Government Vacation Rewards
Reviews and Complaints

I was called on December 29 with a fast-talking salesman who pushed so hard since they said it was the last day of the sale. He went through it so fast that I agreed, I paid $880 dollars down which I lost. I finally get to read the entire rules and find out that Florida has 30 days to review while the rest of us only have 10 days and by the time I get everything sorted. They just take my money. Beware of this site as the fast talkers and no time to review will get you in trouble. It sounds great when they are explaining it, but it is extremely complicated.

I recommend you to be very careful or you will find yourself out up to $4000.

We are retired and cannot afford to lose that much money by being pushed into a last-minute deal!

I have been talking to these people for weeks, but they say the 10-day period has expired.

It just took me 25 minutes on the phone with a customer service representative to cancel the Government Vacation Rewards. I was in my 10 days window to cancel at anytime. What they don't tell you, they will stall and get you frustrated, so you'll hang up. I believe this is intentional frustration to keep you from canceling the service. She also said my account manager will be calling me. I informed her I didn't want to speak to anyone else regarding this cancellation. I asked if this will delay my cancellation, she said it may. What a joke! The customer service representative who I spoke with has even made me decide to cancel that $29 a year subscription. Thanks lady for keeping me from making a huge mistake. Beware, they will try to persuade you to keep this lousy service. I don't care how much perks they offer, it's not worth it.

I decided to check this company out due to its claim to be affiliated with the military AAFES. They no longer have one, but lie about it, they also lie about what it is that they are offering and the value of it. Then they spam people with relentless phone calls despite being asked to stop, with agents even laughing and saying, "we are just going to keep calling everyday," and there is no way to stop them on the website. I would say that this company is not honorable, the are running a scam, and using unethical and potentially illegal tactics to do it. I did not book with them (thank God) but really feel like other service members need to be warned as they were an AAFES vendor at one point in time.

do not use this company they are awful at customer service. I booked a 3 day cruise with them on 8/10 I spoke with Nick and he talked me into upgrading my membership. He promised me a saving of $700 on my cruise. Charged me another $360. When I booked with another agent. I was charged full price. The paperwork from them reflects the correct sail dates except when I tried to check in with the cruise line they had me booked for another sail date entirely. They advised that they can not change it from my request. Government rewards must contact them. I then had to call several times and they said they would but it could take up to 10 days. However the next day when I called MSC they said the travel agent did call they made an exception to change the sail dates but the agent told them not to. GVR contacted me via phone and sent an email with the correct Sail dates I booked but didn’t actually charge them with the cruise line. I replied to the email stating I want the correct date through the cruse line and called them. They were told they had to have to contact the cruise line that day to change it. They didn’t change it, or call them back even though they had written confirmation from me. When I spoke with GVR they sent an email confirmation that they were working on it and to be patient. I have emails, Where they are saying to be patient and they are fixing their mistake. Yet they didn’t do anything besides send me an emails. I called in when I was speaking to with Stephanie in customer relations. She was the rudest most difficult person. She stated that there is a process to change anything. That They have scripts. That it’s customer misunderstanding of the rules that cause issues. They made the mistake by booking incorrectly and have no knowledge in how to resolve it correctly. MSC didn’t get a callback from them on 8/14 or 8/15. I confirmed the sail date could be changed with them myself And the cruise sail date went into Penalty after 8/15. I was able to contact MSC with in 15 minute each-time I called but couldn’t do anything because I wasn’t the travel agent. GVR caused me a high level of distress for a vacation. It’s not right or fair and I have filed dispute charges with my credit card company’s. For full refunds.

Do not use this company, they are not respectful or reputable. you will pay less money for the services by using any other company or booking directly. Than what they claim. When you call they play games. They have kept me on hold for over an hour In order to cancel my upgrade. Said I need to get in touch with my account manager then they hang up on me. Which I am well with in the allowed time frame. I booked a cruise with them on 8/10. They booked me for the wrong dates. Said I would save $700 but Through the cruise line. When I called on 8/13 to resolve they informed it would be 4 hours. After 5 hours I called back. They then informed me it would take 10 days. They also did not charge my card for the amount we agreed on. They Broke it up and charged it differently and for a different amount then agreed. They when I called today to cancel they hung up on me. As I have called back to cancel my membership. They proceeded to harass me asking why I am canceling. They are very skilled at playing word games to avoid liability. They have tedious scripted conversations. They do not actually want to help resolve anything and do not do what they say they will. I have spent. The last two days going back and forth with them. They claim it’s the customers ignorance. Yet there eating reflects how horrible they are at providing the services they promise.

