Complaint Review: Pulaski Travel - Bellingham Washington

My wife and I went to the Best Western Hotel next to the Fred Meyer Store in central Bellingham for a presentation of the Pulaski travel club.  We decided to go in response to a postcard which someone had stuck in the windshieldwiper of our car.  The card promised we would get a 7 night luxury resort vacation, a $100 gas rebate card and when my wife called to make the appointment, she was told by the person taking the call that we would also get a $25 gift card for Fred Meyers. 

The presentation was very similar to timeshare presentations which we had attended in the past.  This time, though, the presenter promised significant discounts on vacation packages including airfare to/from and accomodations at the destination.   We looked at some of the examples they had and decided that we could do as well or better in terms of prices and so declined to buy a membership in the club.

We then received our incentives.  The Fred Meyers Card seems legitimate.  The Luxury Resort Vacation was for a resort in locations we might be interested in, but the conditions of redeeming the deal ($15 non-refundable processing fee, $199 per person cost for the week, $50 reservation guarantee deposit refundable) means that the "free trip" will actually cost us about $45 more that what we could get by reserving directly with the places we would want to go.   The $100 Gas Rebate card turns out to be a complete nightmare.  First there is a $27.95 non refundable processing fee, then we have buy at least $100 worth of gas in each of the 5 months after the time we register.  The gas station has to be in their list of authorized stations, and once we pick a gas station, we have to buy all our $100 a month worth of gas from that same station using the same credit card every time.   When you add up all those restrictions, the $100 gas card is worth just over $50 without even considering the considerable inconvenience of registering all our gas receipts online, filling out a form, and mailing it in every month for 5 months.   The biggest part of the drop in value from $72 after the processing fee is that gas stations in our area charge $0.10 a gallon extra for using a credit card.  In addition,  to having to buy $100 worth of gas (about 25 gallons at an extra cost of about $2.50 a month, it will be difficult to stop at exactly $100, so we likely will go over the $100 on the last fill of each month. 

Had we known that the "Gas Card" was going to be this nightmare of hoop-jumping, we certainly would not have attended the sales pitch.

They did show us a BBB report with an A- rating.  A little digging online reveals that BBB is pretty useless since the member companies pay BBB and can pretty much get the BBB on their side to minimize the impact of any complaints. 

The bait and switch gas card, the deceptive nature of the "Free 7 Night Luxury Resort Vacation" deal, and the "but wait there's more... if you sign up today, we'll knock $3k off the $10k membership price" come-on, followed by the revelation of a 5 year membership for only $3k and weasling about due diligence: "Sign now and you have 7 days to change your mind" all helped convince us that this was not for us. 

Since we got home we checked online and found numerous complaints from people who did get the club membership and found they couldn't get the destinations they wanted when they wanted and couldn't get responses from the company's customer service in a timely manner.

Ullrich

Blaine, WA