wbpiii

I usually like Travelzoo but this time it stumbled. Under Hawaiian Hotels, on its site, there is a link for $579 top rated Oahu Resort 3 nights with upgrade. OK I'm curious, so I follow the link to Travel Leader, who is posting a FunJet Vacation. Now the hotel is the Royal Hawaiian. The Starwood link says this deal is valid only until Dec. 21 but the Travel Leader says it's good until April 30. But the deal is great, 3 days, $599.00, breakfast and an upgrade. Super deal right.

So I phoned a recommended travel agent. First one was in Reno, she did not know about the ad and vowed to get back to me. She didn't. I then phoned Starwood. Nope they didn't know about this one. I phoned funjet. They weren't helpful, they could not find the deal. I hung up. I then phoned another recommend agent. She couldn't find the deal in the computer and said she would get back to me. I email the travel leader site and they never responded.

The one agent who said she would find out did call me. She said that in the fine print was a statement that the deal may be a air/vacation parkage or just the room. In this case, she said it was an air vacation package. This fine print was located on one of the three links but on none of the others. Nowhere is there a discussion about airline fares. So she tells me that the total package is actually over $2000.00. So $600 for the room and $1400 for a flight from Sacramento. Usually I get flights for $900 or less. So what looked like a great deal is not. Even the travel agent said I should wait until later in the season.
Buyer beware.

emalloy

Always pays to read the fine print!!

wbpiii

So true, but in this case the fine print only told you what was possible, not what factual. The ad was meant to be as ambiguous as possible and with as many "outs" as possible. It's just bad for the industry.

sf7307

I find that everytime I get a "special" from Marriott or Starwood, or the airlines, I can never seem to find any actual availability. Drives me crazy.

L_Garabito

Pleasant Holidays has the best air/hotel packages for Hawaii. They are currently listed in Travel Zoo right now on their weekly top 20 deals (I think i saw a 3 night stay in Maui with flight for $399 pp). They're trust worthy..i first read about them through the Kauai Revealed travel books (best Hawaii travel guide). I went to their website and booked a 7 night ocean-view room in the Kauai Marriott resort including roundtrip air from San Fran and only paid $1,500 with tax included for me and my HB together. Not bad given that we went in June. I have to admit i was a bit nervous at first, but everything worked out great! I would definitly book with them again.

panecott

>>> I find that everytime I get a "special" from Marriott or Starwood, or the airlines, I can never seem to find any actual availability. Drives me crazy. >>>

I've repeatedly had the same experience with TravelZoo and Travelocity. I don't even bother anymore.

wbpiii

I've booked Travelzoo's Kona Village Special, but that was a direct sale with a code. This "special" had no code.

I agree, these sales suck. In my opinion, they are limited to one or two days out of a three month period. And they disappear in minutes. I've also had the same proble with Curry Company and their specials for Yosemite.

Oh well.

mumpsimus

Last time I used the TravelZoo special for Kona Village Resort, I called KVR directly and asked if I could get the TravelZoo rate. No problem.