Spirit Incentives The Spirit of Greed Fort Lauderdale, Florida

I received a certificate issued by this company and followed all requirements to the letter. Once however it came time to "finalize" my reservation, in spite of the fact that all business conducted in reference to this certificate save the mailing in of the deposit "to cover taxes" was conducted via email, I was instructed I had to call 954-315-8758 within 7 days. 

The only problem is that no one actually ANSWERS this line.  It rolls into an automated system which provides you with the list of information you will be required to provide to the next available representative and then tells you to hold for the next available operator.  Unfortunately, apparently only 2 or so people work at Spirit Incentives because 30-50mins later the line is NEVER ANSWERED. 

I have documented via my phone log and my camera my wait times.  On 2/6/12 my wait time was 30 mins and 52 seconds with no answer.  A second call on 2/9/11 lasted 50 min and 50 seconds also with no answer.  Their looping musak periodically and oh so helpfully advises that you hang up and call back tomorrow if you can no longer hold. 
Keep in mind they give you 7 days to make this call.  Now the screen that pops up on their site once you refuse to buy their enhanced package clearly states that their hours are 8a-5p Eastern Standard Time yet when I called at 7:41a central (8:41 Eastern), I got a message that they were closed!  Also, every time you go back to their site and enter in your certificate number for status, the system acts like youve never requested the standard package before! 
You have to go through the whole process again! Literally this has happened FOUR times.  You have to re-request the standard package and the trip. 

I bet if I had requested the enhanced package it would have gone through.  Sad thing is, I actually considered the enhanced package yet when I called the number provided for it, NO ONE ANSWERED after more than 20 minutes on hold!  So they apparently lose many of the certificate holders who would have, had their being any kind of service from
Spirit, bought the enhanced package!  Awesome business model!  I think Ill save it for future reference.

Researching the company online after my frustrating phone adventures, I found a number of complaints of and read them.  I found a number of them with the response from Spirit to contact them via email (an email address which is handily NOT included anywhere on their website).  So I send an email on Monday (still within my 7 days) which includes ALL information required via the automated system. 

I received a call this afternoon at 2:25p from a young man - who apparently though he read enough of my
information from my email to ascertain my phone number did not happen to have any of the information handy to reserve my trip.  In fact, the opening line in his call was asking if I had 25-30 minutes to finalize my trip!  25-30 minutes?  Well of the call lasting 17mins and 21seconds, only about 5 minutes were spent actually talking to him.  The rest of the time I was on hold.  During these few precious minutes, I was advised that they would do their best  to accommodate one of my dates but if they didnt they would randomly pull a date out of their collective heads and if I
refused, I would lose my certificate and my trip.   Mind you my flight was from Houston with 2 major airports.

As I had to suffer through a god-awful timeshare presentation for 3 hours, I advised that they WILL honor
their trip.  I advised him that I was well aware of their practices and that he had better consider carefully if this
job was worth losing, being sued over or going to jail for intrastate fraud.  I also advised that all further communication
would be recorded to which he objected.  Unfortunately he was calling into Texas which is a 1 consent state and across state lines which made him subject to Federal law which also allows 1 persons consent for telephone conversation taping. I, hereby, gave myself permission to record my calls.  For extra measure I was outside on speaker phone at a business where there was no reasonable expectation of privacy.

He calls back an hour and so later - Richard was his name and guess what?  A practice common with this company as stated on numerous complaints posts and sites - oops they have no dates available that I have requested;
however, they could give me a random date in March to 2 other places I never even requested!  Upon his insistence that
there were no flights available on any of my dates, I asked him to provide me with the airlines and I would follow up to see if there were flights available. His reply: We use all major airlines.  I find it incredibly hard to believe that not one major airline in the 2 major airports of Houston had availability for dates ranging from 1.5 months away to 5 months away.  Luckily, I utilized my earlier given permission to record this call.  For extra measure I was also outside on speaker phone at a business where there was no reasonable expectation of privacy.  He became very upset when he was reminded yet again that he was being recorded and hung up.

I also have a 2nd certificate from this company for a Hawaiian resort.  I am interested in seeing them also try to
wiggle out of this one.

These people are playing games plain and simply.  Interesting that the BBB should have them rated so highly when this is apparently a scam to extort money not only from companies who buy their certificates but also the end user
(who had I bought the enhanced package would surely at least be going the DESTINATION I requested). 

The sad part is that Ive had certificates with them in the past.  They NEVER used to be like this.  I guess they
are hemorrhaging money so badly at this point that they are willing to stop to any and all new lows they can think up to try to stop.

I would advise everyone to send letters to the companies that issued this certificate to you so that they will lose all of their customers and thus be run out of business.  I would also advise filing a lawsuit in small claims court. They will have to come to you to fight it or settle out of court.  You might also consider finding a local attorney who "doesn't get paid unless you win (and by the defendant at that).