Global Discovery Vacations
reviews and complaints

We were contacted on a Thursday because we won a free week in Sedona, AZ. We were in the car and not concentrating so we asked her to call us back later, which she did. She asked that we sit through a Zoom presentation to receive the week and set it up for 5 pm on a Friday. These guys hit us hard. They tag teamed us and we caved. We paid $6400 for 4 star credits a year. CJ told us that she was going to waive the service fee of $389 for the first year to honor my husband. After getting the receipt she did not waive the service fee. We looked over the vacations and there a few places for $229 a week but many are much more expensive. Many of the $229 places are 2 Star hotels. There are no resorts in any of the places that we would want to go. I tried calling but could not reach anyone. The free week in Sedona never appeared. We received paperwork to fill out and it said not to book it until we received a verification which has never arrived. We feel so mislead and wanted to cancel but of course you cannot reach anyone before your 3 days are up.

We have been members since 2013 and have used the heck out of this membership but, BUT, I noticed the last few years that the inventory was not the same when we initially joined. We just returned from a week in Hawaii which only became available 3 weeks out. Yesterday my wife received a text message from one of the sales members whom is listed as a Regional Director offering us the ability to purchase 2 more stars and move us to the updated platform which has more properties. After listening and asking very detailed questions we decided to move forward. After we were able to view the properties (which is a ton of international) I looked at properties we had stayed in before and noticed that they now require 3 stars where on the old membership it only required 1. Additionally the cost to book the vacation weeks and expressways both increased $200 per booking. I was irate and contacted the agent immediately and told him that he had deceived us by not allowing us to have line of sight on what was available and the

Star (pricing) structure. He has committed to cancelling our upgrade and returning us back to our original membership. We'll see if he's honest and actually does this. Above and beyond the fact that they charged us $2300 to upgrade and basically lose out on the better deals, they have removed the inventory that we use to have on our membership. He told me that they can't offer properties that cost more than what our membership allows. This is the totally shady part as none of that is mentioned in any sales pitch or in your contract. We are fortunate to have been able to use this membership so much but for them to remove the inventory and push it to the people whom paid more is unethical. We will continue to use what we have but I highly recommend not upgrading if you are an older member because you'll pay more for less.

I cant believe my Wife and I were suckered into this scam. The thought of traveling the world using top class accomodations, I will admit was very enticing. Not the case. Everytime we would pay the annual fee and try to schedule a trip, nothing was available. At least where we wanted to go. To be honest we have never been able to use it for just that case. Everywhere we were told they had places are never available. Oh, and the fees have about quadrupled since we joined. The sales team are slimmy, promising everything under the sun, when in reality they are just scam artists. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY! Because when you try to get out of it, they threaten you with legal action, as you signed a contract.

I have owned in this company for 15 years. The products were so horrible when we started that we only used it twice and then wrote it off as a total loss.

We started getting phone calls from their marketing team saying that they've improved the company and we should give them another chance. So, we set up an appointment in MN with a guy named Mike Cantrell. He gets us in his office and said the whole sales speech: "It was a bad company but I've been hired to turn it around...we can sell you more stars and up your membership status and it will be the best decision you ever made...yada yada yada"

I asked him to send me the paperwork to review. Guess what? He said they can't send paperwork until you've PAID UP FRONT for the upgraded membership! No kidding! I then tried to contact a manager with over 7 phone calls and messages. I had one return call at 7:20am when I was sleeping. Tried to get her to return my call at a later time of the day? No avail. Her name was Marsha McKinley. Out of all the companies I've ever dealt with in my 63 years, this one is probably the worst. I would like my money back...or, get upgraded for free at this point cause they've had my membership for 15 years and it's so crappy that there are no places of interest to stay and the ones they have are well below vacation club standards.

First clue should have been that they locked us im a room that no one else has access to to start with. Only employees. The free vacation. Not free cheapest is 150 for 2 nights. And you just pick the town no info in resort.

I was told I had time to cancel if needed. Not true. You have 3 days. The places you can stay are not the pictures they show you. They again pick months in advance and hope you get something worth a [censored]. I have called and called and texted. I want out. Again today asked for someone who could cancel my contract and 15 mins later lady stated on one could be found they would call me back. I am ready to post papers of misleading information as well as stand outside their build and tell every one going in what a scam this is go home. Nothing is free EVER.

