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Feeling duped
February 19, 2010
Biggest Waste of Time
I went to a vacation package presentation where I was given a "free" cruise from Spirit Incentives. I give them 3 dates and they tell you that you will receive a confirmation email at least 45 days before the first date you selected. I make a call to Spirit Incentives to see if there is a deadline by which I have to confirm my plans. During this call they mention that my confirmation email was sent late January, however the date in my mailbox says February 5 (I'm not sure why an email would take a week to reach me). The woman also assures me that my first date in March will not be available. I do not confirm on this date because I just had the one questionand I begin planning to go on my second selected date in April. So today I finally call to confirm and all of a sudden the Marh date is available. I explained that I was guaranteed this date would be unavailable. After a long and drawn out discussion, I had to relent to the March date. Next he tells me that we would have to fly in the night before and pay for a hotel for the night. Then they explain that your standard room is one with bunk beds. I don't like super small spaces so I upgrade to the next room for $150. Then they tack on your fees and taxes which were about $200 per person. Then they tell you that this is a peak travel time because it is spring break so they are tacking on another $150. By the end I am informed that after deductng my $100 deposit, my total comes to $707. So after I had been put on hold 3-4 times, I put him on hold to discuss the fee for our "free" cruise with my travel partner. Eventually we decided to go ahead and confirm it, all the while getting an attitude from the customer service rep. He comes back and tells me that within the hour we have been on the phone, the flight is no longer available and that they can't give me any other dates that I chose. Now the only option is to refund my $100 and cancel my certificate. Basically they are incompetent and make it the most painful process to book this. Then they tack on all these extra fees that basically make it cheaper to plan the whole thing yourself. My suggestion is to just plan it yourself, that way you can go whenever you want and you won't have to sleep in bunk beds or pay for peak times. I got so much attitude and put on hold while I was in the middle of a sentence because I had the audacity to question them. On top of that I was on a long distance call for over an hour, most of which was spent on hold. You are better off without Spirit Incentives.
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