LT@T... problems anyone?

[lcsilver]

Hi everyone...

Was wondering if anyone who booked through Lifestyles Tour and Travel has had a problem when checking in to any resort regarding payment. On the Trip Advisor site, there was a complaint regarding several people who checked in but were not paid for as promised. We're going to Cancun in late Oct. and want to make sure our money is paid to the resort as promised.

Anyone have problems? Thanks for the info...

Lance

[mfay]

There have indeed been several problems with payment by Lt&t to the resort.
I'd suggest this: As soon as the date is under 30 days from your arrival call Desire's
reservations department directly- the number is on the website. Give them your confirmation number and names and ask them to confirm that they have received your final payment. If they have not, ask them if you can pay them directly. Then (hopefully you paid Lt&t by credit card less than 90 days before) contact your card company and have the payment to Lt&t cancelled and pay Desire yourself.
Chances are Lt&t will have made the payment by that 30 days prior due date, but if not, I wouldn't screw around with them any further. Several people on a couple different occasions have showed up at the resort and then had to pay again because of Lt&t's problems. Haven't heard if all those people got their money back (even though Lt&t promised they would).

[julesingeorgia]

We booked with LT&T for our trip in July. I had contact with them 3 days prior to arriving and not one time did they mention there might be a problem. Also, Desire made no effort whatsoever to contact us about non-payment. When we arrived we had to pay again or go home. This happed to about 15 couples that week. We just recently found out that American Express refunded our first payment so we really got lucky. It really put a damper on our trip as half the resort was talking about it the whole week we were there. Every time someone would check in and find out they had to pay again, the whole thing would get drummed up again. This was our 3rd trip to Desire and we love it there but that really left a bad taste in our mouth! I would never book with LT&T again and I can't believe they are allowed to conduct business that way and keep scheduling trips?
(Hi Mike)

jules

[Ron]

Hi Jules & Brian

Hope you guys are doing A_OK.

There have been many posts like yours on the original Desire forum and other trip sites.

Reason #2 that the Desire forum shut down tight. Ya gotta get out of the kitchen when the heat gets to hot. Glad AEX got you some cash back. Most folks were not that lucky. Naturally reason #1 was the bad PR for the time share scams.

Management was asked many times why the guests were not notified that they still had monies due before they arrived when according to their own rules, all funds must be accounted for 30 days prior to arrival. They knew damn right well LT&T was not going to cough up any monies because Desire canceled their contract without prior notice. Sort like a general pissing match between LT&T & Desire with the public getting screwed as usual. They also knew damn right well that air fare being as expensive as it is, everyone would pay double.

[mfay]

Hello Jules ! Thanks for posting a first hand account
again of what happened.
Icsilver: Please let us know how this works out for you- we'd all like to know if this problem continues...................

[lcsilver]

Working on it now with DennyP. Will post when we have an outcome.

Lance

[mfay]

Lance- since this topic is still "hot" in another area of the forum- we wonder if you have resolved your situation yet ?

[lcsilver]

Hi Guys,

It has been a small ordeal. We will tell all when we return from our trip, which we depart on Wed. the 22nd of Oct. and return Nov. 2. We have been promised some things from LTT, and are working with our CC company, but only our arrival will tell if all is as promised. Wish we could tell you more at this point, but by next week, "all will be illuminated". At least we hope...haha.

Never had we had such drama before a vacation. No really, we hope to arrive and enjoy Cancun as we have before, being that Cabo is not going to be an option in the future.... so sad.

We will post when we return, good or bad. Some of you won't believe our story, and some will say... " hey, that's us!".

Look for our post sometime the first week of Nov. on this title. Suffice to say, we're going with credit cards in hand in case of disaster...lol.

Thanks to all for your interest and support.

Lance

[mfay]

Thanks ! We will look forward to hearing the whole story..........

[lcsilver]

Hi again everyone,

Just got back yesterday from 11 nights in paradise. The weather was horrible, rainy and windy, the beach bare of sand and full of dead stinky seagrass... but who cared... it was GREAT!!!!

