# Travel Source "Travel Savings" Program



## rhill (Sep 14, 2014)

I bought into a travel "savings" program that I was very unhappy with called Travel Source or Go Travel Source. I was unable to find information on the web about other people's experiences with it and wanted to get my experience out there so other people could make a better informed decision.

The program was promoted to me via phone call from my HBC Mastercard. You pay a relatively small monthly club fee of 20.99 and in return you are promised:
-You can purchase gift certificates through them at certain restaurants/stores at 20% off, some gas stations at 2% off. 
-You can save money using their full service travel center that offers 'best' rates on hotels, airfare and car rentals. 
-And they offer an extra 5% cash back on your flights, hotels, car rentals, touts etc. by mailing in your receipts/boarding passes after you get home.

At the time we were planning to take a trip sometime in the relatively near future and there was a free trial period so I signed up to check it out.

The gift cards work as promised. You order the cards, pay full price, and then get a refund on a future credit card bill. But there are a limited number of available restaurants/stores you can purchase them from and each store is limited to 20 gift cards per year. The cards are for $10, $20, $25 or $50 depending on the store/restaurant. You would have to consistently be purchasing $105 in gift cards every month just to break even before you start saving money. If you only like one or two of the restaurants you can't buy enough gift cards in a year to break even before hitting your annual limits...

The 'full service travel center' does not exist. The one rep I called into didn't even know what I was talking about. Another call rep said they used to have travel agents to book trips but they no longer do - even though their website still says they do. All they offer is the 5% cash back after you complete the trip.

The 5% cash back has a maximum of $50. I booked a package deal with airfare for myself and my husband, hotel, and 2 day tours . We got back exactly $50 - grand total. Not $50 for each flight, $50 for the hotel and 5% for the tours. Their info implies otherwise as it says to mail in all your receipts and says "maximum rebate payable on each airfare is $50". Which implies you should get $50 per flight but apparently not if you book them together. So my 5% cash back on the trip was barely over 1% cash back.

I paid the monthly club fees way too long and the promised 'savings' didn't exist by the time we got around to booking the trip. The 'full service travel center' is a joke. Hopefully this info helps others avoid the same mistake I made...


----------