This company has some fascinating and illegal business practices. The saga began on July 12th, 2023 after I contacted this company and was transferred to Joel Quintana at [protected] Ext. 23739. He and I with my wife listening on speaker, had about a 90 min discussion about what this company could offer us in discounts and travel goodies for a mere $3900 (a today-only special price) that I needed to agree to by the end of our call. After going back and forth I told him that I felt it was too much money to just give away in that quick of time. So he put me on hold and came back and said that his supervisor had allowed him to offer me a payment program that would start that day after I paid a $429 deposit. Payments would be monthly for 12 months at $289 and when I renew the program at the start of the 3rd year it would only cost me $29. For that, he was allowed to give additional points and cash savings money plus he was going to add a few other perks if I agreed at that moment to proceed. I told him I was on a fixed income and needed at least 24 hours to review our bills and obligations before I would be able to go forward with any deal. He tried at least 4 more times to convince me to pay the downpayment to which I said no. Then he told me that there were other hidden perks and benefits to joining but he was unable to let me know what those were unless I gave him a valid credit card number so he could unlock the perks and extras and would then be able to tell me what I would be adding to the deal with the secret benefits doors opened. I told him I was uncomfortable doing that and he assured me that he would not run the card for any deposit or recurring payments...it was only used to unlock the secret perks of the deal. After a few more minutes of discussion, he said he was able to offer me this one-time price deal and hold it over until Friday the 14th of July for me and my wife to have time to discuss it more fully. I told him thanks and that I would be calling him back at work hours and the phone number he gave me(above). End of conversation.

The next day my wife and I called him back at 1 pm (left message). Then again at 3 pm. I was able to talk to him and informed him several times over the next 45 mins that we were NOT going to use his company's services and that it was too much of a financial burden on us right now. I asked him to maybe call us back in a year and then maybe we would talk again about joining his company's services. He finally agreed and said he would cancel any further paperwork and also cancel the credit card information I had reluctantly given him the day before. He said he would make sure that my credit card and any other personal information were destroyed and the deal offer was officially canceled he said thanks and hung up.

On the 14th of July (Friday) early in the morning, I get an email from our credit card company letting us know that 2 attempts were done to charge our credit card for this company's deposit of $429. The second one for whatever reason was approved and now I had this charge of $429 on our credit card and it was a recurring amount meaning this was going to be the monthly charge for the next 12 months! So I was pissed off and called customer service and was given to a CS rep whose first name was Noah. Noah looked up my account and told me that the request for a credit card charge came from Joel Quintana and it was pending. I was furious that he ignored our request to cancel this whole thing but put the card through not only once but twice after it got rejected by the credit card company..The card had been LOCKED because I had a feeling something like this might happen! Noah informed me that my cancellation would be taken care of and the charges reversed immediately. He told me the reversed charges would be completed in the next 24-36 hours and my official cancellation could take up to 5-7 business days to receive it an email. I said thanks, and he told me to call back on Tuesday if the money was not back on our credit card. I said thanks and hung up. I tried calling Joel several times that day and on Saturday, and again on Monday and he did not return any of my calls. I did not leave any threatening or angry messages for him to call me back. He just plain didn't call back!

On Tuesday, July 18th, 2023 I call customer service again as I found out that the money HAD NOT been reversed as promised and in fact, it now had posted as being paid to this company. I asked for Noah as he had asked to call him on this day, and he wasn't available. So I talked to another CS rep who informed me that she would make sure this matter was taken care of but it probably wouldn't happen until at least Friday, as their "Back Office" was behind on paperwork and they are slow...unfortunately, I was not able to make out the first name of the CS rep who talked to me as she kept slurring her first name and having her spell it worse! She hung up and we immediately called our credit card company and filed a dispute with the charges.

