I had my first and last booking encounter with Grand Crowne almost immediately after signing up with the travel club. My friend convinced me to sign on the dotted line after a long discussion amongst ourselves. I reluctantly filled out the paperwork and Grand Crowne made about a $2400 sale, which I have since paid off.
I soon attemted to book a trip with hotel and extras to Crested Butte, CO (Great skiing there by the way and not as touristy as alot of other ski resort towns) through one of the network's "expert travel representatives". You would think after paying such an unGodly sum of money that the services would be impecable, but that was simply not the case. I soon discovered that the @ to P savings that were promised to us during the lengthly unrecorded one on one portion of the sales pitch were just numbers that the company and its sales staff uses to make a sale. I called the hotel directly after getting a quote through Grand Crowne for a room, lift tickets, and ski equipment rentals, and got the EXACT quote on the room price that Grand Crowne was trying to sell me AND the hotel BEAT GC's lift ticket and equipment rental price! When presented with the information, the Grand Crowne rep stated something to the effect of "we only sell UP TO @ to P discounted travel package rates". Then they wanted me to provide them with proof in writing that the hotel beat the equipment and lift ticket prices. Yah! I'm going to spend $2400 on a travel club membership and have to go through this nonsense whenever I book a trip. That whole guaranteed lowest price at the time of booking thing only means that they will match prices, and in this case was a savings of ZERO %... Needless to say I booked through the hotel myself. They should have paid me for doing the reseach that they should have done themselves.
The "scam" goes like this. You sit in a room with a bunch of other unsuspecting lambs to the slaughter and you all hear the same lenglthly product sales pitch that is "recorded for accuracy purposes"... Then you brach off from the flock and go one on one with a sales representative who answers any questions or concerns that you may have. This is the part that is NOT recorded. How convenient. All of a sudden you are given all the magical sales answers like "we promise this" and "guarantee that" (including @ to P off travel packages), and it is all done with little or no recourse because they have it "documented" in a recording that they have told you something one time in an hour long presentation. My guess is that there is some type of legal recourse to misrepresenting your product or in this case flat out lying. They also misrepresented the number of benefits to being a member of their club would allow you as a member. They stated that there are just an unimaginable number of rooms, lights, travel packages, car rentals, etc. That go unsold and that are held for GC Travel Network at @ to P off just for being a travel club due to contractual agreements of some kind. Though this may be true top a certain extent, it is certainly not the extent that they promise their members during the sales pitch.
I am sure that Grand Crowne will probably boast in a reubuttal about it's 80,000 plus membership and how it is growing (let's do a customer satisfaction survey. I never got one of those in the mail or via e-mail!). They may rebutt by saying that they don't have any records that we ever used or attempted to use their services or internet site (we didn't use their internet site because we just wanted discouted travel and if we wanted internet travel or savings on other things we would just use one of the hundreds of travel web sites or use a travel rewards credit card at no charge to us). They will even say that we were rude on the phone (which we were but only after seeing the proof that we had been ripped off for $2400 and recieving no satisfaction from their customer service manager) I would however like to apologize for the foul language utilized by my friend on the phone. I don't condone that type of communication and she should have never said some of the things that she did. That makes her no better than the crooked salespersons that sold us this bogus membership.
Upon our discovery of the bogus and broken promises of the travel club, we requested a refund of our money, which of course they rejected. They instead send a wonderfully written letter, probably generated by a lawyer or paralegal, stating that they find no reason to refund any amount of money back to us because they have provided us with the services that were "promised" to us. We then requested to terminate our membership. They responded by sending us a contract cancellation form. We signed and had it notorized, then sent it on its merry little way. Over a year later (which brings us to present) I get a past due bill from GC stating that I have $433.00 in past due membership fees and late fees. I called them and spoke with a nice sounding young woman on the phone about the issue. She said she'd call me back after she looked into our file. She did return my call some hours later and stated that they have no record of the cancellation request at all, but would send out another cancellation form. I don't know why they never "recieved" the first one nor do I really care. I just want to forget about this nightmareish experience and be done with it. The only thing that I do know for certain is that I won't be paying for any "membership fees" or "late fees" for a membership that should have been cancelled over a year ago upon our request and that was NEVER used because of GC's broken promises and guarantees. I think you've swindled enough money out of this hardworking City Govn't Employee. I am very curious and anxious to see if this issue is handled appropriately by the company
To all that have been taken by the misleading promises of GC... I am sorry. Guess it's an expensive lesson learned. The old saying "if it seems to good to be true then it probably is" stands true in this case. If there were a lemon law for travel clubs, then this one would definitely qualify. I am very disappointed and feel a bit violated to say the least.
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