You're right, I should stop complaining.

Just because I have 650k FPPs and am being forced to cash them out at a terrible exchange rate, costing me about $4000, I should be kissing their feet.

Also we should collectively kiss Stars' feet for keeping our excess points, saving themselves probably 10 million dollars that should be ours.

Thanks Pokerstars! You did a swell job, um, at least compared to FTP and AP!

+1


you are the source of this problem, not PokerStars. at some point you had 650k FPP and were still SN. you shoulda cashed in then. didnt Stars say you would get whatever your April 15 level was? i dont see how Stars is doing anything wrong.

also, no one is forcing you to do anything.

Except we did earn our statuses. And planned to earn them again. Most of us were planning on earning our statuses again and then cashing our points in once we achieve that status later in the year. Obviously, anyone can say they were planning on this, but our past should serve as a good faith indication of this. Saying, "Well, you should have kept your status, it's about loyalty blah blah blah, tough luck" is incredibly stupid, nobody would have given up a status like this while leaving thousands of vpps if they weren't planning on getting that status back in the future.

Black Friday was a disaster that nobody had planned for, all we our asking is to go back and convert our points using the bonuses available for our previous status. I have only around 110k vpps, but 105k of them were earned while I was a supernova. I wouldn't have cashed in any points until I was a supernova again and had 250k to cash in, but all I am asking for is the opportunity to cash in 100k for the $1500 bonus as I obviously would have had I known beforehand that access to Pokerstars was going to be taken away. I don't want or require the full 4k bonus rate because I don't have that many points in my account and that is the fair sacrifice I am willing to make in this situation.

My situation hardly matters, the amount of money is very minimal, but it's completely absurd that on principle you guys just dismiss such concerns. There is almost surely a bronzestar with over a million points, he loses $6000 just because he kept a lot of his bankroll in points and hadn't played this year at all with the expectation that he would very easily attain supernova status later in the year. (For people in this situation, it is obvious they should take a few months and leave the country to get supernova again.)

Do you guys also think that US-based supernova elites who relocate in early July should lose their statuses and get dropped to supernovas? You should if you are consistent. Do you think Stars will make allowances for them?

This much is obvious from your ignorant posts in this thread.

Actually they are bending YOU over, and yet either you enjoy it or don't realize it.

Where do you people come from? Do you really think people should have been cashing these in because Black Friday was coming? You actually think there shouldn't be amends made in a situation like this? This isn't at all like taunting people for keeping money on UB, there was absolutely no expectation that one wouldn't be able to save up fpps and use them in the future.

Again, just think this through: Nobody would sensibly keep this many fpps when they at one time had a higher status if they weren't planning on getting this status again. It just doesn't make any sense.

There is a very simple and fair solution here. Just open up all of the bonuses to all of the players. Not doing so is punitive where there's no need for punishment.

It's kind of amazing that Stars is willing to credit partial milestone bonuses but doesn't realize that fpps are also cumulative, that people held onto them because they are the same as money- a practice that Stars encouraged by dangling concierged houses and cars and whatnot- but won't credit the points at the full supernova value FOR EVERYONE. What sense does it make to say, "Hey, we see some players were clearly working towards this milestone, we'll give them their fair value credit," while ignoring the fact that everyone earning fpps at all times is in fact working towards their fullest value whether they choose to take that or not.

The fairest solution is to credit every single fpp for all players at the largest cash bonus value, but even if that's not allowed, the simple act of opening up all bonuses to all players, either by lowering the requirement for them or retroactively granting all US players supernova status, is a reasonable compromise.

These are all great points.

Have you written to Stars about this? Maybe if they get enough letters, they'll change it.

so lemme get this str8, if you have 99,999 vpps you will recieve like 199 bucks for your next stellar reward, and then your screwed for your VPPS?

but if you had 100k vpps you will receive half the bonus of your next milestone(200k yrly vpps which is $2600 cash) so youll get 1300 bucks.
so being 1 vpp short is really costing some players $1300?

If this is the case im gonna be pretty upset, cuz i had 96k vpps

Bye Poker Stars. I will miss you.
Thank you for your very fair treatment of your customers even when our government treats you so poorly.

G**D###, Frist, Baccus, Boxer, Kyl, Obama, Holder and all the rest.

you gave up supernova status. all you had to do was earn 7500 VPPs in 2 out of the first 3 months of the year and you would have still been supernova on April 15. oh, you were planning to do it later? well then you're still giving up a lot of money cuz you'll be earning FPPs at a lower rate. The way it works on stars, if you earned Supernova in 2010, you automatically are supernova until February 28, 2011. You can, however, maintain your supernova status by earning only 7500 VPPs per month AND they let you miss a ****ing month while you STILL keep supernova status.

Stars didn't plan on the US government ****ing up their US operations.

I didn't hit supernova either, but i earned 7500 VPPs in 3 out of the first 4 months of the year. So my supernova status was good till the end of May.


u mean FPPs? it sounds like u got supernova last year, and basically havent played at all this year, is that correct? i mean, no offense, but stars makes it sooo easy to maintain supernova that you really have no excuse. all you had to do was earn 7500 VPPs during 2 months of this year. incidentally 7500 VPPs per month is SLOWER than supernova status (100,000/12 = 8333).

