Government Vacation Rewards review: Cruise booking

I booked a cruise with this company in August of 2019 for sailing in March of 2020. I booked and placed the down payment on my Military Star card with the balance of the cruise to be charged to my Military Star card in January of 2020.

When I went to check-in for my cruise, much to my surprise, my booking number wasn't any good. When I contacted the cruise line I was told to contact Government Vacation Rewards to find out what the problem was.

When I contacted the company, I was told that they did not accept the Military Star card any longer so I had to give them another form of payment. This infuriated me for two reasons; first why did they let me book the cruise with it and agree to have them charge the balance in January? and second, why wasn't I contacted about this change prior to me trying to check-in for the cruise?

My family and I have been planning this trip for months and we were almost not able to go since if I had not called them, I would have lost the cabin along with my deposit. When I asked why they stopped accepting the Military Star card, I was not given an answer, I was just told that I needed another form of payment. When I asked why I wasn't contacted earlier about their discontinuance of the Military Star card i wasn't given a straight answer on that either.

This is a really poor way of doing business and I will never book anything through this company again. I am attaching a screenshot of payment details showing that the card was accepted for down payment in August and another charge was added on January 4th for $123.60, which is the same day that the balance due to the cruise line was scheduled to come out. (?) My biggest question at this point is; Since the $123.60 charge was able to be made on 1/04/2020, why wasn't the entire remaining balance charged that same day? It was obviously still being accepted then since they charged it.

I did come up with other forms of payment to complete the balance but I should not have had to do this, and if it wasn't for my family looking forward to it I would have cancelled it and went to another, cheaper company or to the cruise line directly.

The prices offered by this company are definitely not a bargain, I was paying the extra money for the convenience of using my Military Star card, so since I cannot use it here any more, I will not shop for travel here any more.

I'm sure this complaint will not bother you in the least since you already have my money, so I do not expect any response since the booking agent acted as though it wasn't a problem and I should just pay with another credit card...

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