This place is A COMPLETE SCAM! The website is misleading and the vacation dates and places to travel are not reasonable.

My husband and I have joined global vacations, we have been members for 5 years now. We started with 6 stars and increased to 17 over the last 5 years. In the beginning it was nice, we were able to go whenever. When we increased to 17 we were told we are now vip and can call in and have our own personal "concierge". And that we have first priority on a waiting list. They also paid for our maintenance for the next full year. Which is now up in august. We have tried to book several vacations since dec.2020 we have not been able to find anything, places we used to go to are now gone. They are not even on the global site anymore. I called global today to try and book a condo for july, the concierge never asked my name or member id. Which I was told they would because I am now a vip! She recommended to not even get on the waiting list. Then I called global customer service, and spoke with carl menenhall, to voice my concerns, absolutely got nowhere with this man. He was extremely rude and condescending. He recommended I book 6 to 12 months out, which is what I have been trying to do. The latest search was 5 months out. Global vacations is a scam. I have come to the conclusion; they have more customers than they do condos. I am so disappointed in myself for investing thousands of dollars in nothing but a scam! Janice and lyle hankins

We participated in a Zoom meeting where we were offered to participate in their travel program that would offer discounts that were not available to others. We were offered a "great price" but had to sign up right then. If we were to contemplate it first and call back it would have cost us twice the amount. I feel like we were pressured to sign up right then. After signing up we examined the website and discovered the vacations would cost us just as much, if not more, than if we booked it ourselves. Also, the hotel "deals" they claim to have cost more than if we book the same hotels through hotels.com or booking.com. We have been on a few weekend getaways since signing up and have never used GDV services as it would have cost us more.

On top of this, the "free" vacation offered when signing up was still going to cost us over $500 after taxes and fees. This is the biggest scam. They can keep the monies they have already scammed from us, but I would like our contract cancelled.

My husband and I purchased a membership 3 years ago. We signed a contract and are still making monthly payments. They never told us that we would have to pay interest and they add a 400.00 fee every year. We have not used this membership once and it seems we never pay the total down. It’s horrible and I wish we never signed up for this .

Valerie Cox

when we bought our membership we were told about rentals and that there were a lot of them to choose from. for 2 years i have looked and tried to book vacations for condos, cabins,rentals and none are ever available. i want my 10,000.00 back. tired of paying monthly maintenance fees and tired of Global Vacations not living up to their contract. Sounds like a Class Action time in the future.

I have tried several times to make reservation for a particular date, February 24 - 28th, to Daytona Beach, I have called/text/email/ and still I cannot get anyone to book my request? when I do get Customer Service, then send me back to the Rep that does not call me back to let me know if there is a problem. now they or Close Monday and Tuesday and the date I want is next week, this has been going on since Feb 4th

Horrible service!
Called to change my husband, who works in the medical field and can not get off work, to my granddaughter on a booked cruise. Was informed by Royal Car. It's not a problem. Since my cruise was rescheduled due to covid in 2020, we were out sourced to Global for rescheduling since Royal Carb. Could not handled everyone rescheduling. Called Global and they wanted another 1100$ to change persons. I was told only my husband could use the $1100 we used for him and that he would have to take cruise later. So even though we had the $1100 credit, we would have to pay another $1100. This happened when we rescheduled the original cruise. We had to pay 600$ because the company withheld 600$ to use at a future date. This company is one of the worst rip offs I have ever seen!
Tisha Macdonald
[protected]@yahoo.com
[protected]

I purchased my membership back in November 2021 and am due to start making monthly payments this month. I was promised a 3 day 2 night trip to Disneyland (with or without purchase of membership) by just attending the 90 minute presentation. I have not received this trip yet and I have called and texted the representative who used to text me everyday to insist I attend the presentation. Unfortunately, I lost my job in the middle of December and have also been sick with covid. I have a part-time job currently however called the GDV at their number on their website [protected] and a number on the membership agreement [protected], was given a different number to call at [protected] to ask if I could cancel my membership as I'm currently not working full time. I was told I could not cancel my membership and that I'm bound by a legal contract and that if I fail to give the payments it will affect my credit score and will eventually go to collections. I was then told to call Bonnie at [protected] as she knew more about termination of the membership. I don't care if I don't get the down payment back but I just want to cancel this membership. Is there any way I can make this happen? I just want to get back on my feet.