3 days later... I got an email from this company informing me the charges were returned to my card and all transactions were canceled. The credit card company also sent me an email to confirm that the funds were revered back into our account. What a nightmare!

On July 16,2023 I noticed a pending charge of $3.00 on my bank account, I have a joint bank account with my son and his Debit card has a pending charge. Nothing was purchased because he couldn't use the points for airfare. I would like to know why there is a charge when nothing was purchased. Also he didn't get the $500 in credits my husband Rod Barrett gifted to him

I paid $4,500 for a membership. I was told when signing up that my points account (220,000) should pay for my cruise; however, when I booked the cruise 200,000 points were used and I still had to cover over $2000 in cash. I am trying to rebook the cruise as I have to have surgery and was told there was a $1,900 change fee (to a cheaper, fall cruise). If I wanted to cancel the cruise, I had to pay an additional $3000. Ridiculous!

Also, I had a "free" 7 day 'resort' certificate which only covers a small portion of the stay. The "resorts" listed are just hotels unless you go to Mexico. I am EXTREMELY dissatisfied with the options you offer and the out of pocket costs associated. I can get better deals from TravelZoo and Vacations by Jen or booking with any cruise or airline directly.

Yeah that figures! No refund because I never used the program, never took a vacation, never took a reward point and gvr needed all my $1400+ dollars to provide me with nothing.

I got better pricing and discounts direct to the suppliers and their individual rewards programs, with no up front multi thousand dollar buy in like gvr programs.

Worse than a timeshare, gvr is bs sucking money out of those who served under the giez of providing some purported discount service.

Nothing but bs ripoff!

They took my money for a hotel reservation in advance - and inspite of cancelling in the time frame they requested and showing that the reservation was cancelled from them; Their website also said that due to heavy volume they would be taking longer to process the refund. They never notified the hotel, never notified me that I should have notified the hotel and are refusing my refund. Their website led me to believe everything was taken care of. They were quick to take my money - but now don't want to do a refund. They claim I didn't notify the property and was a no show --- that's BS. They eventually gave me a one-time partial refund - claiming now that they have a no refund policy. Since I booked in advance I couldn't dispute it with the credit card company. They are a scam. I certainly will never use them again.

Trust me the dudes at GVR are major crooks! Only a matter of time before their crimes come crashing down upon them. They make expedia, and priceline, and hotel.com look like saints. At first, they offer you this appealing hotel price, posting what "you will pay", about 3 different times before actual payment at the end. And then is where you discover they boost the taxes, tack on absorbent fees, somewhere in the process the price gets marked up, and then at the end is where they hit you with some outrageous price that you didn’t see coming This comes after you have gotten your hopes up that you are getting a good deal with a veteran discount. And then get this, supposedly, for signing up you receive a $250 credit which you can apply to your hotel booking, or so you think. There is a field to enter and re-enter an authorization code which they were to send once you sign up. An alert tells you to "Please allow 2-3 business days for savings credits to appear in your account." (I never received mine). I signed up in May 2022 and checked my emails and the authorization code was never sent. I thought I’d be clever and say, "Oh you know what, let’s just apply to $250 credit and then this whole booking might seem manageable. They had the audacity to tell me that the that $250 had already been applied to booking. What? BS! Do the math. If the final total price is with taxes and fees came to $450 and you applied the $250 credit, wouldn’t the new price now be $150 that I have to pay? Some account manager named Carrie Jacobs tried to insist there was nothing nefarious, that they were an honorable company, and I simply did not understand their process. I Disagreed. My only fault was being shocked at the lows to which such scammers stoop! Jacobs seem to have a response and or an excuse for every discrepancy I mentioned. Finally, he got frustrated, couldnt handle rebuttals to his [censored], and abruptly disconnected the call. I simply chalked it up to the fact that Jerry got pissed off, not being able how to handle that "game recognizes game."

