Jen
Eatontown,#2UPDATE Employee
Mon, February 02, 2009
Coastal Vacations is an association that selectes top vendors for a vacation discount program. Due to various complaints with Fun Time Vacations violating contacts and not meeting Coastal's performance they were in fact removed from the Coastal Vacations Program. The person donating the vacation to your group must have been a member. Announcements were made extensively to all members and distributors that all vouchers should be returned for a replacement voucher with a new vendor. All "Product Training Calls" that provide weekly vendor updates/announcements can be found at http://www.officialcoastaltraining.com/calendar.aspx I do run my business marketing the Coastal Products business to business specifically for incentive programs. I am a licensed, independent travel agent and the Coastal products I have marketed to my business to business community have been well received for three years this week and has an excellent track record. You are always responsible with promotional travel to pay port fees and/or room taxes as it applies to the state/country you are traveling in. There is a fee associated with "holding" the room and $150 sounds right for a cruise. This deposit is supposed to be deducted from your total cost after the trip is taken. This deposit is only forfeited if the traveler does not show up and does not cancel the accomodations within a specific timeframe. This information should have been provided by the rep at Fun Time Vacations. I have run a number of large scale raffles with no incident and nothing but good reviews. I would have to lay some of the confusion back to the person donating the vacation and their involvement in the Coastal Training program. I only mention this because I don't see a mention of an accompanying letter with the voucher advising you of the costs and what to expect when booking travel. I also don't see any mention of the independent distributor that donated the vacation. It appears that the distributor isn't running their business as a professional. If you know who the distributor is, I would recommend reporting the incident and the distributor you dealt with back to the Board of Directors. As far as refund, the church donation is not going to be refundable. If I were in your shoes, the remaining $150 you report was not yet refunded should have come through Fun Time Vacations, not Coastal. Again, so long as it was not a "last minute" cancellation and/or "no show" as far as the terms and conditions - I would recommend sending a letter requesting refund to Fun Time directly and copying the BBB or the FTC. Hope this helps.