Year: 2008

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Sandals Resorts: Fly Free & Save?

Sandals, a group of all-inclusive Caribbean resorts, is offering a seemingly amazing offer: Stay at their resort and they will fly you there free.

Sandals

Are there any catches? Of course there are. It is for bookings made by September 2, for travel through December 20, 2009. The problem is with respect to the free airfare:

*MOUSE PRINT:

“Offer fulfilled as credit toward land portion of booking, based on double occupancy, minimum 3 night stay, $350 airfare per person for travel to Jamaica or Bahamas; $450 per person for travel to St. Lucia; $550 per person for travel to Antigua.”

Can you really fly to their locations for the amounts they will reimburse?  Checking Boston to Freeport, Grand Bahamas, for a week from January 24 – 31, 2009, reveals the lowest airfares to be $388 to $401, not including luggage and travel agents fees. Their $350 credit would not quite cover the fare. (Fares to Nassau were slightly cheaper, though, being $336 to $343 at the low end.)

Fares to Jamaica were $317 to $325 on the low end, so assuming you ordered airline tickets now, your airfare would indeed be free. On the other hand, fares to St. Lucia were $704 on the low end, and Sandals’ $450 allowance is way below the actual fare. For Antigua, fares were $627 to $706 for the cheapest flights, most leaving before 6am. Their $550 reimbursement is $75 to $150 short of the actual fare.

How do they get away with advertising “fly free” when in many cases you will have to pay at least a portion of the airfare?

*MOUSE PRINT: “In some cases, offer may not cover all airfare costs, taxes, and fuel surcharges.” The inconspicuous disclaimer may not get them off the hook should a state consumer office go after them.

Of course, depending on the dates you fly, airfares will vary. And if you book now, but wait to buy your tickets closer to your vacation date, the reimbursement will likely come up quite short for all itineraries because airfares will likely be skyhigh by December 2009 when the offer expires.

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Dish Network: 3 Months Free (But Not the Ones You Think)

Disn NetworkConsumers are used to seeing offers of a number of free or discounted months of service when they switch cable companies. So it is not unusual that Dish Network, a satellite television provider, is offering three free months of service as an inducement to choose their company.

In the graphic, there is some virtually unreadable type.

*MOUSE PRINT: It says “with 24 month commitment”. Okay, so the company requires a two year contract, which certainly is uncommon in the conventional cable television industry. It sounds more like a cell contract than a cable TV contract, but if that is the way they choose to operate, that is their decision.

Only when you dig deeper into their website, however, do you learn the additional terms of the three months free offer.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Dish Network

So if you assumed your first three months of service would be free, you assumed wrong. The free months are spread throughout your two year contract.

Elsewhere on the website you will learn there are a dizzing number of options and additional fees, so it is difficult to tell how much your bill will really total on a monthly basis. But, in a rare demonstration of the company’s ability to be candid when it chooses to, they provide a sample bill  which indicates you will be charged for two months of service on your first bill, not just one (and a variety of other oddball fees, as one commenter notes below).

Thanks to Mouse Print* reader Rob for pointing out the unusual staggering of the free months bonus. If you find examples of surprising fine print, please send them along to edgar(at symbol)mouseprint.org .

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iPhone and Tide: Twice the Power for Half the Amount?

iphone Leave it to marketers to create the tantalizing proposition of getting more for less when you buy their product.

Both the new Apple iPhone and Tide 2X are making similar claims.

For the iPhone, Apple says you get twice the speed for half the price. In fact, the first generation iPhone sold for $399, while the just released 3G version sells for $199. So far, so true.

One catch is that you have to sign a two year contract. But the sneakier one is this:

*MOUSE PRINT: The data plan for the new iPhone is $30 a month, compared to $20 a month for the old one. Over a 24 month period, you will be paying an additional $240 to AT&T for the phone, which, in essence makes it 10% more expensive than its predecessor — not half the price.

Now for Tide 2X. Procter & Gamble is turning back the clock to the 70s when liquid laundry detergents were concentrated. You only had to use 1/4 of a cup.  The “new” detergent in essence has half the water of the old one, so the new 50 ounce jug will do the same number of loads as the old 100 ounce one.

But in TV and print advertising, they say the new detergent is more powerful:

Tide 2x

“Twice the stain fighting power in every drop” is the claim, and that might make you think it is stronger and better than competitors.

*MOUSE PRINT: The disclaimer indicates the comparison is to their non-concentrated former product. Fine. So while it’s literally true that every drop of new Tide has twice the power of the old one, since you only use half the amount , you are not likely to see dramatically cleaner laundry because the product is still diluted by a machine full of water. (Where “x” is the strength of the product, one-half times 2x still just equals x.)  

Of course, for treating stains directly from the bottle, there may be an advantage.Â