Business ProfileforVacation VIP, LLC

A review of complaints by BBB indicate a pattern of complaints. Specifically, consumer allege that it is nearly impossible to reach customer service. Consumers also allege that they have major difficulty with utilizing vacation packages for initial intended locations and specific dates. Once consumers realize that intended location or date is not honored, they request a refund and more often than not the have been denied. Some consumers have been promised refunds that have not been issued. On August 4, 2021 BBB submitted a written request to the company encouraging them to address the pattern of complaints.

On September 14, 2021 the business responded to the pattern of complaints. VacationVIP does acknowledge that we were experiencing an issue with inventory from out suppliers. The summer months are peak travel times for families and many of our partners were experiencing inventory issues. With COVID still on the rise many resorts have experienced issues with staffing which affected the number of rooms that could be properly cleaned and opened for additional guests. We have seen a drastic decline in the number of reservations that cannot be filled. We always offer our customers every available options we have if we are not able to accommodate them at the resort that they originally chose; we are extending travel dates at no additional costs to guests, giving complimentary upgrades on future travel and refunding if none of those options will satisfy our customers.

The issues we had with inventory during the summer did cause a rise in the number of customer service calls coming into our call center. Due to the increased call volume many times our agents were all assisting other customers and so those on hold experienced very long hold times. We have increased the number of customer service staff to help with the calls; this along with moving out of peak travel seasons has had a great impact on our hold times. We are now seeing hold times of less than 15 seconds. We are also working with our telephony provider to setup improved call flows with in our system.

When we noticed the complaints from customers not receiving their refunds, we began investigating the issue with our merchant provider. We found that the refund was being initiated on our end but there were some cases that the merchant was experiencing an error processing on their end. VacationVIP was proactive and together with our merchant found any customer that had an issue when the refund was requested, and we issued paper checks to those customers and notified them that their funds would be coming through the mail. We are also in the process of onboarding a new merchant account with the hopes of being able to move away from our current provider.