On to LT&T. We had to pay twice and dispute our first charge over 5 months ago at the request of LT&T. They said that the original charge was being held back by their cc company and they could not pay the resort even though I had paid them. My original reservation dissapeared, but they were able to secure a new one, one month before my arrival, but that I had to pay again. They asked me to dispute the old charge,as they would not contest the dispute.

As you can imagine, we were hesitant to give money again to a company that had not honored our charge. We were assured that they would pay the resort this time, AND THEY DID !!!!

So now, I'm trying to get my first charge removed, although because it was so long ago, we are in a prolonged dispute. Not good. On the other hand, all the agents, one in particular, has been helpful and are trying to get this resolved. Denny P has also been involved as a booking party, and has been most helpful.

We'll see if we get our original payment of $5000.00 back, but as of now, LT&T did pay the resort from our last payment. Hopefully their problems are behind them, but maybe, nothing beats booking straight through the resort. Takeovers are a problem with that though.

Hope our situation sheds some light, but probably not. Any other questions, please just ask. Cheers to all.

Lance

[mfay]

Thanks Lance. Sounds like the moral of the story is still- avoid Lt&t at all costs !

[Ron]

Lemmi see now if I totally understand this. You paid them five grand and they screwed you so you paid them another five grand hoping they would pay the resort. Ummmmmmmmmmm P.T. was right on target.

[lcsilver]

Yes Ron, a risky move, but you are ignorant to our predicament.

We already owned first class tickets to Cancun and the resort was sold out. The only way to secure a "new" reservation for our old booked dates was to book with them again. We used another credit card number so if they did not pay again, we could dispute it within the 60 day period.

We checked with Desire and they had our new resv., so we knew we were OK, and checked later, and indeed, they had payed prior to our arrival.

Hey, would we book through them again... HELL NO !!!, but at least they paid the next time. We really felt we had no choice but to try again as it was the only way to stay when we had air fare.

Oh yeah, we also remember all the blogs about theft, well, we now bring one of those James Bond in room safes that you pack with you and attach to door frames and such. We got bored with that and just used the safe. One day, we forgot that it was open and went to the pool and beach.

We returned to find a note from our housekeeper telling us our safe was left open, and that she locked it and to call security for a new code. NOTHING was gone. We had over $ 2000.00 in cash, as well as ipods, jewelry, and other valuable items. Stupid us, but thanks to the staff.

Ron, we're sorry for you're bad experiences, but hey, things can happen to anyone. I've heard some people say you're a cancer, but we don't believe them.

Whatever, go and enjoy, and we're sure if we ever meet, we'll buy you a drink and share some stories.

The resort and staff were wonderful as usual, although a swim up bar would be nice... lol.

Lance

[Ron]

Ron, we're sorry for you're bad experiences, but hey, things can happen to anyone. I've heard some people say you're a cancer, but we don't believe them.


It was not only my "bad experience", try many guests having their safes opened, cash taken and an "OFW" attitude from management. Ya know, when you have the only ball game in town, you have read many posts concerning the scams that the good Dr. and his merrymakers have perpetrated over the years and folks have finally said, ENOUGH, does not make me a cancer? I speak my mind, tell it the was it is and if that bothers others, well, so be it. There are many other "experiences" that transpired at Desire over the past 5 years including our room being flooded out with sewer human waste during a rain storm. All our clothes and luggage soaked in SH-T and ruined. Just wonder how you would have handled that situation? Passive or aggressive? Do you honestly think any rational human being saying, oh well, this is paradise, things happen? I just happened to meet an ex employee that worked at Desire selling the time share scams. Do ya actually think referring to the U.S. guests as "WHALES" is part of the paradise? If I saved just one person from buying into that outrageous scam, then call me a "cancer" if you choose. Oh, and if you don't know what the expression "whale" is, check it out on Goggle or AskME.com