Dude, i understand why you are mad, but i dont sympathize with you. You're getting angry at Stars when the only person you can legitimately be mad at is yourself and the US government.


i doubt there is a bronze star with over a million points. if there is, he should have cashed in the points BEFORE losing supernova (THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BLACK FRIDAY). its a crappy situation, i agree, but it aint stars fault imo.

i agree, a bronzestar w/1million FPPs should def leave the country. you clearly havent been reading all of PokerStars Steve's posts. if you are SNE and relocate in July, you MAINTAIN whatever your status was on April 15. it is reinstated. Steve has said this. you are wrong on this point.

this is FALSE. Stars not only let me cash in my FPPs, they also gave me additional money for partially earned stellar rewards. Stars has handled everything incredibly well.

NO. you should have cashed them in because at some point you lost supernova status. has nothing to do w/black friday.

if for some reason i were ever about to lose supernova status, i would cash in the points right before i lose the status.

this is not valid because they already make it easier to maintain supernova than to earn it in the first place. if at some point you lost supernova, you should have cashed in the points right before you lost supernova.

1. needbeer would not take a quarter of year off unless someone chopped his head off

2. IF he had (and this is a BIG IF), he woulda cashed in the points before losing the status

Bro, you can't point a gun at your foot, shoot, and then blame the gun company for your own stupidity.

Consider a restaurant that offers tokens each time you have a meal. These tokens can be exchanged for a free meal every 10 tokens you cash in.

You collect 9 tokens then find the restaurant has shut down. Do you:

a) cry foul and demand 9/10s of a meal?
or
b) accept that the restaurant is not obliged to give you anything, but you'd be happy if they were able to give you something.
or
c) cry some more when you're offered half a meal as compensation, claiming you should get more sausages than somebody who only collected 1 token.

It has nothing to do with what level I was at. That I agree with -- I should only be able to get value at the level I was at on Black Friday. But before Black Friday, I could have gotten .0159 or better from my FPPs; today I can get .011 at best. This is pure robbery, plain and simple.

To summarize my thoughts:
1. Pokerstars is not providing fair value for FPPs.
2. Unless Steve tells me the DOJ is to blame for this aspect of the decision, the fault is all on Stars.
3. How FTP has performed in this difficult time versus Stars is IRRELEVANT to this question.
4. If I were working for Pokerstars, I'd be ashamed by this decision.

I have long been a supporter and player of Pokerstars (since 2004 or longer). This is not coming from any angst whatsoever about Pokerstars in general; rather, it is coming from my frustration of this issue alone. It is also slightly disappointing to me that Pokerstars has dropped the ball on this final issue after handling everything else so beautifully.

i dont know how the exact conversions work.. u were supernova on black friday but now ur not? this at least seems more reasonable than wat some people in the thread are asking.

Not sure sinner if that was directed at me but no; I was only Silver but before Black Friday I could get .0159 worth of value from FPPs; now I can get only .011 because options have been limited.

ya i was asking u. i didnt realize that people were not redeeming points based on their black friday VIP level.

that being said, will it really cost u a lot of money? even tho i had supernova on black friday, i didnt cash out every single point at the $4k bonus level. it cost me a couple hundo probably, but the blame is on the US government imo. with stars being fined 1.5 Billion and how well they have handled the situation, i have only good things to say about stars at this point.

Everyone, of course, is entitled to their opinion. And as I was a low level player, I never sat down and figured out the optimal conversion rates for my FPPs. I was saving up for the $50 bonus at the silver star level, but, alas, was about 400 FPPs short.

But - for everyone saying their FPPs could have been worth x (.0159, for example) - what are you using to convert this? Things you could have bought other than rewards/cash, like tournament tickets? If that's the case, I disagree with that analysis since we CANNOT, under the current agreement with the DOJ, purchase tournament tickets (or even play in freerolls). Why would PS give us a rate equivalent to something we are barred from using?

I get that there are people here who are out a significant amount of money, and I personally feel badly for them, as I do for the people who are stuck waiting on FT, and for the people who are probably losing their entire rolls on UB (although I agree that how those sites are handling things is not particularly germane to this discussion). I appreciate that the poster here at least acknowledged that if he's a bronze/silver star, that would be his own fault, something none of the other people with a lot of points and low status are admitting. But I don't think restricting US players to being able to purchase cash bonuses only, even if the conversation rate for that is worse than other benefits we used to enjoy, constitutes some sort of bad faith thievery on PS part. It's just a sad consequence of this bad situation everyone has found themselves in.

And as another poster pointed out, no one is FORCING US players with a ton of points and low status to cash out their FPPs. You can leave them in your PS account indefinitely, and they'll be available to you if/when you play on the site again. So how about some personal accountability? You allowed your VIP status to lapse. Now you have a choice - cash out at reduced rates, or allow the points to sit and hope for the day you can play on the site again, grind up a status you find more acceptable, and then cash out.

PS has no obligation to reward customers based on previous performance or intent.

i agree. people can also leave USA.

I sympathise with people like you who've lost value here but it seems absurd to suggest that Stars ought to honour all FPPs at the highest available transfer rate. Pre Black Friday there's no way the net value of US players' FPPs was even $0.015 times the number of points, as the majority of players simply don't know or care enough to spend them optimally.

I may have missed an earlier post where you describe your situation in detail, but I don't understand how this is true. If you agree that you should only be able to get value at the level you were at on Black Friday, and that is .011, then isn't that fair?

I mean anyone with a brain can get in excess of $0.016 just by pressing buttons in hyper satelites, but it's hardly fair on the site to assume that everyone does this with every FPP they ever earn.