My complaint:
If you are a Sandals Select member, you are entitled to “discounts” for future trips. The discounts we receive each time we book are as follows:
Military Discount – 10%
Loyalty Discount – 10-12% based on room type
Instant Savings – $605
Sandals Select Points – varies
On a vacation that costs $5053, most people would do the math this way:
$5053
– 605 – Instant
– 505.30 – military
– 606.36 – Loyalty on butler room
– Points accumulated from prior stays
$3336.34 total after discounts, not including points value
The Sandals math is different. Here’s the con:
Instead of the way honest businesses would do it, as shown above, Sandals gives these “discounts” based on the subtraction of other discounts. Seems kind of fair, right? Wrong! After subtracting the 12% loyalty discount, you get the military discount based on that balance and not the package price. Then they go back and change the 12% loyalty on you after subtracting the lower military discount. So the loyalty discount you were originally given is now less because of the military discount which was calculated based on the original loyalty discount. Then they lump it together with the $605 instant savings and call it, “Other Discounts,” instead of itemizing it. It’s tricky, dirty math. The only two numbers they can’t cheat with are your points and the instant discount. The attached photos are the two different invoices we received, one from the loyalty office and the second which got emailed to us after the sneaky math. By doing this, they avoid us getting in their face in the loyalty office to ask why the “other discounts” number changed.
Suggested solution:
Give us the actual discounts they promote and not fractions based on other discounts which then also get reduced.
