Special T Travel ripoff Did not honour what they promised and try various means to get more monies from you even after you have paid for full tour package Internet Florida

first off if my grammer and spelling is off a bit don't hold it against me or think I dont know what I am talking about, my lack of grammer does not mean I am wrong.

I worked for special t travel and I can break down for everyone how it works. You come across the pop up on the internet and you call into the "call center" they would like you to belive its a travel agency, which I guess part of the company is, but the people you talk to on the phone are telemarketers plain and simple. They tell you that you have "won" $1600 in travel dollars that you can use to put towards your vacation, the full retail price of the vacation (when I was there)was about $2200 in american funds, so that means your $1600 prize you "won" makes the price of the vacation for you to pay ONLY $698, WOW what a bargin right?
I wont really say that Special T are scam artist, they are telemarketers plain and simple, they are not really doing anything illegal, everything they do IS legal what they are really doing is making you believe your getting something more then you are, for an example they lead you to belive that the vacation is like "Ferrari" its exciting, its fast, its flashy, but in reality your really buying and "Escort" for those of you who dont understand what Im talking about what I mean is they talk the vacation up like its the opportunity of a lifetime its the vacation you have always wanted to go on , but in reality its not the vacation of a lifetime, its not bad, but its not as great as they make it out ot be. Now moving on so you pay your $698 then they tell you that you have to pay "port and service fee's" for your cruise, anyone who has ever been on a cruise knows you have to pay port and service fee's BUT has anyone ever had to pay $199.00 per person for port and services fee's to take an 8 hour cruise? I think not, I could be wrong in saying this but port and service fee's for a cruise like this are only about $20, MAYBE a little more, but certainly not $199.00, actually the cruise is through "discovery cruise lines" and on there web site you can buy this cruise the "departure fee" is only $25.00, the cruise itself which you can buy from them is $159.00, is this starting to add up yet?
the cruise is "included" in the cost of your $698 yet you have to pay $199 for these extra "fee's"
now moving on, you have a rental car included, which is a compact car like a ford escort, to those of you from outside the US its a VERY small car, the rental car agency will try to get you to upgrade if you have a family of 4 and luggage belive me the escort just WONT cut it.
Special T are partners with alot of Time Share places, the owners of Special T are part oweners of some of the Time Shares, now if you travel anytime during the year aside from 2 months, usually april and may, then PEAK SEASON fee's apply, which means your going to pay anywhere from $200-400 more because its "peak season" now if you agree to go on a time share tour, the will be nice enough to SKIP the peak season fee for you, you know why? because the time share will pay them for sending you to them, and most people will want to sit through 3 hours of time share presentation then spend an extra $400 on there vacation.

the hotels they put you up on are ok, there not 3.5 or 4 stars like the sales reps would like you to belive, oh thats right the "managers" you talk to on the phone when your getting your vacation are sales people, there NOT travel coordinators, there not even mangagers, they are called "closers" see you call in and you the first person you talk to are called "fronters" they take your "code" you got off the internet and pretend to look you up in the computer (they have no computers) and then come back and say "OH BOY Mr Smith I have GREAT NEWS!!" they tell you that you have won $1600 on travel dollars, and they go on to ask you a bunch of questions and they use those answers against you, what do I mean? Ill show you

"Mr Smith when was the last time you went on a vacation?" 4 years ago

"Have you ever stayed on the ocean?" No

"Have you ever taken a cruise before?" No

Well they take those answers and whip them up into a nice sales pitch that has you beliving its been WAY to long since you took a vacation and that staying at the ocean will be the best experience of your life, and if you do not take this cruise your family will never forgive you, and the really good sales people get you all wrapped up into a nice cute little ball and then you give them your credit card information and "buy" your great discounted vacation.

Are they crooks? no not really
is it a scam? again not really
is what there doing illegal? nope its withing the boundary's of the law
is it ethical? well that depends on how you look at it, there not stealing from you, there not scaming you, they are just using smoke and mirrors to make you think that your getting something better then what you really are, its like buying a car at night time it might look good under the setting sun, but in the morning when its bright outside it doesnt look as good as it did last night.

