I just had to agree with the "ripoff" article that I came across while googling "vacationsmadeeasy.com" I came across THIS website, and found an article that I sure wish I had seen a few days ago! I am glad at least that I have the opportunity to forewarn other unsuspecting consumers like myself. I have been tryng to put together a Williamsburg vacation package for my family and my friend's family - so we needed 2 rooms for 4 nights. I tried to book on line, but accidentally booked the vacation twice so before I hit send I called customer service. I spoke to someone named Doug, who said he was able to get the rooms by phone for a lower price ($64 less). He also wanted to book the attraction tickets, but I said to hold off until I can contact my other parties. The only penalty that we had discussed was $100 if you cancel "more than 48 hours" (which was confusing to me - I could see there being a penalty if you canceled LESS than 48 hours... But that's the tricky part.)
Anyway, the next morning I recevied an email from the website touting an "economic stimulus" discount - they noticed that I had been interested in booking a vacation on the website, but did not completed it so they offered $121 less than the quoted price from the day before. Since it seemed that time was of the essence I decided to take it, but I put in the comment section that I wanted them to waive that $100 cancellation fee (because none of the other hotels I had booked for that trip (one in VA beach and one in DC) had any such policy, and I didn not put my initials in the box that purpots to accept their terms - instead I put in xx, so that they would see that I was not agreeing to those terms at this time.
I then received an email that said that they were processing my order and gave me a link to the website and it was at THAT time that the cancellation policy was such that you cannot get ANY money back ever, and that all you could ever hope to recover was a gift certificate for the money you laid out, LESS the $100 penalty. I was practically shaking when I read that - as I had laid out the money for BOTH rooms on my credit card! I tried to cancel, but the website direct you to call the customer service. I know that the order had not even been processed yet, so I directed them to kill the transaction immiediately before it was processed but they REFUSED, saying pretty much TOO BAD. It is a HORRIBLE business practice - I have been trying to see if the BBB has any guidelines on what is an unfair cancelation practice. I notice, now, that they have a clause in there that allows THEM to terminate a sale on their end... How can it be legal for it to be unilateral? Does anyone know? If so, please put another postiing to this website... I am just sick about this - it's a lot of money, (and by the way, I forgot to mention that their prices aren't even cheap! I could have done better on expedia! ~ This was such a mistake. Please make your story known if you have any more thougths on this business.
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