Hello everyone.

First of all let me get this clear.
I know clearly the terms are the following ones.

What happens if I win a specific satellite and I cannot play the event?
Players who win a seat before Day 1A in a live or online satellite must be available to play Day 1A. There are no refunds or cash alternatives available if a player is unable to play the event. If you cannot attend the event the seat will be forfeited. If you win a seat after Day 1A you may use this seat for Day 1B.



Now lets get to the human factor(Which i don't wait from a company but i still believe).

The story goes as follow. My poker buddy got a seat to millions Rio and we were planning to get 9-10 days to WPT barcelona and then he will go to rio from there.

Last day at Barcelona (yesterday) he got the news that his granpa passed away and of course he was really sad to even stay one more day at Barcelona not even travel to RIO for the event.

When he contacted the support to tell the whole situation he got a cold reply with the terms copy pasted and a "sorry we can't change our terms".

Again don't get me wrong i understand as long as its on the terms you can't do something and i am sure he doesn't even care about the seat at the moment but as he is a shy guy he was ok with just this reply from the support.

What is your opinion on the terms about such rare occasions? I don't speak about guys who get packages and get bored and try to get Tmoney or change it to another destinations. I am talking about things like this.

Is it wrong to wait a human factor on decisions on occasions like this?

PS:Sorry for my English, if something doesn't make sense i will try my best to explain it.

Maybe try contacting the PartyPoker rep who used to post here? She may be able to help in some better way by passing on these sad details to a Manager, rather than your accepting the front-line Support's comments.

Thank you for these details.
I will update the thread with any update

Over the last year PartyPoker put a huge amount of money into satellites, promotions, and overlays for these events... so I think TBH they are OK to stick to their guns and want the money from the satellite to go to the event itself.

As a comparison; most travel insurance companies exclude grandparents from the definition of 'close family members' for trip cancellation, so I presume your friends flights etc are also forfeit.

You're probably correct in comparing PartyPoker to an Insurance Company, but it is generally accepted by everyone else that grandparents are immediate family, per this business dictionary definition, for example.

It would seem fairly heartless for an exception to the typically general T&C not to be made by management in such rare tragic circumstances as these.

With the greatest respect to those affected by bereavement, this is a very strong, arguably often inaccurate, way to describe the death of a grandparent.

My point was that all 'goodwill' gestures need to have a limit. Especially where (no doubt) PP are getting at least dozens of similar requests every week, where people try to get out of must-play satellites. Setting the default "limit" to exclude the passing of a grandparent or cousin does not seem unreasonable to me. I am sure an appeal can be heard, and a goodwill gesture made, but if the satellite was de-facto funded or part-funded by PP then I'd not expect full value.

PP will ask themselves, if the ticket was worth 25k would the guy have stayed and played? If the answer to that is yes, then it probably means they are right to refuse 1k. However if the guy shows PP that he had actually arranged travel etc, then that means he intended in good faith to travel, that strengthens his case for some goodwill (in my book).

[I was personally involved in setting the 'limit' for a live poker event in the past, where a huge amount of the buyin was funded by the operator, and the external policy was set to "absolutely no refunds" but internally we knew that genuine cases would be handled sensitively.]

Some people i cases of divorced parents have their grandparents more like family to them. It happens many times.
In case you got it wrong it wasn't a 1k sat or something it was the actual seat to the 10k to rio.
Sent yesterday an email to the Partypoker Rep and waiting to see if she can give me an update on this issue

By "such rare tragic circumstances" I did not mean the death of a grandparent. I meant that such circumstances where someone has to withdraw from a fully paid-up tournament a couple of days or so before it starts because of the death of a member of his immediate family are rare, to say the least.

Agreed. The challenge for operators is to sort the genuine from the non-genuine. Any policy will *always* result in genuine cases being refused (or offended when asked for evidence) and *always* result in people exploiting the policy. I hope the OP's friend gets the right result.

Just so your aware, the PP rep you have emailed (Colette) is actually travelling to the Rio event and will be working on the ground at the venue for the next week.

She has stated that because of this, her responses to any queries/messages/emails etc...may be delayed.

Exactly this. As i run some online businesses i understand 100% the importance of terms of usage but this is the first time i see an occasion like this happened to a closed one. As said i know getting something out of thos is the last thing he is thinking at the moment but i know that he is well aware of updates-streams of the events and i am sure its a niddle to him.

This is why i believe spots like this need to be taken with extra care.
I got a reply from the partypokerlive facebook page that they will pass this (i sent the thread also) to the management for consideration.

I will update with any outcome.

Thanks for letting me know that.

unlikely to receive any compensation. a grandparents death is the most common excuse used for missing things like homework assignments in uni among other things. and obviously would be fairly hard to confirm using. just asking for an obituary would be too invasive and depending on which side of the family even then tough to confirm. theres like a less then 10% chance you get anything gl

Stars has or at least had a policy that you could get out of 1 live event and after that it's no exceptions. Party should do the same and give the guy a ticket to a future event.

Update so far.
I contacted the PP rep and got a reply that terms are final and that my friend have to contact the support team (the one that just copy pasted a reply from the terms)

As said i wasn't expecting something different but at least the PPlive fb page response was a little heartwarming as they said they will pass this to the management. "we are not promising this will change the outcome but we will do our best".

We will see