This company is not affiliated with the government. Please notify your Attorney General in your state. I am working with a lawyer to form a Class Action lawsuit. Our nightmare started in November 2021. We booked a trip of a lifetime. Two weeks in Egypt. I’m a disabled veteran and it’s hard for me to travel as much as I once did but decided we would do this. We booked our hotel and told they were 4-star. Our first hotel was in the slums of Giza and we were held against our will until we were able to get an Uber driver who spoke English and helped us escape. We had to pay for another place to stay.

We purchased the insurance and our luggage was lost. They answered the phone one time and tried to get us to book again with them, we did not. We paid extra out of pocket and booked a place. We were promised reimbursement. All lies. The next hotel was a 5 star and it was nice. The 3rd hotel was a 4 star and a complete dump. Not much difference in 4 stars and 5 stars?!

When we returned home we tried to get reimbursed for them lying to us and tried to use the insurance. They continuously lied telling us they would reimburse. Filed a CC dispute and they reimbursed us. GVR sent them some bogus paperwork with NO SIGNATURES and extra charges they were not authorized for. A lawyer is handling this case and if you want to be part of a class action lauwsuit, let me know. It only take 20! We have 12 so far. This was right when bans were lifted for Covid and the photo on the phone shows used Saran Wrap as their safety measures!

Tyler an Account Manager at Government vacation rewards m, also known as GVR select, falsely represented the company's true intentions to falsely charge my credit card without my knowledge. Government vacation rewards fraudulently charged my credit card $999.00 and refuses to refund my money. Tyler stated I would receive 15,000 points in my account to be used for future travel. However, that never took place. They lied. I have not done any travel through Government Vacation rewards from June 2022 to current date. I keep calling and constantly receive voice mail after voice mail recordings and no responses or call backs from either Tyler, his supervisor Stephanie nor her supervisor. This company is not related to the military. I had canceled my account with Government vacation rewards back in October 2020.

I requested Government vacation rewards street address and corporate email address and received neither one.

Government vacation rewards decided deceptively to charge my credit card for no longer using their services.

I have reported this as fraud.

On March 2, 2023, my account was debited 29.00 for a membership I now longer have. I have told them to remove me from their membership list several times because I am not interested.

They keep harassing me to buy into these offers that sound to good to be true, entice with all these points that are confusing and worthless if you're not paying attention, and not reveling all the hidden cost. I have read the reviews and do agree this company is a rip-off. Don't know how or why they are endorsed by AAFES if they care so much about Servicemembers.

I became a member of GVR on December 28, 2022. I paid the full amount of $499 on December 28, 2022, another $1350 on December 29, and the balance of $1,000 on January 28, 2023, for a grand total of $2,849. I originally was going to pay four monthly installments of $337.50, but after speaking with Geneva, she promised more points and dollars if I paid it off sooner. While I got those points and dollars, this did NOT reduce the price of our first booked cruise, which I learned afterwards.

While I realize I was given only 10 days to cancel this membership, there was absolutely no way to know that this membership was not and is not as promised. There is false acknowledgements when told that cruises, which is our preferred vacationing, are significantly cheaper than even directly from the cruise line.

I scheduled two cruises since joining, one for July 2023 and the other for December 2023.

A friend scheduled the same July 2023 cruise and her cruise, which I even called about the spoke to a representative, was not only cheaper than ours, but she received on board credits that we were not given, even though they were given by Princess Cruise Line.

I called GVR and was given a call back from Malia. She promised (I hope you can listen to her call) that she would call me back the next day from February 21, 2023. To this moment, she has NEVER returned my call.

I went through government vacation rewards to purchase a ticket. I was quoted a price and sent to booking. Upon booking the ticket, it magically increased in price by almost 100.00 . I was in a rush so I decided to purchase the ticket anyway. I then received a call 6 hours after purchasing this ticket that the ticket increased again. The increase was literally only on gvr site all other tickets were 100. 00 cheaper. I cancelled my ticket because of all the idiocy of this company. I used my points to purchase this ticket and was informed I would lose the points within 30 days even though I cancelled this ticket from a company that doesn't care about their customers. I spent a few thousand to be a member to this so called crooked organization and their nickel and dime tactics. So now I have to purchase a ticket outside of this organization, if I can even get another flight. I am done with this company.

