I attended one of their presentations yesterday and was 100% angered at how things went. First of all, I called to confirm and was basically lied to about what it was all about. I was told it was a new travel agency in the area who just wants to give a presentation so maybe we will use them going forward for our travel needs, and not a time share offer or anything to purchase. First lie. I asked about the FREE AIRLINE TICKETS offer to see the restrictions and was told more lies. I was told they are good at ANY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT in the USA, not even close to true. I was told the only fee are taxes. Not true. $5 processing fee, $50 fee per ticket, then taxes... And a ton of restrictions which is total BS. Also, I was told the only real restriction is I have to use the new travel agency to book the flights... 100% NOT TRUE again. IT is through some BS 3rd party scam marketing company.
Now to the presentation. The guy was pretty good actually, 21 year old kid, trained pretty well in getting people to repeat the key phrase "$159 per week!" He talks about all the amazing places we can go and asked our dream vacation spot. Ok, that is fine. At the end the $ comes out, makes it sound like a DISCOUNT at $11,900 down all the way from $14,000! This sounds like a lot, but think of all the $ you save by going to Australia every year! $389 per year fee is also added on each year it is used, which is the way they claim is the most important $ for them with revenues. Ok, that is all fine and dandy, but now starts the REAL problems I have that got me angry.
We are moved into a room with random desks and island music blasting in the background. There is a white board with 18 names on it of people who supposedly already signed up from these presentations. They then announce a HUGE deal, they are dropping the price to $8995 for the 4 week plan, 7995 for 3 week, and 6995 for the 2 week! Wow! Then the manager gets on the speaker and announces "THE NEXT 2 PEOPLE TO SIGN UP GET 2 FREE EXPRESS TRIPS ADDED ON!" Basically, these are trips you can book on short notice and pay the $159 a week with a $199 fee. HOLY GREAT DEAL BATMAN! Well, looks like one couple fell for this BS and signed up right there for the DISCOUNT PRICE of $8995 (Or 6995 if they did the 2 week plan.) LUCKY THEM! ONLY ONE MORE SPOT LEFT!!!
Well, we are sitting with our rep and really not too interested. The resorts look kinda dumpy, no way near 4 or 5 star places, and the locations of these resorts are really not ideal. I guess that is why they are able to get so many condos there since the good ones are booked. We do mostly cruises and all inclusives anyway, so these plans really are not great for us. We can save $500 or so on a cruise ticket, but with the $389 yearly fee and up front cost it is not a good deal at all. Plus, how the hell do we know if they will be around in 5 years??? They said they have been around for 41 years, yet the google search says they have been in business since 1996.
She gets the manager to speak to us to try to sell us a better offer. He pushes hard. He keeps looking up resorts we may like in his 2008 travel book, which is great since it is 2012. I said we like to go to certain places like Hilton Head and other beaches, and the places we saw there were definitely not too great. PLUS we need more bedrooms, which is $189 a week for each one. If we need 4 BR like we had last year the $159 a week is now almost $750 a week. We rented a 5 BR house last year for $900 in a better location, and no $389 yearly fee or $5000 membership. NO DEAL.
He then offers us $2,999 for the 2 week deal, down from the $6000 or so it was earlier. Really? WOW! Eventually he offered us $1,999 for a 1 week package and threw in an extra week credit for life. WOW down to $1,999!!! I said we are going to California and my parents also take my daughter to Ocean City, NJ for a week so we can use this. Well, they had NOTHING in those areas. NO DEAL.
So $1,999 was the final offer. What about the first people who paid $6000 for the same offer just an hour earlier? I bet they would really be happy to know others got the same offer for 1/3 of their cost if they just didn't fall for the SUPER SPECIAL DEAL FOR THE NEXT 2 PEOPLE! I was angry that other people basically got screwed for an extra $4000 because they were suckered into buying thinking they would lose out if they didn't jump right away. RIPOFF.
They make you decide there so you can't go home and google the company and see the thousands of complaints. Thanks to smartphones i was able to google them when I was there and just saw how horrible the reviews were, and the same shady sales tactics were used over and over.
So to sum it up, the THIS IS NOT A TIME SHARE presentation was a SORTA TIME SHARE presentation... The FREE GIFTS are a scam and are not nearly free or even usable, and they will rip you off if you decide you want to purchase the plan in the first hour. 100% shady and 100% glad I said NO to their tactics. And oh yeah, they said the FREE TICKETS would have our names on them so we need our IDs, when in reality it was just some marketing packet than was stacked in the back room somewhere and we get the one on top. Liars and scammers.
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