By the light of the full moon

Last summer, Army of Dad and I attended a sales pitch for a vacation club plan in exchange for getting a free trip to Las Vegas. Now, to get your trip, you have to put down a $100 deposit and stand on one foot while hopping, rubbing your head and reciting the alphabet only on the night of a full moon when Saturn is in the path of a falling star. Ok, maybe you don't have to jump through that many hoops, but it is close.

I'm pretty meticulous at keeping records and made sure to send correspondence certified mail to make sure they couldn't say they never got something. Well, apparently, you have to pick certain dates that are 45 days apart and don't bump into holiday times, etc, etc. It seems on the second time of picking dates, I inadvertently wrote down June 25 instead of June 24 (which made it a Wednesday instead of a Tuesday), so they kicked that out as not meeting their criteria. They claim to have sent me a letter back in October telling me to pick more dates. Well, I never got it. Our first choice of dates was Feb. 26, but I hadn't heard from them, so I thought I'd call to make sure we were going that time or another. This is when they inform me that I "breached the terms of the agreement" by not picking "appropriate dates to meet the criteria" of the agreement, etc, etc and now it is too late to pick three dates that are 45 days apart (aside from their blackout dates) by July 19. Therefore, I cannot take the trip. I begged, pleaded and even cried. I asked for a manager and all were equally stoic in the whole "breach of the agreement" crap and refused to relent. They didn't care that I didn't get the letter. Apparently, the responsibility was mine to make sure that everything was in order. *rolling my eyes* I didn't know I had written down the wrong number while trying to meet all the "requirements of the contract", so how would I know that all wasn't well with the world? Well, that wasn't their problem. They just know that I "breached the agreement" and that is all that matters. They'll send back my $100. Yippee. I guess that is better than nothing, but I'm terribly disappointed. I told the guy that I understand that I wrote down the date incorrectly, but there was no way to simply initial that choice and change the date by ONE frigging day. No way. I said, come on, you have to have a procedure in place for simple errors like this. We jumped through all the hoops and you have records to show that! You can't adjust this one thing? Nope. Heartless. This guy could have a career in bill collections, I think.

The only satisfaction I got was telling this supervisor what I thought of his company, their policies and their "contract." Will it make a difference, no? But, I felt a little better about things.