I was sold a package for about $5000. This included points. I still had to end up paying $1200 extra for a cruise. Also, the resort certificates that were added to my account were useless. They only have certain available dates and there are even more charges if there is something that is big enough for 4. If you want the seven days like you say, then you have to pay even more. The savings credits have been somewhat useless as it is cheaper to just call the hotel directly. Essentially, I was sold a dream that I would be able to use my points, credits, certificates, and whatever else to have awesome vacations. What actually happened is that I was charged an insane amount of money that I only got one cruise for and the rest of it is useless. This type of business practice is highly unethical and there needs to be a much better job of informing your customers of all of the hidden fees.

I purchased a vacation program with Government Vacation Rewards, 15147, N. Scottsdale Rd., Ste.210, Scottsdale, AZ, 85254. I pay $130 a month for reduced hotels, resorts, and cruises. I was promised a free trip but I had until Dec. 23, 2022 to book the so called free trip. On Nov. 3, 2022, I booked to a resort in Cancun called Grand Luxxe Jungle at Vidante Riviera Maya. I booked it from Nov. 23 to Nov. 30. and I booked it on line for $499 with Government Vacation Rewards. On Nov. 3, I received a notification from Gov. vacation rewards for congratulations on my booking. On Nov. 7, 2022, I received another notification from Gov. vacation rewards to complete my booking, which concerned me because it is next to impossible to contact agents with answers. And it was on this day that I was finally contacted by Nellie with Gov. Vac. Rewards, and she stated that she would assist me to complete my booking. Nellie never mentioned cancellation terms and conditions. On Nov. 8, I was informed by my employer that my Nov. request for vacation could not be approved after all because of shortages during that time, however I was authorized to change my vacation to the same days in Dec. When I called Gov. vacation rewards, I spoke to Felix my first agent contact and I informed him that my vacation was denied but approved for later, Felix said, oh I hope you asked about the insurance. I asked Felix, what insurance, "no one ever informed me of any insurance and this is the first time I hear of it. I then contacted Nellie and she told me that I would not be refunded my $499. Nellie then sent me to speak to Myra, an escalation agent that told me,"When you booked it, you were informed about the cancellation and we cannot refund you the $499". I told her that Nellie did not inform me, so she said that she was going to listen to the recording. I told Myra, I want to hear that recording too. During this moment that Myra was listening to the recording, she came back to state that in fact, Nellie had not informed be about the cancellation clause because I had initiated my booking on line and not directly with an agent. I was also recording Myra during this call so I have proof of her statements. I informed Myra, if you don't have proof of informing me of the cancellation terms, then you have to refund my money. On Nov. 11, when I spoke to Nellie and then to Myra was the first time I was informed of the cancellation terms. I spoke to Nellie two different times before Nov. 11, and she never mentioned the cancellation terms. Government vacation rewards does not make it easy to get a hold of agents for assistance. It took me days to get a hold of Nellie and I have the emails to prove it. On Nov. 11, after all the dispute, I emailed Nellie by email 11/11/22 and asked her if I could change my reservation to Dec., she refused to respond. I contacted Vidante today 11/13/22 and I spoke to agent, Paulina at Vidante, employee ID [protected], phone# [protected], and she confirmed my reservation from Nov. 23. thruNov.30, and Paulina confirm that I could switch my reservation to Dec. but it may cost me another $150, however they could not do this for me directly because my reservation had to be approved to be moved to December by Government Vacation Rewards. I am requesting my $499 refund. I also intend to cancel the Government Vacation Rewards and I am also requesting a complete refund from all the months I have paid into it.

In Aug 2019, I purchased a vacation package for $2,100. The World Wide COVID Pandemic hit the following year and travel was banned, making it impossible to go anywhere for fear of my health or death.

In Aug 2021, I booked a reservation in Myrtle Beach for Memorial day 2022. Friends contacted me, informing that it was Bikers Week there. Not wanting to be in the mix, I cancelled that reservation. I was told that I had to pay a fee for the cancellation and the the rest would be refunded. I waited until Aug 2022 to contact GVR and was told that the refund was denied.

Not only did I lose the $654.64 for the reservation, I also lost the $2100. GVR cancelled my account not only with my money but along with the 37,000 points a earned and left me with nothing.