We have been thoroughly checking this travel club out and find that what we were told about this travel club is not true. For instance, this morning we called the Vacation Travel Club for a quote for a Carribean cruise sometime in the first two weeks of December.
The Vacation Travel Club gave us a quote for a cruise leaving Miami on December 10 on Carnival Cruise Lines for 1 week with a balcony for $691 per person, double occupancy. We called Carnival Cruise Lines up and asked them for a quote for the exact same cruise, also with a balcony, double occupancy, and they quoted us $699 per person plus $42.84 taxes and extra charges for a total of $741.84.
Vacation Travel Club's price is only a savings of about $50 per personnot the 50-75% reduction in rate that we were told yesterday during the sales pitch of Vacation Travel Club. However, by the time we pay the $170 yearly fee, we are actually paying $70 more by going through the Vacation Travel Club versus booking this cruise directly ourselves with Carnival.
Jane Roden, the sales rep for this company, stated over and over that we would have significant savings for cruises and then gave several examples. The kinds of savings she was quoting were about 50%. We paid Roark Vacation Travel Club $4000 for this service, and it would have been worth it if indeed we could get cruises for 50% off the retail price.
Jane Roden stated that the reason Roark could gived us such prices is that they were giving us the vacation at their cost (wholesale) and the way they made money was by getting a kick-back from the cruise lines, plus the $170 yearly fee, plus the $4000 it cost us to sign up. Anyway, we feel that Jane Roden lied to us too. We were given a high pressure sales pitch.
However, we have contacted the Missouri Attorney General's Office (573-751-6887) and they told us we could file an official complaint with them. We found on the internet a news article where the Missouri Attorney General's office is suing vacation travel clubs who have done exactly what Roark has done to us and has recovered money for the customers.
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