or as I like to call it, Vacation Rip-Off. Ok, so I went to my little appointment yesterday and it wasn't a time-share presentation. It was a presentation on joining this club wherein you would benefit as a member by getting vacation packages, including cruises and the like at cost, instead of the retail mark-up. All in all, it really isn't a bad plan, of course, they ask you to plunk down $6995 as a one time fee, plus another $299 initiation fee and another $180 bucks for some other such nonsense. In the meantime, you would still have to pay a yearly membership fee which was unnamed. If anyone is curious as to what I am speaking about, do a little research on their parent companies--Leisure Path and Bluegreen (BXG--on NYSE). Now the presentation was all well and good, but what bothered me was the part afterward. My new 'partner' and I were intrigued by the savings you could garner when taking package vacations, but we really don't do that very often. So we asked our rep some questions. Turns out, we could get the deal listed above for $2995, minus the $299 fee if we could pay $599 immediately. We then stated that even though we were completely interested, we just couldn't do it at this time and asked for a brochure or some other contact details. It was at this point we were told that we could either do this now or never. Unfortunately for them, we chose never. They wouldn't even let us keep our notes and when we asked why, they said b/c they didn't want us turning potential customers away by giving them misinformation. Well, God forbid that happens--oh wait, isn't that what I am doing now? At least with a pamphlet the people could decide for themselves. Seriously, I am totally concerned that this is a fly by night operation. If they call you or someone you know, take Nancy Reagan's advice and Just Say No!
Posted by Morgan
at 9:23 AM EST
Updated: Friday, 5 March 2004 11:39 AM EST