for Belgium:

- We warned players during Nationals that the trips weren't certain yet, and that the amount could be less then the full amount (though it wasn't sure at that point, and even I was still hoping everything would turn out fine).
- We've had to wait untill last week to get the info we needed from PUI (not POP), hence why we couldn't confirm anything yet.

There are some current issues with the Belgian market that we've been discussing with PUI for a while now which are responsible for us not being able to spend another 6000€ to cover all the Travel Awards. I'm afraid I won't go into details on those - suffice to say we don't have a solution yet.
Click to expand...

Jann: Was the prize package announced or advertised (as in a flyer/website, etc) as the winner in each age group gets an invite AND trip to Worlds or just a "travel award" with the invite? If the announcement was "trip", I think something needs to be done to pay for the minors and 1 guardian each to go to Worlds. JMHO

Keith
 
Hmm, my interpretation of winning an invite + travel award (as described here: http://www.go-pokemon.com/op/premierevents/championshipseries/worlds/info/06-07/travelrules.html) is different. All invite winners should receive a complete travel award for the flight and 4 night stay for him/herself and travel companion (if winner is under age 18).

It seems ridiculous that the LD may decide to award less...

And yes, there might be several problems in Belgium related to Pokemon OP, but if this is the way to 'solve' such problems...
 
they receiced 3 papers

the winners received 3 papers. good for free ticket and hotel...blablabla.
you dont give that when you dont mean it.
only the 12 juin there was a written annoucement.
hopely everything becomes ok.
thank for the support and consurn.
hopely you can read this....joke
marc
 
MvdV said:
It seems ridiculous that the LD may decide to award less...
Click to expand...

I don't think it's nice of you to call the LD "ridiculous" for not affording lots of trips to Hawaii. It's _VERY_ expensive to travel to Hawaii from Europe, and I'm sure they have been trying their hardest. If it went better for Belgium last year, that might simply be because Los Angeles is a much cheaper travel.

I hope this works out somehow, for all parties involved ...
 
Things don't seem to get better!

We have been informed by the distributor that we have to pay everything ourselves, then send them the invoices etc. and then they will probably reimburse the 1000€ but they are not entirely sure when. According to them it might even not be until October. This sounds terribly suspicious to me and I have honestly lost the little faith and trust I had in them in the first place. I don't feel reassured that we'll get anything at all.

The announcement of the travel award problem was made as they handed the envelopes and tropehies over to the. I don't know - just thinking out aloud. But seriously, I cannot help but wonder....

Furthermore, the 6th paragraph of the first page of all the documents the winners got, clearly states that they had won travel awards for themselves + 1 guardian + hotel. I realise that we can spend ages discussing the way that sentence should be or could be interpreted but the fact of the matter is that there is an indirect promise (which in my view is just a legally binding as all the documents we had to fill in, sign and send back). No the question is - with whom does the responsability lie?

Back to back posts merged. The following information has been added:

Tego said:
I don't think it's nice of you to call the LD "ridiculous" for not affording lots of trips to Hawaii. It's _VERY_ expensive to travel to Hawaii from Europe, and I'm sure they have been trying their hardest. If it went better for Belgium last year, that might simply be because Los Angeles is a much cheaper travel.

I hope this works out somehow, for all parties involved ...
Click to expand...

With all due respect Eskil - Martin is quite up to date on the problems in Belgium and trust me - the problems goes way beyond the cost of travel awards.
 
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