On Feb my wife and I vacationed at the Gran Caribe Real All-Inclusive resort in Cancun Mexico. While there we attended a vacation plan seminar and the vacation plan sounded like an incredible deal with pre-purchasing "days" at significant discount and airline fares at significant discount. The plan also promised use of extensive "sister" hotels and resorts around the world.
The cost of the plan was roughly $15,000 [trust me, with the calculations they show it was 75% savings] - we made a $2500 deposit and started to pay $300 a month to pay this off.
The following year, we decided to use the plan to stay in San Francisco - they said they had "no" hotels available at the time but got us their "rate" in a local hotel.
A - the hotel rate they gave us was the hotel's actual rack rates. No discount.
B - VIP club charged our credit card - but did not pay the hotel so we were also charged by the hotel when we stayed there.
It took 3 months to get this fixed.
Strike 1.
A few months later we were planning a major family reunion event and emailed to get reservations and start planning. No response. We finally got a response 3 months later asking if we still need reservations.
Strike 2.
We finally sent them registered letters [twice] but they do not send the receipt back and do not return calls or letters. We called our credit card company to stop the monthly payments.
This was 2002.
Enter 2004. We just got a letter from a San Diego based collection agency asking for full payment and threaten to file a collection notice in our credit report and file suit.
We contacted an attorney and fighting this in court if we have to.
Do not sign up for this program. Ever. Learn our lesson vicarously.
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