My Free Travel, Div Of Hort Financial Svcs ripoff - advertising fraud - misleading - headaches - too many problems to name! Chicago, Illinois

My family and I bought two cruise certifications (Royal Caribbean) issued by "My Free Travel". According to the agent, once we buy the certification we will only need to pay $199/person and we will be all set to go. The deal looked good and therefore, on 2005 we paid $200 for 2 certification (good for 4 persons).

When we received the certifications, we realized that we need to pay $35 per certification for submission fee. We sent back two money orders ($35 each) to "My free Travel". Then "My free travel" sent back another certifications. These certifications now said we will need to pay $199/person - a total of $398 for two of us (per certifcation) and we need to select the travel dates (must be 60 days from the date we sent out).

Anyway, we sent out a check of $398 for the 1st certicication booking. We received the calls from "My free travel" agent and they kept telling us that the dates we wanted are sold out (May - August 2006). We spoke to them at many occassions and were not able to book any cruises. It was too much troubles and finally we decided not to use their cruise certification until 2006.

On January 2006, we decided to try booking the cruise with "My free travel" again and at the 1st attempt we were advised that the person who normally handled our booking (in the past her name also is MaryAnn??) is no longer handle our booking. On February 2006, we finally spoke with the manager (Mr. Steven Horwitz). We talked and also informed him that we also had a second certification as well. At the end of the conversation, he advised us that on our letter/payment, please indicate that we have another certification on the system and send another check of $398 for the second certification, and $75 per person if we want to upgrade to ocean view room, and $27.5 per person for additional tax. Therefore, we sent out another check of $808 on March 1, 2006 (via Fedex)

As of today (March 13, 2006), we received a call from "My free travel" and the gentleman advised us that we will need to pay another subcharge fee of $40 per person (season charges). After we complained, the gentleman transfered us to Mr. Steven Horwitz and now he also advised that beside the $40 per person, we will need to pay another $49.95 (or $49 something like that) for booking the cruise less than 60 days notice.
Therefore, we told him that we do not need to go for April 14 cruise, we can go for May cruise so it will satify the 60 days requirement. However, he advised that we still need to pay a minimum of $40 per person surcharge anyway, regardless of the date of travel.
In addition, Mr. Steven Horwitz this time told us that the season surcharges will apply for all sailing from Jan - end of August (no one informed us these information before, regardless of many phone calls between "My free travel" and myself!!!)

It seems that everytime we spoke to "My free travel" representatives (include the manager), we got directed to other directions with extra fees. There were no ending of extra charges that "My free travel" will add on.
On their certifications, they tended to misleading people by not provide enough information (information are too general) so they can charge extra fees or bend the information. For example, on the back of their certification, it said that people will need to pay for season surcharges, tax charges, but never mention or provide the exact time period for the season surcharge or the total amount of the charges...
The results? We had to pay higher prices.
We paid: $200 (2 certification), $70 ($35 per certification submission), $398 (1st certification booking - paid on 2005 but without the confirmation of the sailing date), $398 (2nd certification), $300 (Ocean view upgrades for 2 rooms), $110 (addition tax/fee for 4 persons).
If we decide to continue to use "My Free Travel" service, we will have to pay: $200+ $70 + $796 + $300 + $110 + $160 (extra surcharge) = $1636 for April 14 sailing.
This cruise is for 3 nights cruise, sailing from Los Angeles port. We also checked on "Royal Caribbean" cruise website (www.royalcaribbean.com)and found out that for Ocean View room sailling on April 14, it only cost us $369 per person plus $27.76 tax (total of $1587 for 4 persons).
It ended up that we paid more than we have to pay with all the headaches and confusing and inconveniences!!! Many phone calls, air mail cost, money order cost, time lost etc... They should not allow to do business if they tend to misleading people. In addition, every time we spoke with them they always had different stories. They even told us that we got it wrong information!!! They basically said that they did nothing wrong and it is us who got it all wrong. It also surprised us that this service/business (My Free Travel) is actually a BBB (Better Business Bureau) registered!!

Now they said they only can refund us a total of $1206 but not $1476 we already paid since they said lots of their fees are not refundable.

Marianne
Santa Ana, California
U.S.A.