New Travel Benefit For Many US Military Veterans

This site uses Priceline as its search engine. Anyone can get better prices elsewhere. Not a real Veteran benefit. Go to their Facebook account page and read the negative comments from people who used them.

pogiwayne wrote:

This site uses Priceline as its search engine. Anyone can get better prices elsewhere. Not a real Veteran benefit. Go to their Facebook account page and read the negative comments from people who used them.

Did you look at the official DOD notice and did you actually see what website they are using?

Are you sure you aren't referring to the website for the company called Government Vacation Rewards which is available to anyone with MWR (morale, welfare & recreation) benefits?

The DOD website is very new comparatively.

I would never post a link promoting Government Vacation Rewards, although I've actually done a lot of business with them over the years, much of it without a problem.

The truth about them is that they are actually a cruise line agency out of Arizona doing business under multiple names, often getting contracts with corporations and pension plans to offer employees and plan participants an "exclusive" cruise line agent.

They got the authorization to handle the military MWR accounts through the Army & Air Force Exchange service with the condition that they also handle flights and hotels and car rentals.

None of their agents get paid bonuses for doing any of that type of booking, which does result in some of their employees giving very poor service for those travel needs.

Their agents solely make commissions from cruise line sales and a few all-in-one resorts in Mexico and the Caribbean in which the company actually owns an interest.

I will say one good thing about them:

I purchased a cruise through them one time, and I needed to change the name of my traveling companion with the cruise line company, Norwegian.

No matter what I tried with Norwegian, it was going to cost me almost $1,000 to change the name of my traveling companion to a different person.

Then a friend told me you should always make those changes through the agent who sold you your cruise.

I called them up and within 1 hour they had gotten Norwegian to change the name of my traveling companion, without any extra fees.

As a Retired Military member I signed into this site. I researched what search engine they use........ Priceline. Check a airline ticket price then go to the issuing airline website and the price will be less by at lease $1 almost always. Also look at the length of time for that discount trip. From USA to Asia times around 30 hours  -. These discounted tickets are 50, 60, 70 hours. I also retired from a Major airline so I have a little knowledge here.  During some of my International travels I went to MWR and their prices were always higher that what I could get elsewhere.
I don't do cruises so that benefit is something I would not use. Cruise's are highly discounted so good deals abound.
The whole story is about the current administration adding a few more veterans to this benefit. PR only. Just like shopping at the military shops is only saving tax, most items can be purchased at the some or lower price elsewhere.
Not trying to be argumentative but in my opinion this isn't a great benefit for Vets.