Sell Off Vacations review: First and last time I will use sell off vacation

To Whom It May Concern,

We would like to formally express our disappointment with the service we received from our travel agent Lori in london Ontario, who handled our vacation booking from June 1–7. This was our first trip in 25 years, and we trusted her based on her promises. Unfortunately, our experience was stressful and frustrating. Below are the main issues:

Booking Issues:
We clearly requested June 1–7, but she booked us for one extra day.

She only pointed out the date change after we paid, despite reviewing the correct dates beforehand.

Claimed fixing it would be difficult but doable and now it was after 6:00 PM on a friday so said she’d “deal with it next week.”

Stated she booked a package “like most people do” without confirming that was what we wanted.

Lack of Transparency:
We were told we purchased “Option Plus” on the flight, which we never agreed to or were informed about.

Our itinerary had no clear breakdown of what we paid for: flights, shuttle, accommodation, or add-ons.I'm not aware we were given it for free?

Misleading Instructions:
She emphasized the importance of speaking to the Transat rep immediately upon arrival at the resort.

No rep was ever available – we checked daily, asked the front desk and Preferred Club, and found no one knew anything.

This led to 10+ back-and-forth emails during our trip with growing concern and confusion.

Excursion Trouble:
We were supposed to book excursions through the Transat rep, but since none were present and she knew this and knew we needed to book them after we got there.

As a result, we were pushed to listen to a 90 minute spiel that turned into a 4-hour timeshare pitch just to get a discount on excursions. We ended up booking the excursion through another airline who was available, Amstar.

Room Safety and Theft Incident:
We informed housekeeping we did not want our room cleaned.

Despite this, housekeeping entered while we were gone for 5 hours, left our door wide open and unlocked, and they took our unopened snacks.

Our belongings could have easily been stolen – there were no cameras to verify anything.

When we told our agent, she brushed it off and said, “Just put the Do Not Disturb sign up,” without even asking if we already had done that. What happened to her advising us if something happened during our stay she would be on the phone and "heads would roll?"

False Promises & Rude Responses:
She advised us we each had a free massage. In reality, we were given a $40 coupon toward a $200 massage. That meant we had to pay $320 if we wanted one.

When we raised concerns about the time share ordeal, she blamed us:
“You didn’t have to listen to the spiel… not sure why you needed 90 mins, never mind 4 hours.”

She insisted the Transat rep “must be there” and told us to go back and look again—accusatory and dismissive.

Closed her email with: “Enjoy the rest of your vacation. Let me know if you need anything else.”
At that point, we had no interest in reaching out to her again as she had not helped us with any we had had so far.

There were others things she did not advise us about until after we booked that would be an extra cost. For example seats together on the plane and the tax we had to pay when we got there. All extras that would of been good to know prior to booking.

This experience left us stressed, disappointed, and without the support we were promised. Her failure to advocate for us, along with her dismissive tone, false claims, and lack of accountability, made an already difficult situation worse.
I have heard 6 % of complaints to sell of vacations are rectified or responded to so i don't expect much here however Unless given a trip with a 50% paid by sell off vacation we will NOT be booking with sell off vacations again. ( then and only then will i write a positive response if they show accountability for these things) She never even checked in to see if we found our shuttle information before the weekend when we were to depart . she knew we had not found anyone nor had she tried to find out for us. She had told me to write Transat to complain when we got back. However i also need to write here about my concerns regarding Sell off vacations part in this. Had she advocated, called for us and got answers and talked to someone regarding our issues since we were struggling to find anyone to help us in a foreign country, I would not feel this tainted about our experience. Plus she told us to contact her if we had any issues at the hotel or during our flight. I am left wondering if the 8 day vacation was a compensated package for her and her "heads will roll" comment was just a tactic to give us a false sense of security that someone had our backs and would advocate for us in these matters. I received an email 2 weeks after we got back saying "I am sad that you did not enjoy your trip and Air Transat needs to be aware of why. If you need help filling it out, let me know and I will help you." I assure you i'm more upset by the lack of advocating she promised then i am about a rep not being there. I am confident she had the ability to address some of these issue and advocate for us as she stated she would when we booked. But that did not happen. Why there was no rep there or we could not find them is beyond me but she is a traveler and I am just starting that kind of life and she knew this and this is literally her line of work so she should of known ( end of our trip we found out that an appointment had to be booked and transat reps come at those times yet we were not told this nor do we know if this is true as we found out the very last day after 7 days of trying to find someone who could help us.) She should of been able to help but she did not nor did she even try.