Vacations Made Easy — Local services in Ozark

Vacations NOT Made Easy Review Summary: Deception in both Product Delivery and Refunds, Big Hassle, and Pitiful Discounts

My rating stems from two bad experiences with Vacations Not Made Easy(VNME). I know, Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me! Let me explain. The first bad experience occurred while my wife and I were vacationing in the Pigeon Forge area and wanting to take in one of the local shows. After making the on-line purchase of the tickets I learned that the only way to get them would be to visit the VNME office. The problem was that their office was at least an hour round trip in the wrong direction from where the show was located. No other options for ticket delivery or pick-up were possible. Even with leaving early to pick up the tickets, we barely made it to our show in time. What a hassle! When we checked in at the local show the attendant informed us that it would have been a lot easier to just purchase the tickets directly at the theater allowing you to pick them up at the theater entrance! Lesson Learned!

The second bad experience with Vacation NOT Made Easy was just this past weekend. This time my wife made reservations through BransonShows.com for a popular show in the Branson. MO area for four adults. She selected the “Via Email” button when answering the question “Select Itinerary and Voucher Instructions Delivery Option (No charge for any option)”. Reading this you would fully expect to receive the tickets via e-mail. Evidently the ‘catch’ in this deceptive wording is the word “instructions”. So you are only going to get instructions that you are to pick-up the tickets at their office. So if the tickets can only be picked up at the VNME office, why even put this deceptive option to have something delivered to either your e-mail or USPS address? So not know this deceptive wording, I called Branson Shows. When the person picked up, they answered with “Vacations Made Easy”. I immediately knew I was in trouble from my previous Pigeon Forge experience. After confirming that picking up the tickets at their office was the only option, I said the wording on their website was deceptive. The person got rather defensive claiming that practice was not deceiving.

Not wanting to go through the hassle again of picking up the tickets before attending our show, I purchased another set of tickets directly from the show. Plus we received a 10% discount for being a veteran, whereas Vacations NOT Made Easy only gave a 2% discount! The reason I purchased the tickets from the show directly before canceling the ones from VNME is because there already was limited seating for the desired showing and i was afraid I would not get another set of tickets. Fortunately, we were able to get one of the two remaining sets of four seats! Plus I knew the policy for VNME was a 100% refund if more than 48 hours from show time, and we were well before showtime.

I then called VNME to cancel my tickets with them. They then informed me I have two options: either receive 100% refund as a gift card for future tickets or only get 65% refund! I looked at their website that stated the refund policy … YOUR PEACE OF MIND IS OUR TOP PRIORITY Should you need to cancel at any time, you have up to 48 hours from your vacation start date to do so for a 100% future travel credit

I guess I did not catch the “future travel credit” part the first time I read it. Another deceptive wording practice! If that is your policy then make it clear and provide the other option to only get 65% cash back, which would make it obvious. Now I really feel like a fool for making this mistake twice! Believe me, it will not...

EDIT: The company has since called me (January 2016) for my September 2015 incident. They offered me a complete refund of my ticket purchase as well as a $100 gift card. They also assured me that they cut all ties with the 3-rd party ticket seller north of Pigeon Forge that used the opportunity to sell time shares. They assured me that they do no tolerate that. Also, they said they now offer complete print-outs of all tickets so you do not have to drive if you do not want to. If my purchase using the gift card goes well, I will come back and leave a new review and may update the star rating to 5 stars if it goes well. It sounds like they are trying to turn the business around.

ORIGINAL: Horrible. I purchased two show tickets for The Comedy Barn in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, when I had trouble finding a place to buy them online directly from the show. The price was good and the checkout went fine. I chose email delivery over mail delivery for the tickets as I was already in the car on my way to the Smoky Mountains. When The email finally came through, I clicked the link for the tickets. What came up was directions to a brick and mortar location about 40 minutes north of the town based off of Google Maps directions. I called customer service as to why my tickets weren't emailed to me. The woman stated that the email delivery is just for the "voucher" to pick up the tickets and that we had to go to the actual VacationsMadeEasy location. We asked if there was a closer location to Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. She said they chose the best location between the two cities. For anyone who hasn't been there, the two cities nearly touch so you would have to be in one of them to be close to both. Anyway, she stated that if you look at a map, the location is "between and a little higher." She basically skirted that the location was 20 miles north of Pigeon Forge and even farther from my location in Gatlinburg which I had to drive in the terrible holiday traffic. (They're trying to save on rent I guess) We took the drive because we really wanted to see the show. It took us about 50 minutes from Gatlinburg due to the distance and traffic. Once we got to the pick-up location, the woman printed out "vouchers" for tickets that we turn in at the Comedy Barn show to get our actual tickets! These could have been easily emailed to me in the first place! I found out the reason why they refused to email us the tickets and instead made us drive to the pick-up location. The woman then told us we could go view some new cabins and receive $100 courtesy of VacationsMadeEasy. Turns out this company is all one big sales pitch for timeshares!!

We took the vouchers to the show and had know trouble getting out actual tickets. Buyer beware, just buy your tickets from the actual show! You will save yourself hours of driving and hassle and not have to be given a timeshare...

I was unsatisfied with the service from Vacations Made Easy. This may be their name as a company, but it was anything but easy as far as getting my money back. Earlier last week I booked a reservation for the Jungle Queen. However, turns out I booked it for this past Friday which was the wrong day because my family and I we're looking to go on a Saturday afternoon. Realizing that mistake, I told the agent I spoke with over the phone, that I'd like to change the date to Saturday April 26th, but according to him, I couldn't. So with that said, I wanted to cancel and get my money back, and even that was denied because of this ridiculous cancelation policy. So realizing that they weren't willing to accommodate me in anyway, I just simply booked a new reservation for April 26th! So now I spent well over 150.00. Mind you the agent didn't even bother to offer a discount. To make matters worse, the agent informed me that I had to travel all the way out to their Pompano Beach location to pick up my vouchers! I couldn't believe that they couldn't just email a pdf of the vouchers for me to download and print out! What the heck! That's inconvenience having to travel way out to Pompano and then drive all the way down to Fort Lauderdale Beach. Seriously!? Knowing that I'm surprised and disappointed the agent still let me off the phone anyway. I called the staff back that same day, and told them I'd like to cancel my Saturday afternoon reservation for Jungle Queen. To my shock, that was denied again! So, I demanded to speak to a supervisor, and after waiting over the phone for well over who knows how long, the company finally agreed to cancel my reservation, and send me my money back. But wait, it's not over: I checked my email, and noticed that Vacations Made Easy, didn't send me an email of my refund. So, I called them back to figure out what's going on, and then they finally sent details of my refund to my email. On Saturday, the day of, I received a text from them about a 4pm event I never signed up for and once again, I had to call them and straighten this mess out again. The agent I spoke with online sounded like she had absolutely no clue what was going on. Eventually, the whole mess was straighten out and I some how got off the phone with them. Now till this day, I'm still disappointed with this company because I feel like both of the reservations I made should've been canceled (not one). They need to change the ridiculous cancelation policy they have, and send pdf vouchers to the customer's emails or at least offer that as an option rather than making a paying customer come way out to their location to pick it up. I don't recommend this third party company. Best of luck to the...