Complaint Review: Global Discovery Vacations

We were so excited about becoming a part of Global Discovery. For only $6900 and a reasonable annual fee we could go really any place in the world and stay a week in a deluxe resort for a  about a hundred dollars.  AND, if "anything" was to your disliking during your stay that the local people could not fix, then you didn't loose any of your star credits... Wow... too good to be true?

Well as it turned out, YES it was too good to be true! How stupid were we to fall for all these exceptional promises and not do our homework! 

When we purchased our membership in February 2007 (Beavercreek, Ohio), we like everyone else attended a 90 minute presentation, and were amazed by all this travel club had to offer.  They of course had this extensive list of all these fabulous resorts at our disposal, AND, if we didn't see what we liked you could simply select another resort from their RCI catalogue (or similar) showing thousands of exotic resorts all over the world.  "Name the city, and they had a connection there". We were taken back into their office area and sat down at a computer desk and shown all these wonderful options, and actually handed this massive catalogue to look through.  "Imagine your dream vacation, where do you want to go?"

As it turned out, really all they offer is very limited selection of mostly 2nd rate accommodations.  And I mean "very" limited; and since we have been members, the choices have dwindled.  Want to go to Italy, well you have the choice of one place to go.  France, one place to go.  Forget all the rhetoric, and smoke screen about what is available for certain weeks.  They really only have a minimal inventory of places that they select from to make ANY reservation.  All that promise of the RCI and limitless choices... well, I am informed that Global Discovery Vacations is not responsible for any misstatements that their sales representatives may have said.  And of course, that office where we attended our reservation is no longer there, and no record available of whom our sales rep was.

We actually used their service for a few years, before we really "got it".  Our requests for specific locations always seemed to be turned around to what they had "available" and so we always ended up "settling."  Some of the places were fairly nice (Lake Tahoe, Sedona), others were so so, and some were outright dumps.  The locations are never the premium ones.  You don't get a beach front view, you settle for a quarter mile walk to see the beach and so on an so forth.

The annual fee is up to $415.00 a year, and the booking price for a week is a bit over a $100 now.  We can find a place on our own that suits our own schedule much better for about the same price.

In conclusion, "buyer beware!"  Global Discovery Vacations is not at all what they have promised to so many honest hard working folks, that were trying to stretch their vacation dollar a little bit. They have a very very limited inventory of vacation rentals that they actually offer.  And for $6900 (in 2007 - 4 star credits) and $500 a year, we can do a whole lot better.  This site has asked that I not put my name or email address on here.  I'm sorry for that, as I would welcome any and all feedback pertaining to this fraudulent company.  From the many comments I have read from so many others out on the net, certainly there should be enough interest for some sort of class action suit.