Email from Poker Stars - trying to guess their endgame.

Within the last two hours I received an email from Poker Stars that I have achieved Gold Star status for the month and upon login I am indeed Gold Star through the end of May. I had 2976 points in April before the gubernment shut US down, just short of 3k for Gold Star. (and I was Gold Star from March too)

So the question is: Why the email? Did anyone else get something similar? Trying to keep the US players interested?

And why do I now have an additional $30 in my account after cashing out all of it last week?

My guess is the $30 has to do with the extra VPPs (or FPPs or VIPs, whatever they're called) they gave you. You probably crossed a threshold. I wouldn't read too much into it. They just didn't want to penalize people for all the disruption the DOJ stuff caused. I'm sure you got treated just like all the international players.

Ahhh... They have handed out prorated Stellar Awards based on the next award you were working on. You can also now buy cash with your FPP's. Poker Stars once again proves they have great customer relations and service.

Todd

I got the email too.. I too had extra money in my account that seemed like the prorated stellar award. I also qualified for another smaller $25 fpp cash in bonus. So I tranfered an additional 68 dollars to my checking account.

Wendy

Meanwhile FTP announces that all post-4/15 purchases in their store are being reversed and issues another meaningless statement about how refunding player balances is a top priority.

Dunno, but I was able to download the client today and process a cashout for my $86.31.

Fucking feds, had to download a bunch of crap I don't need in order to install it.

But my $$ is on the way.

I think I can now guess what happened. On May 5th or so, Stars decided that it was the right thing to do for them and their customers to keep their current VIP status level until the players can get back in. So they retroactively kicked everybody's account upward, if necessary, to their March VIP level. If you had fallen to a lower level by not qualifying as high in April, this triggered their standard email welcoming you to the next higher level as always has happened. I'm not sure they intended the email to go out or not, but I believe, otherwise, that is what happened.

According to Stars, they have upgraded the status for the month to allow users to buy cash with FPP's at the rate their normal status allows.