We were stopped at the Puerto Vallarta airport after we got our bags and were told these people were from Apple Vacation and they wanted to talk to us about upgrading our stay, they told us that we were Premier customers and were eligible for this upgrade. The gentleman told us we needed to meet with a representative from the upgraged resort and he wanted us to commit to a date so we agreed to meet on Sunday, this was Friday. He said he would pick us up Sun. We were then given a taxi ride to our resort, normally with Apple vacations ride is on a bus with the people in the colorful shirts, but we were told we were Premium vacation guests and this was part our our vacation.
We went to the Flamingo Resort on Sunday and were greeted by a gentleman named Gareth who took us to breakfast then showed us around, we asked on several occasions if this was a time share and were told over and over it was not, that it was an exclusive invitaion for us to experience this resort, we were told we could spend the day and enjoy the facilities if we desired after his 75 minute presentation which was information letting us know how we could make this our vacation destination.
We got the whole sales pitch and Gareth made this sound too good to be true, finally after 2.5 hours Gareth got to the point. We told him we were not comfortable making this kind of decision in such a short time and that we needed time to think this through, he then offered for us to stay the day, then said he could see if they could "move us in" so we could appreciate the ammenities there, that if we made a decision right then they would "allow us a special considerations of 5 days to cancel" no strings. He told us to talk about it and he would go and see if they could move us in. We told him this was not a deal maker for us, that we were fine at our resort and that we had paid for the all inclusive there and weren't prepared to leave that behind. He said they would provide the same as what we had "if" he could get the ok from his supervisor.
He came back and told us they would be happy to move us in, that the cost for us to stay there would normally be $2000 but if we signed the agreement there would be no charge. We told him again that this was not necessary and wouldn't make a difference in our decision. He said if we were to stay then if we had questions he would be right here to answer them rather than us being so far away at our resort. We agreed to the term once he told us we could have unlimited summer weeks, but said this was not the norm so we were not to tell anyone at the resort that he gave in to our demands, however through out his presentation he told us no less than 5 times that everyone gets the same deals, and there were no special circumstances given to anyone, all deals were the same. Guess this should have been our first and biggest red flag but we decided to leave our resort and move in, Gareth reimbursed us for the taxi to come back and also for our trip back to the airport when we were to leave.
We had ample opportunity to visit with other folks at the resort, and through out the course of 2 days we heard so many different offers and concessions that our heads were spinning. We went to find our sales person Gareth to voice our concerns (we were told to speak to only him if we had any quesitons or concerns) but were told he had the day off, this was Wednesday, we checked again on Thursday and he was off this day also, we were leaving on Friday and had lots of quesitons and concerns about the contract we signed and we knew we had to get this settled before we left because we only had the 5 days and Friday was it.
this place makes you sign for every thing you get, every drink or meal we had we signed for, we were constanly reassured by the staff that this was normal and no charge but we were still skeptical so we checked with the front desk to see what our room charges were, when we were told our balance was zero we were relieved.
We finally got ahold of our rep and voiced our concerns, he told us everything was fine, that we would get all this in writing when we got home, yet he wasn't able to answer our question about all the different offers that were given out, so we said we needed to talk, the person from the front desk told us the amount of $20, 515.78 peso's or around $1400 was what we owed for our stay there, we told her we were still not sure if we were cancelling our contract and she told us we were to go and speak with the finance person, that he wanted to see us right away. We went to his office and he asked us what our problem was, we told him our concerns and he laughed at us and told us there are many different deals that go on and we could never think that they were all the same, even though we trusted Gareth was telling us the truth. We told him we were cancelling our contract, he said our card would be reimbursed in 7-10 working days for the deposit we paid, and he had us sign a paper with our reason for cancelling, he gave us a copy and told us to go and see the person at the front desk. We were then told by the front desk clerk that we were responsible for paying the 5 days we were there, that the original amount she gave us was the members price and the new total we owed was now $24, 816.95 peso's or about $1700. We were told there was no way we would not have to pay for our stay there, even though we had given our reservations up when we checked out of our resort for which we had already paid, we told them we would never knowingly commit to paying an additional $1700 for a vacation we had already paid for and that we felt we were coerced into moving in to this resort, and were not able to speak with Gareth for 2 days, had we seen him earlier all this would have been resolved and we would have known we were being charged and could have attempted to go back to our resort. Needless to say they did not care, and when we attempted to leave AFTER paying the amount owed because we had to get to the airport or miss our flight home they still made us wait by the main gate until we were cleared by the front desk. So basically we were tagged once we even started asking questions on Friday morning.
We won't know for sure about the refunded deposit for a few days, but we are stinging from having to pay that additional amount to stay there, and are even more angry that as soon as they knew we were canceling our contract they raised our rate an additional $300.
We didn't solicite this, didn't ask to be lied to at the very beginning of our trip nor did we asks to be moved to this resort and then have to PAY an additional $1700, we have no way to resolve this on our own and feel we should not have to take this without some fight on our part. They told us we signed a paper that said we agreed to pay for our room if we cancelled our contract, but frankly after being there from 8:30 that morning until we were allowed to leave at 3:00pm I have to say we don't recall signing anything like that, but we signed a lot of papers so they managed to screwed that into the equation too.
They should be ashamed of themselves.