Monday, March 29, 2010

On Lessons Learned

You may recall a few months ago when we won TWO ROUND TRIP AIRLINE TICKETS TO ANY MAJOR INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT ANYWHERE IN THE CONTINENTAL USA, including a THREE DAY/TWO NIGHT GETAWAY. All we had to do was attend a 90 minute, no-pressure sales presentation and we were in!

Well, we walked away that night, saying "NO" to the small fee of $9800 for a lifetime of glorious vacations, but excited about our one free trip! We mailed in the form with our top 3 destinations (Maui, SanJuan and Cabo) along with a refundable $50 per person money order and waited for them to send us info on how to select the dates we could travel.

Last week we got another letter, confirming that they received our three destination choices and all we had to do was select our top 3 travel dates... but (I bet you saw this coming) THERE WAS A CATCH!
  • We could not travel during any holiday, or 7 days before or after any holiday. That's a lot of black-out dates.
  • We had to have a 45-day window between our three date choices, which overlapped black-out dates made it hard to find three dates before our "year" was up.
  • We had to depart on a Monday, leaving at 9pm returning on Wednesday, leaving at 6am. DID YOU READ THAT LAST SENTENCE??? Our three day/two night getaway would actually be more like a "arrive in Maui at midnight, crash at the hotel, hang out for a day - but don't stay out too late because you have to get back to the airport at 4am for a 6am flight home!
  • SHENANIGANS!!
Needless to say, this morning we decided to throw in the towel on our "free" vacation with Millennium Travel... oh, but our $50 per person refundable deposit is only refundable at the completion of your vacation. BLAAAA!!

Global Vacation Network is a total scam. We did get a $50 American Express credit card, but spent $100 on our "refundable" deposit... so we ended up losing $50 in the deal. We learned our lesson. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is!

I think I'll park my car outside their office here in Grand Rapids and warn people not to go in!

5 comments:

jason simnick said...

That sucks. For my honeymoon, i responded to a "spam" fax that offered a week in Florida for $200. It worked out great for us, plus by responding we could get the same deal three years in a row! We only used it once more, but still paid the $200 and got a full week at a great resort. We never even HAD to go to a presentation.

I know you'll be more cautious, but don't just assume that all good deals are scams.

Becky Hunter said...

I should send you money for how much laughter your wonderful telling of this story brought Uncle Hunter and me. You can paint pictures with your words just like your Dad does. I am sorry your lost $50 but know that your gift of storytelling brought us a pleasant reprieve in the middle of a busy day.
Love you much Amber

Anonymous said...

Yeah, they offered my husband and I this same deal, and we turned it down because I googled them.

He was on deployment at the time anyway, and we wouldn't have been able to use it with his work schedule anyway!!!

Danielle

Corrie and Phil said...

Did you pay the deposit on your credit card? If so, you can refute the charge at get your $50 back. We experienced a similar situation, and I contacted our credit card company. They let me file a refute stating that we didn't receive the services promised. They credited $50 back to our card, and the travel company never fought it. Just an idea!

amberWIRE said...

Thanks Corrie - I WISH we had been able to use our card, but of course, they made us pay with a money order. bla. Thanks for the advice!