We have had this membership since 2017. We have only been able to use it twice. The company has been informed that we don't want the annual fees added to our account yet they have done this for the last three years. We weren't able to use it during the pandemic, and we are still unable to get any vacation days. They continue taking out $80.00 a month, when we can never use it. I have asked for the membership to be canceled but, they refused to do it. I want this payment to stop and the complete contract voided out.

One Couple personal experience. Member about 9 years

October 19, 2021
Hello.
My wife and I are members of Global Discovery Vacations. Recently we went on a two week, back to back vacation from Global. In the middle of the first week, we got a call from a Mr Karl Mendenhall who is the supervisor of vacation rentals. He informed us that he was not able to fulfill our reservation for the second week and that we would be put in another resort. The resort that he suggested (with no options) was inferior to the one that our original reservations were in. He was unable to put us into an equivalent resort. His inability or unwillingness to put us in at least an equivalent resort is either a lack of training or impotence to act on behalf of Global to make a satisfying vacation experience available to ALL of Global's members. To me, it appears that a solid vacation club has a moral obligation to improve a member's vacation experience if they are unable to fulfill their original promise. Please be advised that from the time that Mr Mendenhall's call of cancellation came to us and up until now ( it is the third day of our 2nd week holiday), we are very upset and unhappy. My Question is, Is it Global Connections that doesn't care about its members or the people without proper training or interest in the club members that are allowed to preside in important positions, responsible? In any event, customer satisfaction does not appear to be very high on the Global Connections list as they are the bottom line.
Respectfully,
from a very concerned Global member.
Anthony Manos

My wife and I attended the global discovery vacations after seeing the booth at the county fair. If you attended the presentation you got a three night stay including airfare in Hawaii for $150
We attended presentation with an open mind. Until they started talking about points and blackout dates and fees etc. etc. We did not buy but we got a certificate for our trip. We immediately submitted the trip form as required and got back another form stating we had to send in hundred dollar deposit along with a page full of very fine print basically saying that you had to submit multiple dates and the dates had to be 45 days apart and the kicker is that you were required to pay For an additional five nights. They don't tell you the cost but you were required to stay Monday to Monday and they set up a package for you and you either get it or you don't get it. What a racket. Is this the way they do business once you are a member ?I want the trips that I was offered.
You also only have 20 days from the date that they mailed the letter back to you to send a deposit in and get it back to them. They do everything they can for you to not take this trip

My husband and I would love to use our condo club that we purchased through Global Discovery Vacations but every time we try to get a condo in the area we would like to travel, the selection is very limited. We had wanted to get a condo in the month of September and choices are practically nothing. It is so disheartening that we paid so much into being members of this vacation club and are unable to use it. For anyone interested in becoming members, our advice would be, STOP. Don't do it. It is a total waste of money.

me and my husband became member August 2020, we haven't been able to use it, nothing is ever available to book . we call the office for help and can never get anyone on the phone to help they say they will return our calls, never happens. they promise so mush but we get nothing. i would really like to get out of out contract. paid for a year now and have gotten nothing from it.
when ever i go on the web page to book something, they only show the same 2 places available. really would like help to see how we can get out of this contract.

Maui Hawaii was a great vacation in August of 2021. The problem was too many people were there. To get a chance to book a luau we agreed to sit in Global Discovery Vacations presentation to get $220 of the price. The luau was cancelled for weather and I was stupid enough to sign up with this company. The presentation was Oscar worthy and we were hypnotized by the potential savings. When we got home we downloaded the .pdf file that we signed by clicking on Docusign yellow marks. Oh, oh you have only 4 days after you sign to cancel. After reviewing the web site and submitting proposals for condos, hotels and cruises, the bottom line is they might save you about 5% off published prices. For me 5% doesn't equal to my investment of $13, 000 I paid for "stars".

Were they illegal...no. were they slick...slickest! Bottom line, don't sign anything until you read the "fine print".