A Prize We Have to Pay

In my entry on Go Negosyo here, I mentioned in the last part that I won in a raffle hosted by A.Venue. I was so excited for obvious reasons. We got to their hotel in Makati to claim my prize and as soon as we entered the restaurant we immediately figured, uh-oh, it was a time sharing scheme. We stayed anyway thinking we spent gas and travel time for that. It's the same scheme that Astoria has been calling me for months but I didn't really mind because I'm simply not interested. When we found out that A.Venue is with the same group affiliation as Astoria, Stephen chided: 'They finally got to you'.

To make the long story short, we didn't avail of their offer at it's not something that we are prioritizing right now. As I mentioned to the sales agent, when we decided to purchase a house and a car, recreation and travel were the two things we had to give up since it's the least important of all. Plus, we have friends who got into timesharing but really can't make the most out of it.

Anyway, they still gave us the hotel accommodation prize voucher but it's what I would consider as a 'prize you have to pay'. Apparently, when I called their office to simply inquire and possibly book the available dates of the hotel, it's peak season and the voucher is only good for 3 months. I was informed that we have to pay a booking fee of P5,000.00 before they can provide any detail or info. Duhhh! What's free in that? Although the 5K is refundable after your vacay, it's still money you have to spend. Another thing is, since they won't give us even just the available dates unless we pay, we don't really know if we are available on their free dates, right? I asked, 'what's happens to the 5K booking fee if we can't avail of the promo due to conflict in schedules,etc'? The girl on the other line said it's refundable naman. The heck with refundable! They've been giving me misleading information from the time they called me to say I won. 

I understand the marketing and sales promotions and strategies that companies have to make in order to earn money. But c'mon! Let's just try to be honest and upfront here okay? Don't give deceiving or misleading information to people because it's frustrating and irritating to spend valuable time over these hullabaloo.