Vacation Certificates ... Free Hotel Stays?

[Miss Kelly]

One of my friends gave me a Vacation Certificate today. I'm not sure what to think about it. She says she has used them before and they are great. This is basically what is says:

This certificate guarantees you 3 days and 2 nights deluxe hotel accomodations in your choice of 27 destination cities. You simply mail in the certificate with your choice city and a $15.00 processing and handling fee. Then all you are responsible for is paying room taxes. You are guaranteed to receive your requested travel dates when booking reservations 60 days in advance and not selecting holiday weeks or weekends. They also guarantee that there will be no timeshare or sales presentations to sit through!

So, what do you think? Has anyone used these before? Are they the 'real deal'? Any opinions would be greatly appreciated. I'm thinking of using this one for Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg, TN.

 

[tarmand]

One of my friends gave me a Vacation Certificate today. I'm not sure what to think about it. She says she has used them before and they are great. This is basically what is says:

This certificate guarantees you 3 days and 2 nights deluxe hotel accomodations in your choice of 27 destination cities. You simply mail in the certificate with your choice city and a $15.00 processing and handling fee. Then all you are responsible for is paying room taxes. You are guaranteed to receive your requested travel dates when booking reservations 60 days in advance and not selecting holiday weeks or weekends. They also guarantee that there will be no timeshare or sales presentations to sit through!

So, what do you think? Has anyone used these before? Are they the 'real deal'? Any opinions would be greatly appreciated. I'm thinking of using this one for Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg, TN.

I've used them in Orlando and Nashville. No problems either time.

 

[Miss Kelly]

I've used them in Orlando and Nashville. No problems either time.

Good to know. Thanks.

 

[POB14]

And where would one get this sort of certificate?

 

[hpygrll]

I hate to be the negative nelly but we got one of those once - same premise. We wanted to go to Boston - after all of the info was sent in we were informed there was a room tax for each night. I felt like our "free trip" kept having hidden costs. We ended up not going....

Jenny

 

[Miss Kelly]

I hate to be the negative nelly but we got one of those once - same premise. We wanted to go to Boston - after all of the info was sent in we were informed there was a room tax for each night. I felt like our "free trip" kept having hidden costs. We ended up not going....

Jenny

Thanks for bringing this up. I've been informed upfront that it costs $15 for a processing and handling charge and then no more than $12 for room taxes. So, in that regard, I know exactly how much all of this will cost. I just want to make sure it is indeed legit and I won't get to the hotel and have to pay rack rate. KWIM?

 

[ZanneMarie]

This sounds like the certificates that my company used to buy for promotional uses. They had a low cost to us and 'got us in the door' with the customers. I think they did not cost us much because not that many people actually redeemed them. We never heard any complaints from the people we gave them to. I hope it works well for you.

 

[POB14]

Got some information about the certificates Miss Kelly was posting about. They come from a particular website, but I'm not posting the actual website, because I don't feel comfortable with anybody getting involved with this through a link that came from me.

Something about it smells bad to me. First of all, anything "free" that you have to pay for always worries me -- you have to pay a $15 "registration fee" and "taxes of less than $12 per night" for your "free" room. You don't get to pick a hotel, but they guarantee "deluxe" accommodations -- without saying what they mean by "deluxe."

Maybe I just don't trust a website that misspells "testamonials", or that has testimonials from CEOs of a bunch of companies I've never heard of. And the ones that do have links seem a little fly-by-night themselves -- "MrBucks Las Vegas" turns out to be a personalized ribbon printer in Pahrump, for example.

They also say they are selling them as giveaways, but then tell you to sell them for 50c (they're a quarter to buy). And you (whoever buys the certs)are supposed to get a $2.50 commission when somebody books with a cert. They claim they make no money until somebody rebooks (apparently if you use a cert you're on their mailing list for life).

Maybe what scares me the most is that there is no street address on their site; just a PO box in Roanoke.

Okay, I just did a little more research. Whois says the site is registered through Domains by Proxy. This is an outfit that lets you register a domain name in such a way that nobody can find out who you are.

Now I'm really scared. No address, an anonymous owner of an internet site, whiffs of MLM-type stuff.

Caveat emptor, I guess.