The Vacation Station

I was lured in with a letter from an airline that doesn’t even exist. US Airlines. They offered me a $ 1400 round-​trip travel voucher for sitting through a 60 minute presentation on the service they provide. Turns out, the phony letter was created from a marketing firm who works for Vacation Station and they «offer» deeply discounted travel deals… for a membership fee. The price to join was $ 8995, but if I join today it’s $ 6995! But wait there’s more… if I was the first of our group to sign up, it dropped to $ 5995! But wait there’s more, if you say you’re broke it drops to $ 4995, then $ 3995, then $ 2995 and finally $ 2100 for the premium package that someone else bought but didn’t finish paying for! We politely declined and collected our round trip airline voucher. This voucher has a $ 5.00 processing fee, a $ 50 activation fee and then you pay $ 59 to BOOK the flight. I’m not in the mood to list all of the restrictions for the flight, so just google «Passport to Travel» complaints out of Tampa. Their reputation is equally as unimpressive as the Vacation Station. Most notable is the requirement to return the registration packet within 30 days, several reviews I read stated that the return envelope was received with a date stamped on the front which was over 30 days prior to the current date. For ex: One was received Jan 9^th with a red stamp on the front reading «December 6^th» Ha ha dont count on it folks!

The Vacation Station is a travel club that offers major discounts on travel activities after you pay an up front fee of several thousand dollars (there appears to be some flexibility in the price depending on what it will take to get you to sign up). See their web site for more information about what is offered. We were promised 4 tickets to a local attraction of our choice and a $ 50 prepaid Visa card for attending a presentation that would last «about 45 minutes» (plan on spending 90 minutes there – and for that reason I refuse to rate them any higher).
The presentation was extremely professional, and I must give high marks for the quality of the content and the person who presented the information. It was obviously what is called a «canned presentation» in the sales training business. I had expected I would be subjected to a high pressure effort to close the deal. I was not. The employees were in all ways polite and professional. If I traveled more I might have considered joining, althought I admit was was surprised at the size of the front-​end cost to join. You will be offered an everyday price of $ 7990, and told that no one ever signs up for that deal because today only you can join for for $ 2000 less (so there is a sense of urgency created – and I bet there will be no refunds if you change your mind tomorrow). Other offers may show up in the course of talking with your «counselor.» We certainly got some.
In the end we declined to join, but were given the promised 4 tickets and a $ 50 check.