We were on an evening boat cruise in Miami, when we decided to take part in a raffle aboard the cruise. They told us that the winner would get to go on a cruise in the Caribbean, so of course everyone on board was excited to enter. The guy running the raffle came up to us after we submitted our raffle tickets to confirm that we were a couple- that should’ve been the first sign of warning. We said yes, and then were announced as the winners- with a big caveat. We had to go and sit through a 2hr lecture about something.

 

He also asked us to put a deposit of $40 which would be refunded after the sales presentation. All the while confirming that we would not have to buy anything to get our free cruise. We were too excited about our win and decided to go to the presentation. The $40 deposit was a second warning, but we failed to identify.

 

The sales presentation was at Newport Beachside Hotel & Resort located at 16701 Collins Ave, Sunny Isles Beach, FL 33160. We decided to go and check it out, being sure that we weren’t going to sign up for anything. But after getting there, we had to sit through an unrelenting lecture about their service. The 2hr talk ended up taking about 4 hrs! Our sales person ( Tyler) requested us to not use our phone during the presentation, as he wanted our undivided attention. We realized after this entire drama that the reason he did not want us to use our phone was that he did not want us to google the company. He started off the presentation by talking about himself and his family. He showed pictures of his family and talked about his brother - who was a veteran. There were at least 20 other couples like us in the room with sales people giving their sales pitch.

 

They ( the salesmen) were trying to sell a new “product” . THis product was called “Holidays Lounge powered by Carnival”. He said four companies came together to form this product and the four were - Advantage Services, Interval International, Sunset Resorts and a fourth one which I don’t exactly remember - i believe it was “Cruise” or something like that. He explained all the advantages that this would provide us. Below are some of the stuff our salesman mentioned verbally:

 

1.We would be able to go on vacations at $449 for one week at a 4 or 5 star hotel of our choice anywhere in the world booked from the interval international website as long as we book in advance.

False. After digging a bit , found out that Interval International is a timeshare exchange website and not a travel website.

 

2.The four companies formed this new product.

False. If you read through their contract you will find that they say neither Carnival Cruise nor Interval International are affiliated.

 

3.They are not a timeshare company.

Technically I don't think they are but when I checked my credit card they were categorized as “timeshare”.

 

4.They had 2 million members .

Not sure if this false, but that’s a lot of people to scam.

 

5.They are affiliated with Carnival Cruise.

In the presentation it gave me confidence in the company when they told that they were affiliated with Carnival Cruise . After the presentation when I googled them, I could not find anywhere online that Carnival Cruise is affiliated with this company.

 

During the presentation we did ask him regarding cancellation, but he managed to deflect the question by not talking about it.

 

We kept saying no, but they kept pushing us- each time lowering the price or adding other incentives (we’re adding on Getaways, we’ll give you Dream Week, we’re letting you take over another couple’s plan because they upgraded- so huge savings for you, etc). They started at ~$25,000 and came down to $4,599. After 4hrs, we didn’t really care anymore and just wanted to leave (this wasn’t exactly what we planned for our honeymoon!).

We finally succumbed and just agreed. Then came the paperwork… We had to sign what felt like a full tree’s worth of paper, so of course we didn’t have the patience to read through all of it, especially after sitting there for hours already. They made a big show of our membership with champagne and photos.

 

When we finally got to leave, it was with an air of feeling both thrilled to finally leave, but also being duped and forced into something we didn’t want to do. We discussed it a lot that day plus googled the company to see how the reviews were. We found out that there were a lot of complaints on the “Better Business Bureau” website and not even a single good review on the world wide web. I do understand that every company has bad reviews but what was surprising is that there wasn't a single good review about them.

 

We decided the same night we wanted to get out of it. We looked through the mountain of paperwork they gave us and realized if you want to cancel, you have to do it in 3 business days! Luckily we acted quickly- we called the people who got us into this mess (Tyler and Chloe), but they didn’t answer. We also emailed and called the Holidays Lounge customer service line to say we want to cancel. They did answer and allowed us to cancel since we were in the 3 day window.

Afterwards, we got calls from multiple people at Holidays Lounge that we had talked to when signing up. They all tried really hard to convince us to not cancel. But it’s a lot easier to say no on the phone, when you can hang up if the other person annoys you too much! :) After a lot of persistence, we finally got our money back. It took nearly 3 weeks from the time we signed up to the time we got the refund, but we’re finally done with this company! Never falling for a scam like this again!

