From: Tim ****** | ****** Hotel
Sent: Wednesday, 22 April 2009 9:13 AM
To: zern@eicolab.com.au
Subject: Freedom Escapes

Hi Zern

I came across your site when doing a search for Freedom Escapes to check the legitimacy of the company, I did this because;

We had a call from a past guest who by chance had been contacted by Freedom Escapes saying he could spend a week at the hotel for $99 if he purchased breakfast and dinner at the hotel. The guest declined the offer using the excuse he needed to think about it and to call him back in 24 hours. The guest has then called us about the offer asking if it is true, I can say that there is no way the ****** Hotel has ever or will ever deal with Freedom Escapes. Therefore I can only say that this is a scam, how can a ‘legitimate’ company provide offers like this, when the hotel the offer is for knows nothing about it?

Tim ******
Accommodation Manager
****** Hotel

Freedom Escapes are A JOKE! Do not believe a word they say to you, unless you want to throw away your money!!!!!

I couldn’t believe how much they wanted to get my $199 from my credit card, and then once I said I needed to consider the offer, he said try the $99 instead!

I feel sorry for those innocent victims who may not know any better and may be persuaded by these inetrnational scammers.

Oh my gosh. I noticed something else too. Some (but not all) of the pay-for-1-get-1-free hotels also have daily meal requirements!!! So beware.

Whoops. I’ve just noticed something. The pay-for-meals-free-accommodation is based on twin share, i.e. two people. If you do the sums for each of these category hotels, the cost of breakfast + cost of dinner, multiplied by 2, comes to the cost of a twin-share room. In other words, the hotel is receiving their normal hotel room costs, and giving you free food — you can look at it like that. So, in a sense, it might be a good deal, if you are intending to stay at such hotels in the first place. But you are CERTAINLY not getting free accommodation at $15 per night, per voucher, as it comes across in their telephone marketing speil.

Furthermore, since the costs are based on twin share, if you are just staying there as a single, I don’t know how the deal would apply.

I called the Travelodge in South Melbourne, and the person confirmed that Travelodge does take Freedom Escapes vouchers but only for a pay-for-1-get-1-free basis.

So there is a basis for the deals, from the Travelodge confirmation.

With this knowledge, I went back to the F.E. website, and now it makes sense. Under the HOTEL tab, in the pulldown menu there are two categories: i) pay-for-1-get-1-free, and ii) buy-meals-get-free-accommodation.

Travelodge Melbourne and the NZ hotel are under the pay-for-1-get-1-free.

This was never explained to me over the telephone. I only learned that from telephoning the two hotels, reading this website, and figuring it out.

In other words, the offer was presented to me that if I paid $99, I would get 7 nights free accommodation. Specifically, I was not told that some hotels require pay-for-1-get-1-free. I was also not told, in other cases, I had to buy food from the hotels to get the free accommodation.

On their website, those hotels that require you to pay for food do indicate the minimum food costs, hence, this deal could actually suit some people.

However, to be safe, before forking out the money, I would telephone the hotels you intend to visit, and get them to confirm that they do take the Freedom Escapes vouchers.

So, to summarize, Travelodge Melbourne told me that they do take the vouchers for 2-for-1 basis, but I can’t figure out why the NZ hotel fellow had never heard of the scheme.

Thus, room for caution.

From what I’ve researched, this company could avoid allegations of scams by just being upfront about the two approaches. Right now, they seem to suck you in by not telling you the fine print. But, after reading the fine print, it appears the FE deals could actually suit some people.

As for me, I will not pay my money to FE until I can telephone the hotels I intend to stay at, and get someone there to confirm to me that they will honour the vouchers.