The $96 Vacation

As I drew a $20 dollar bill from the ATM at the SLC Marathon Expo, something didn't feel quite right. Minutes before, my wife, Jenny, and I were meandering through the various booths after picking up our race packets for the marathon. A small voice called out to us: “Hey, do you guys like to travel?” The little voice hooked my wife in and I was there cynically thinking what this scam involved.

The tiny blonde swept us in with promises of a $96 vacation for a week, if only we agree to a 90 minute consultation and to pay 20 dollars up front today! There is nothing in the world that I did not want more than to pay 20 bucks at that expo to some company I felt was surely scamming the rather healthy crowd we were among.
I was ready to bag it, but Jenny convinced me to avoid my negative proclivity for these types of things and venture out a bit. Okay I said, I’ll do it.

Global Network Associates is located in a respectable building just south of downtown Salt Lake City in the town of Murray. I was happy to see we had plenty of company as we made our way to the waiting room on this Saturday afternoon. Turns out we were the youngest among all the chumps coming to claim their 96 dollar vacations that day.

We filled out some paper work and listened to the Beach Boys sing Cocomo 75 times while waiting in the tropical-infused waiting area for our consultation. There was a creepy guy walking about asking if anyone wanted drinks and a lady with a Kiwi accent yelling into her cell phone, trying to make it clear she’s much more important than the rest of us. This isn't so bad I thought, the place looks somewhat credible (at least it’s not in a trailer park).

The travel consultant my wife and I were blessed to receive offered his name as "Mud,” then asked if he could call my wife Sherri since yesterday he had met with a “Justin and Sherri.”

Jenny told him “No,” and our fellow chumps in the waiting area all stared, wondering if this Mud guy was for real.

As Mud guided us out of the waiting area, his “braided rat tail” led us to our consultation table, with his horrifying "coff-arrette" breath and brownish grey teeth seeping into every orifice of my body, he let us know that, for real, his name was Jack.

Okay, Jack, let's get going so we can tell you "No, we are not interested, please give us our 96 dollar trip."

The consultation started out as any sales pitch usually does: "Where do you work, what do you do?"

“I am a water aerobics instructor,” Jenny said.

"So how do you get the water molecules to move around for you? Is it hard to motivate them?" Jack asked my wife.

Honestly, I could not make this stuff up. After an uncomfortable 20 seconds or so, she told him that was a "C" joke and had to break out "A" material for this consultation.

I told Jack I worked for a major corporation, and after prodding me for more information which I wouldn’t give him, we moved on.

The next 45 minutes or so went like this: "Where do you guys want to travel, you can go anywhere with our agency?"
Being that my wife is Chinese, the first thing we blurted out was China.

“Well, we don’t necessarily have resorts in China, after all it is still a developing nation, and their economy has not produced resorts like in some other more developed nations” Jack said.

Great, so the first place we list is not an option, this is going great. Oh, and by the way, thank you for the economics lesson Jack, I am sure you are more an astute expert on the developing travel industry in China than Dr. K., my economics professor in college.

Without a place to hone in on, Jack was scrambling, we were tough customers who were not giving up our Saturday afternoon without a fight. Jack’s delivery was long winded, off topic, and I probably could have shown him how to use his company's website better than he could show my wife and I.

After 45 minutes of this guy showing us pictures of luxurious accommodations throughout the world, we grew restless, and I kept waiting for the "catch."

Yes, the company allows you to stay in condo's through out the world for 96 bucks a week, of course there's a catch. My wife finally asked the guy, “What are the fees?”

“We’re going to get to that.” Of course you are Mud, of course you are.

Here's the rub: for a lifetime membership using their services, and only a $300 maintenance fee per year, we can join for $19,980. We knew this number meant nothing and would only come down by leaps and bounds when we were instructed to go into a manager's office.

After a very awkward moment of Jack sitting in the manager Marc's chair; "Hey, why the hell are you in my chair? I'll just leave and you can do everything, I've only been here 20 years! Now my leather chair is all warm and shit, thanks a lot Mud, erh Jack I mean."

"Wow, that was awkward,” I said aloud. Unbelievable, the Marc guy was the same creepy guy who in the waiting room was asking people if they wanted drinks. This is management?

"Okay, so what would you pay to join as lifetime member to stay for 96 bucks in beautiful condo's anywhere in the world?"

"Five dollars," my wife said. Chuckles abounded.

"How about one week a year for $3000.00 one time fee, that's only 85 a month, and it's a lifetime membership?"

"How about 2 weeks a year for the same price," my wife asked.

Man, now she's bartering with the guy? That means she really is considering biting the hook, maybe not that close to biting, but still at least considering it.

"Look man, I appreciate your business and I do think it is a good deal, but there is no way I am joining today, I promise you," I assured Mud and Marc.

So on and on we went, back and forth with this Marc guy, in this boiler room of a sales office, no different than any other intense sales negotiation, where they refuse to let you leave without a fight.

“Look, I’m not going out that door feeling like I got sold today, and if I purchase anything from you Marc, then that’s the way I’ll feel. So there is no way I’m buying anything from you today,” while my wife nodded assuredly. This only provided more fodder for Marc, who then again went on for some time on how if we were ever going to spent $3000 on one vacation in our lives, why not do it once for 20 vacations?

After I asked why there were no clocks anywhere, and discovering we had been there almost two hours, my wife and I finally escaped the sonic death grip of the boiler room in Marc’s office. He told us we would get our one week stay, as promised, for only 96 bucks, just for coming in, and he’d throw in some gift certificates at a local restaurant.

Jenny and I left feeling like the winners of a 12-round bout with a welter weight (not quite a heavy weight) and we had our $96 vacation. Jack looked dejected and morose while seeing us to the door, and was somewhat creepier than he had been all afternoon, as he seemed to be keeping an eye on us until we actually made it to our car, as if we were going to change our minds at any second.

Our first experience of this kind, and we won the battle. We may not win the war as travel becomes ever more expensive, but I didn’t let than ruin my victory march back home that afternoon.