Complaint Review: Lifetime World Adventures

Gold Crown Resort (GCR), Lifetime World Adventures (LWA) and Metropolitan Clubs International (MCI) are three entities cooperating in a cunningly crafted venture designed to extract excessive fees for travel services and vacation opportunities from travelers.  

GCR at first glance appears to be a legitimate travel service firm.  LWA and MCI are the salesmen for the services provided by GCR.  The membership agreement is signed by LWA as an affiliate of GCR.  Payment for membership is received by MCI.

The pitch made to prospective members of the GCR club at a local (near the prospective member) hotel touts GCR's business plan which was designed to take advantage of excess condominium resources in popular vacation spots around the world.  We prospective members were told that GCR has agreements with operators of these overbuilt condominium complexes for week long stays by its members at greatly reduced rates.  We were also told that GCR could arrange hotel accommodations and airline tickets at "preferential" rates.

After joining and paying for membership we were given access to the list of hotel accomodations, resorts and airline resources.  After spending some time researching these lists for a trip we are planning next year we found that the pricing offered was no better, and sometimes worse, than what we could do on our own.  In effect, GCR turns out to be nothing more than a portal to the hotels and airlines which is available for free from such places as TripAdvisor.

When we contacted GCR and told them this and asked for refund of our membership fee (over $5,000) we were told that they did not have our money and that we should call LWA.  They also said that the pricing on their hotel and airline resources is "retail" not "preferential" in spite of the contract's use of the phrase "preferential pricing" in regard to hotel accomodations.  

Phone calls to LWA have not been returned.

My advice to anyone approached to listen to a pitch on travel savings be very careful.  The invitation we received was a post card with a picture of an airliner with the word "Southwest" suggesting affiliation with the major airline.  It offered a free 7 day trip (travel and accomodations) for coming to hear the pitch.  The names GCR, LWA and MCI did not appear on the card so one could not do any research in advance of attending the sales pitch.