We bought a tour package for 5 Days/4Nights in Orlando, 4/3 Nights Daytona and 4 Days/3 Nights Cruise and Stay in Bahamas Island plus a 7 days free unlimited mileage car rental from Special T Travel last April for USD698 thru the Internet.
This package was to be valid for 18 months.
When we first received their package that comes with grossy brochures and promise of big chain of hotels, etc., my wife saw a fine print on the reservation form that "peak season may apply". She called the Special T Travel and was informed that it was just a printout and no further fees will be collected from us other than the additional surcharge of USD199 per person for cruise to the Bahamas. She was reassured that we would pay nothing more than the USD698 for the package. All we need to do it to give them 60 days notice for travel.
In May we decided we would like to go in end July and emailed them on the date we would like to travel. They advised but to fill in the necessary reservation request forms plus payment of USD 199 per person for Cruise Surcharge to Bahamas Island. The forms were mailed and faxed to them accordingly. They contacted us by email and phone and confirmed that the dates were fine with them and told us to go ahead to book our airtickets. Then we asked them for the hotels they have booked us in but they never responded.
Instead they told us to pay for upgrades to all the hotels at USD 99 per night and to agree to view all the resort properties. Immediately, we realised that this is timeshare and we told them we are going there for vacation and not to view these properties neither are we going to pay for the upgrades - Just give us our standard package that we have paid for.
After that, they still refused to let us know which hotels they have booked us in. When we asked again, they told us we have to pay for peak season at USD35 per night for a total of 10 nights minus a discount of USD75 (USD25 discount of each location). So the total is USD275 we had to pay.initially, my wife made a fuss as she had been told by their staff last year that there would not be any further payment other than the surcharge and the package of USD698.
As we had already committed ourselves and still wanted to get on with the holiday, I agreed to this amount. (My wife had warned me that the more we pay the more they would ask and she was right)!
After this, they still sent us a Form requesting us to take the upgrades free of charge on condition that we must view all resort properties otherwise we would have to pay for the upgrades of USD90 per night. This we refused and insisted that they sent us our standard package. We had also lodged a complaint with VISA and told them to look into in.
Finally, they sent us our vouchers by email but still did not reveal the hotels we were booked into. We emailed them again to ask for it and they eventually told us that it was to be John Howard Hotel in Orlando and Travelodge in Daytona and Island Palm in Bahamas Island.
My wife had emailed one of the hotels and they had confirmed that though July/August are peak seasons, they do not charge additional fee.
We feel that though we had paid for the package of USD698, we are still paying all these extras which we think we could easily have covered the whole trip. After reading all the complaints posted in your website on this travel agent, we are facing exactly the same dilemna as what those people had gone through. We have yet to take on the trip and rather apprehensive about it. One more thing is they told us that we had to pay USD300 to USD400 as refundable deposit to the car rental company - Thrifty Car Rental for the car even though it was included in the package.
Can you please advise whether we should go ahead with this trip.
Thank you.
Chua
NA
Singapore
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