Monday, June 30, 2014

Things you should be aware of


When selecting a travel incentive or incentive certificate company there are some important things you should be aware of:

• Keep a look out for companies that allow you to resell their vacation certificates to the consumer - There is not one fulfillment company that allows this.  The only companies that do allow this are companies who conduct unethical re-branding which is also known in this industry as “Certing a Cert.”  This is the practice of purchasing a certificate from a fulfillment house, then creating their own certificate and passing the incentive off as their own as if they are the fulfillment company.  In most cases, these unscrupulous businesses do not even have permission from the fulfillment house neither to re-brand certificates nor to resell them to the end users.  It’s”Bait & Switch".  Half the time your customers are confused on who exactly they need to deal with because when customers redeem a certificate from the company that is "Certing a Cert" they just mail them another certificate from the fulfillment company they purchased it from and now your customer has to redeem that one too.  

• Make sure to check out the redemption website - There are many "Fly By Night" certificate incentive companies out there that do not reveal contact info on their certificates nor their redemption websites.  Most "Fly By Night" companies will only provide a redemption website URL on their certificates.  When you go to the website there is not even a company name or contact information backing it.  What are they hiding from? 

• Over priced redemption fees - Compare apples to apples when comparing the fees that your customer would have to pay.  Most companies that conduct the "Certing at Cert" concept have larger redemption fees.  The reason being is because every time a customer redeems a certificate they have to turn around and buy the "real" certificate from the fulfillment company and then they turn around and send that one to your customer to redeem. 
 
• Fraudulent "Savings" or "Discount" Type Certificates - 99% of "Savings" or "Discount" Certificates are flat our scams.  The unscrupulous incentive company will charge your customers a $10-$20 redemption fee and then they turn around and send your customers a book of coupons, the same "discounts" or "savings" that anyone could duplicate simply by surfing the Internet.  Most "Savings" or "Discount" certificates are not worth the paper they are printed on.  The worst of them is "$1000 In Automobile Discounts" certificate.  People that redeem this one will receive a coupon book with 10%-20% off auto services that you can find just by surfing the internet or picking up your local penny-saver and one of the coupons is a $500 off purchasing an RV, now that is tacky.

• No Expiration Dates? - There are many companies trying to duplicate the service that VAI provides, but they have never succeeded.  These companies allow you to print unlimited certificates without expiration dates and expect you to pay them monthly or annually.  Why would you pay a company like this more than once?  Why wouldn't you just create a million certificates and use them whenever you need them for the rest of your life?  Pay close attention...A company can only be as strong as their business model.  If an incentive company can allow for this to happen, how can they make money?  There are a few companies that will allow you to specify an expiration date but your customer will still be able to redeem the certificate after it expires because their system does not know that you put an expiration date on the certificate. 

• Commissions On Certificates Redeemed? - Again, no fulfillment company out there does this. The only companies that do this are the companies that are "Certing a Cert".  This is how it works:  The unscrupulous incentive company will purchase certificates from a fulfillment company.  Then they will design their own certificate and sell those to the businesses.  When a customer redeems a certificate the unscrupulous incentive company will take out let's say $5 to pay for the actual certificate they had to purchase from the fulfillment company, they will pay the business who gave the certificate away another $1-$10 and they keep $5-$10 for themselves.  Why would you want to make an additional income off of your customers when the point of offering them an incentive in the first place is to get them to do business with you? 
You should know that we are the ONLY incentive company, and we can prove it, that offers an Unlimited Amount of Incentive Vacation Packages to businesses and that fulfills the offers that we produce in house.  We do not transfer your customers over to a 3rd party timeshare/breakage induced fulfillment company like other dishonest certificate companies.  We are the manufacturer of our incentives, so when you deal with us you will be dealing direct.