When complimentary doesn’t mean free

By Anita Dunham-Potter

Travel columnist

updated 2:13 p.m. ET Nov. 26, 2007

Anita Dunham-Potter Travel columnist • Profile • E-mail

California resident Grace Watson just wanted to get away with her husband a few times a year to enjoy some much-needed rest and relaxation and to escape her government job. So when she received a flier in her mailbox for a discount travel club, she was interested. The company was San Diego-based Travel To Go, a travel company that offers, among other things, a membership-based "VIP Vacation Plan" that promises members wholesale travel rates not available to the general public. To join the "VIP Vacation Plan" program, customers are required to plunk down a one-time fee of $3,730 (in cash, credit cards are not accepted); they must also pay an annual fee (currently $199) to keep the membership going.

"They said as members we would get condominiums, hotels, airfare or cruise deals anytime at a 50 percent discount," says Watson, who attended a group presentation about the program in June. It sounded like a good deal, so Watson signed up.

Not long after she joined the VIP Vacation Plan program, Watson tried to book a trip to Las Vegas and was told that there were no deals for the days she wanted to go. Watson then tried to take advantage of a certificate promotion from the company offering a complimentary cruise to the Mexican Riviera. To her dismay, she found that the "complimentary" cruise wasn't free; in fact, she and her husband would have to fork out $299 each, plus port fees. When she contacted Travel To Go for an explanation, she got a semantics lesson. "Complimentary" doesn't necessarily mean "free," she was told, but the $299 fare was a "discount" rate. A month after joining the club, Watson asked for her money back, but no one returned her calls. Watson had a terrible feeling she was being duped by the whole program, so she contacted Tripso for assistance.

I checked the pricing for the cruise. Not only was Travel To Go's "complimentary cruise" not free, it wasn't even discounted. In fact, Watson would have paid less had she purchased the cruise directly from the cruise line, Royal Caribbean, which was offering the same cruise for $216 per person, plus port fees and taxes of $51.58.

Travel To Go speaks
I contacted Travel To Go for its side of the story several times over two months, but I received no reply. Only when I left a message saying we would publish this column without the company's comment did I hear back.

Deal of the Day Newfoundland and Labrador Explore World Heritage sites, glimpse into the life of the Vikings, more, from $1,635.

I spoke with Darla Isaak, Travel to Go's director of marketing and business development. Isaak told me that Travel To Go has thousands of satisfied customers and that the company has tried to help Grace Watson on several occasions. Unfortunately, Isaak said, Watson's issues are not with Travel To Go, but with To Go Consulting, "an independent contractor that for a nominal fee purchases the right to sell the Travel To Go Membership and then adds additional markups based on his business operating costs and the weekly per year travel needs of the client."

"We are not in charge of how they sell [the product]," Isaak said. She noted, however, that Travel To Go does issue marketing guidelines to the distributors and will pull the rug on distributors who are found to be selling the memberships incorrectly.

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