I've been to several of these presentations, and I can comment on exactly what kind of company this is, and what their overall objective is. As far as the experience with the club itself, you'd be better off reading member reviews of the product this company sells.
This is a sales presentation for a company. They will tell you that you've won a sweepstakes to win a trip. In fact you have not. You filled in demographic information on a card (age, income, etc.) and based off this information this company decided that you would be a good target for their marketing. They use incentives (maybe purchased them, but probably receive them for free) to lure people into an office over-crowded with sales staff who are trained to be as upbeat as anyone you will ever meet. They (of course) will all say they are members of the program and love it. They will tell you about all the wonderful places they've been. They are, in actuality, very professional and polite. In GVN's case, they were not over-pressuring... however there is a certain degree of pressure, and the presentation itself (along with the personalized meeting) is meant to confuse you. Common sense SHOULD dictate to you that if someone is asking you to buy something at your first visit without the opportunity for you to ever do your own research, it's probably not a good idea to commit to it.
Now to the most important part: The incentives. This particular company (at the present time) uses 2 different ""Incentive"" companies to fulfill their rewards programs, Sprit and Time Out Vacations. These incentive companies exist to create a seemingly impossible set of rules and procedures to follow in order to fulfill their rewards. They make money by asking you to leave a ""deposit"" at time of ""date request"", and then expect you to ""break"" one of their rules, nullifying the contract and forfeiting your initial deposit, thereby adding revenue to their organizations.
Even if you go through with all rules, regulations, and procedures... You still have to pay the exorbitant fees they come up with, to which they will owe you no explanation. If you do more research, you'll find that these fees end up being so high that they amount to little more than a small discount compared to what you would have paid if you went through a discount website.
So, in short, (as others have said before me) if something seems to good to be true, it probably is! Do your research, ask questions, and get your answers in writing. There ARE some companies out there that do not try to give you the run around, and will truly provide you with a trip, but a lot of the times the presentation is ON the trip itself. Always ask if you can book the trip at the time of the meeting. It's rarely ever the case.
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