Absolute Reservation Center Provided Several Confirmation Letters to Non-Existent Reservations! Rip-off! Maitland Florida

My girlfriend and I purchased a vacation package through Absolute Reservation Center that included hotel accommodations in Orlando, Florida; Ft. Lauderdale, Florida; and Freeport, Grand Bahama.

We went on our vacation in June 2004. On our trip, we discovered that the hotels in Ft. Lauderdale and Freeport had no record of our reservation. The confirmation letters we had from Absolute Reservation Center for these two hotels were useless. Both hotels told us that the confirmation numbers on these letters were "phony". Each of these instances cost my girlfriend and I three hours to resolve. Needless to say, we could have spent these three hours sightseeing or traveling instead.

In addition, as part of our vacation package, Absolute Reservation Center was also supposed to provide us cruise ship tickets from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Freeport. Absolute Reservation Center initially reserved my ticket under the wrong name ("Anthony" instead of "Andy"). I informed Absolute Reservation Center of the error and they sent me a new confirmation letter indicating that the name on my ticket had been changed to "Andy". When my girlfriend and I arrived at the cruise ship dock, we discovered that that confirmation letter was also phony. My ticket was still under the name "Anthony". Since I had no identification with that name on it, my girlfriend and I were forced to spend an additional hour convincing the cruise line that I was not trying to sneak on board with someone else's ticket.

Absolute Reservation Center appears, therefore, to have a habit of providing phony confirmation letters to people. These letters provide a false sense of security by indicating that vacation reservations exist for people when they in fact do not. As I expected, my 4 phone calls and 3 emails to Absolute Reservation Center in regard to my vacation have gone unanswered.

My personal belief for Absolute Reservation Center's actions are that they are retaliating against my girlfriend and I because we did not purchase a timeshare in Orlando, Florida. As part of our vacation package, my girlfriend and I agreed to attend a timeshare sales presentation in Orlando at the beginning of our trip. We reserved our Orlando hotel accommodations through Absolute Reservation Center and were able to check into the hotel without incident. My girlfriend and I declined to buy the Orlando timeshare.

All of our subsequent Absolute Reservation Center reservations were either non-existent or fraught with difficulty (namely, the cruise line ticket). The company that owned the timeshare hinted that they had paid Absolute Reservation Center a considerable sum of money to acquire my girlfriend and I as potential timeshare customers. I am not certain, but I imagine that Absolute Reservation Center may only get paid this sum when customers actually purchase timeshares.

Andy
Cupertino, California
U.S.A.