 

Below is a link to “Better Business Bureau” website which shows all the complaints on this company:

https://www.bbb.org/us/fl/winter-park/profile/travel-club/holidays-network-group-llc-0733-90440168/complaints

​

Below is one of the complaints from "Better Business Bureau" website:

( this complaint was written on: 12/14/18)

​

I was mislead into buying a membership with this company and I am not interested in any of their services. After listening to the presentation with an open mind I decided to purchase a membership with this company on November 5th, 2018. I received a military discount which brought my membership price to $7,950.00 plus a closing cost of $897.75. I received my first set of log in credentials the next day for the "discounted"********* Cruises. It was a disappointment to know that the prices were the same as the general public after speaking to a sales rep with*********. We were told by Camila, who signed us up with the membership, that we would get 50% off on all cruises. This was the first misleading information of many that I encountered with this shady company. Also, the advantage weeks does not offer all the places we discussed during the presentation and I was told that these are 4 and 5 stars resorts which you can clearly tell a good number of them are not. They look old and run down and some don't even have pictures (another thing we were told it would have). I talked to Luisa, who provided me with all the information while I waited for my interval login, and she said to submit a request form for the destination I wanted. I did that and was told that there are no resorts available for those locations and dates. At that point I realized how useless this membership was. However, I decided to wait it out until I received my Interval login to see if it would be worth it. On December 12th, 2018 I finally received the login for interval a week later than the date I was told I would get it. The first thing I noticed was that they gave me resort exchange in Winter Park, Fl. I went through my Interval International membership application and it in fact says that my resort ownership is in Cancun, Mexico and NOT Winter Park, FL. Also, you can't even see any of the pictures for the resort in Winter Park. This is all very sketchy and misleading. I called Chloe, the verification loan officer, multiple times since she was the one who I signed the application with, and she did not answer. I then called Luisa again to tell her about this issue and the fact that I am not interested in this company anymore and want to cancel the membership she said "you can't cancel because the 3 day period is up" and that I was not looking in the right place for the destinations. I am aware of the 3 day cancellation policy, however, customers don't receive all their log ins until 5 weeks later. Therefore, the 3 day cancellation policy is useless. She told me to call concierge to once again put in a request and to get back to her. I am tired of going back and forth with this scamming company and getting nothing of what was promised. I want to cancel my membership and get a complete refund since I haven't used any of the services and I was given plenty of misleading information.

​

There are several complaints which are very similar to the above one.

​

Below are details of the company to beware of:

​

Holidays Lounge, LLC

558 W New England Ave,

Suite 210 Winter Park FL 32789

Telephone: 786-866-5754

E-mail: info@holidayslounge.net

​

To note, their business is registered to the above address. They operatre i.e. conduct sales presentation from the address:

​

16701 Collins Avenue, 12th Floor  

Sunny Isles Beach 

 FL 33160

​

They operate fromt the 12th floor of  Newport Beachside Hotel & Resort.

 

According to https://www.corporationwiki.com/p/2royok/holidays-lounge-llc they are around three years old.

 

A google search for “holidays lounge” yielded multiple Holdiays lounges website with different names, each of them slightly varying from each other. All these websites hardly have any data in them. Below are the websites:

 

http://holidayslounge.club/

https://holidaysloungereviews.net/

http://www.holidaysmemberslounge.com/

https://holidaysloungemiami.info/

https://www.holidaysloungevip.club/

https://holidaysloungereviews.org/

http://cruzvtt.com/holiday-lounge/

http://holidayscruiselounge.com

 

It looks like there is a network of these companies.I haven't digged into all the companies but I did check one other company - Ascendant Holidays, LLC. I found their website - https://ascendantholidaysreviews.info/ very similar to one of holidays lounge website - https://holidaysloungereviews.net/

 

Also found that they have similar blog posts:

 

Ascendant Holidays - https://ascendantholidaysreviews.info/ascendant-holidays-enjoys-arubas-carnival-excitement/

Holidays Lounge -

https://holidaysloungemiami.info/holidays-lounge-reviews-arubas-carnival-excitement/

 

Its so weird that two companies can have very similar blog posts.

 

When you look at the website www.corporationwiki.com you will find that there are a network of these companies inter-related to each other.

Below are some of the companies in the network:

Holidays Network Group, LLC

Holidays Lounge, LLC

Florida Resort Xchange, LLC

Ascendant Holidays, LLC

Resort Sales Consulting, LLC

Sorag Inc.

Promotora Sunset Beach Clubs, LLC

 

You can find above network at:

https://www.corporationwiki.com/p/2mut07/sorag-inc

https://www.corporationwiki.com/p/2royok/holidays-lounge-llc

​

Last but not the least, the cruise certificate ( which we won in the raffle) is shown below:

​

​