I do have to admit I left this company on bad terms, I was on ok employee at best, it was a very stressfull job, and having people call in every day asking for there money back and getting screamed at because I had to tell them there was nothing I could do, well you would not be a happy employee either, and the reason they had such hard times giving people back there money is they didnt really have it to give back, it was tied up somewhere else and they wanted you to go back to your credit card company and dispute the charge so they didnt have to deal with it because there hands were tied, anyone else reading this that has done business with them or is doing business with them now, you get what you pay for is all I am saying, if they wont refund your money talk to a lawyer or the attorney general, now THAT gets there attention, not so much the lawyer because the guy who owns the company, his son is president of the company and owns a large law firm so he handles all there lawsuites, nice eh? report them to the better business bureau or speak to the attorney general, do not call them and scream at them or threaten them, your only going to end up talking to some poor operator who works there for them, who needs there job and is only going to tell you what they are told to tell you for fear of losing there job. They will deny what I have said here or say that I am lying because I was a bad employee, you folks can believe what you want, I do not think I slammed them here to hard I just spoke the truth, and if you want further proof why dont you price out the cost of this "fantastic vacation"

1 compact rental car

1 hotel room with 2 double beds (orlando)

1 hotel room with 2 double beds (daytona)
(they say ON the beach, I belive its close to teh beach but not ON the beach)

1 hotel room with 2 double beds (bahamas)
(if your a family with more then 4 people you need to get a 2nd room due to the fire code in bahamas)


1 free cruise which costs $199 per person

1 free casino cruise (The Sterling Casino cruise which they "give you" as part of your package is already free they just get a bunch of pass's for it)

4 pass's to watermania (which is an ok water park, very small, might be ok for the day but again its not as fantastic as it is made out to be)

I dont know if I left out anything, but food is not included, theme park tickets are not included

In reality its an ok vacation, they buy it cheap for next to nothing it MIGHT cost them $200 for the entire vacation (Im not sure of the exact cost to them but I know they are making a killing off it) but like I said its an "ok" vacation if you know what your getting into ahead of time, there are people who do take this vacation and have a BLAST, yes it is true, there are people who take this vacation and it really is the trip of a lifetime for them, yes again it is true. Most people I belive will be disappointed because they thought they were getting more then what they actually got, oh I almost forgot, they include a "bonus" for you which is a Las Vegas vacation, what they do not tell you with that one is its "mandatory" time share, they way it was explained to me (and I could be wrong) is that it is SO mandatory that the time share people pick you up AT the airport, right off the plane and take you to the time share presentation, and I am sure we all know how much fun time share can be.
The bottom line here is you get what you pay for
this is true most anywhere you go in life, if you think something is to good to be true, it probably is, if that person on the other end of the phone sounds like they really care about you and your family, they really do, only because if you buy they vacation they get a nice bonus, so most of them will say whatever they can in order to get you to buy it, they will do anything but out right lie to you, some of them WILL lie to you, the company DOES frown on lying because they dont want to get in trouble and sued, howerver they love money and if they can get away with it, they will
do not get me wrong not ALL sales people are bad, not all people who work for special t travel are bad, there are some darn good people there, but there sales people all they care about is keeping there job and making a paycheck and belive me places like special t travel will fire someone in a heart beat if they dont make enough sales, its ruthless and cut throat, but thats how most sales like this works, I will leave you with this, any real "prize" you should not have to pay for, any real "deal" is not going to expire in the next 5 minutes and if you hang up the phone you will not be out of luck, that is total BS, because if you call back 10 minutes later you can still get the same exact deal, give it a try, call one of these places who tells you that if you hang up you lose your "discount" then call back in 1/2 hour later, I'd be willing to bet your discount is still valid, now there is an OFF chance they might be telling the truth, but most places operate on high pressure sales, they want the credit card information NOW and they dont want to wait for you to think about it or check them out, belive me if they try to pressure you and get you to do it on the spot 9 times out of 10 you can live without what they are selling.
I hope this was helpfull to someone, there are alot of places like special t travel out ther selling all kinds of stuff, you people have to be smarter about things, Im not being insulting I am giving you valid advise, you get what you pay for and if it seems to good to be true 99.9% of the time it is.

Ill be happy to answer any questions if anyone has any, everything I wrote was to the best of what I remembered it was about 2 years ago I worked for these people and unless they have changed there ways I am 99.9% sure I am correct, or ALMOST correct in everything I have said.