I signed up with Global Travel a few months back. The sales representative sounded pretty positive and made it sound like she was making a fortune with Global Travel as a travel agent. She said it was against the law for her to tell me how much though. I signed up by paying about $450 for a silver membership for a 1 year membership with global travel.
During the first 2 weeks with Global Travel I was able to get over 21,000 (twenty one thousand) people to my individual global travel website through pay per click marketing. I was able to book 0 (zero) dollars in commissions. About 14 days into this, I decided that it was a waste of money and called to cancel. They wanted a $175 cancellation fee. I thought I was still in my 14 day trial period, but they said I had my dates wrong and it had been 16 days. So I decided to stay with the program and take advantage of the free cruise for 2 and free 5 nights Hawaii hotel room that they had promised me.
After going to their website and filling out the proper paperwork I received more paperwork to fill out on the cruise for 2, but nothing on the Hawaii trip as of yet. Going through the fine print, I found that there is a $249 per person charge for port charges, government taxes and agency processing fee for the 4 night cruise. The 4 night cruise was with Royal Caribbean, so I went to Royal Caribbean website to check and see what kind of a deal I was getting.
For $169 per person I could actually purchase the same cruise directly from Royal Caribbean site, that I was getting with Global Travel for $249 per person. I called and spoke with the supervisor in the Global Travel cancellation department. I'll be nice and leave his name out. He went on to say that the cruise is free and the $249 is for port charges, government taxes and agency processing fee. So we went through Royal Caribbean's site together, and figured that port charges and taxes would be about $70 total for the $169 per person cruise.
I asked how much the agency processing fee is. To me it looks like it's 498-70 which equals $428. So the agency processing fee works out to $428 which is more than $338 which would be the cost to book this cruise myself. I will admit that other sailing dates for the same cruise interior cabin are as high as $229-249 per person. But even using the higher numbers I'm still not getting a free cruise as the agency processing fee is about the same price as I would pay for the cruise.
The manager in cancellations went on to point out that some holiday dates on a 4 day cruise interior cabin with Royal Caribbean can run as high as $399 per person. I went on to point out that clause 5 on the cruise travel certificate, clearly states that: Sailings are available on select dates with an additional charge for high or peak season and holidays. Offer is capacity controlled and subject to availability.
The people at Global Travel seem nice, but I don't see any value in the membership I purchased with them. After reviewing my free cruise certificate, I will decline to take the cruise, and don't feel comfortable booking any travel through their company.
I wish they would refund my $450 and cancel my membership with their company. At this point they won't even let me cancel for the $175 cancellation fee, they want me to pay for the whole year, even though the gigs up and I've figured out that my individual global travel website doesn't sell travel, and the free travel certificate isn't really free. It's more expensive, and at best completive in price. They never tell you about the agency processing fee when they sign you up.
0 comments