- Report: #1071392
Complaint Review: Passport to Travel - Tampa Florida
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Passport to Travel
4802 Gunn Highway Ste 158 Tampa, 33624 Florida, USA
Phone:
813-864-6606
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Passport to Travel Waste of Time and Energy; Free tickets a joke Tampa Florida
My husband and I received a letter in the mail that we had won two free airline tickets, and all we had to do was listen to an informative presentation about travel accommodations. As much as we thought, "oh sure", we sat through a presentation in order to receive our "free" tickets. We then had to fill out a voucher/request to receive a voucher/request for the tickets. We had to mail in our $4.95 processing fee as a check - what, snail mail and paper checks??? When I asked if I could complete these processes online, they said no. Well of course not - then people would complete the process faster and get their tickets faster!
It takes them a month to send you anything, yet they got my paperwork in two days. So I received my request and I had to fill it out and send it by snail mail, and the "free" tickets came with a $50 per ticket processing/airline/whatever fee. I decided it was worth it to send the $100 "booking fee" for two tickets, and sent the request out. I initially thought that I had to set a date and destination, and it took me some time to figure that out; I then learned that I could choose that later so I had to hurry to send in the request, with a money order. Again, no way to expedite this process either online or with a credit card by phone.
Alas, the final indignity was that I missed the deadline by one day. I was very disappointed and I called to see if I could get my tickets anyway and have my deadline extended as a courtesy - after all, this is a travel services company, promoting fun and good times, right? Well, no. I was told that this deadline was firm and couldn't be extended. I had also sent in a voucher for hotel accommodations at the same time; apparently they let me slide on that deadline. How is one okay and not the other? Do you really not want my money that much?
Even if I had gotten the tickets, the list of restrictions and limited travel dates and destinations is dizzying. The funny part is that once you send everything in the slowest possible way, they email you a confirmation. Oh, NOW you're electronic?
I don't think it's a true scam in the sense that they just take your money and disappear, but I do believe that they make you go to so much trouble, and jump through hoops, in the hopes that you will give up and they don't have to give out their free tickets. This company is hired as a marketing promotion to get people to attend a presentation they otherwise wouldn't bother with, but they really don't care about following through with what they promise. If I were a travel company, or any company, I would never use them in this capacity as they now have pissed off a lot of people and that would have a negative effect on my company, right? They should never be used by a company as a promotional tool, That is the worst customer service you can ever get.
This behavior just perpetuates the "scam" perception of people that have to deal with these companies, and this is precisely why consumers do not trust this type of marketing and sales. I will never, ever again attend a presentation where they claim you win something; it's just not worth the time and trouble. I was willing to put in a little effort because I'm not stupid enough to think that anything was truly "free", but this is ridiculous. It's time they stopped jerking people around.
