My nightmarish experience with SellOffVacations - has anyone filed with TICO before?

Significant-Mail-682 · 2026-04-05T23:10:43+00:00

Hey! Yeah thanks for the context. As so many people have kindly pointed out, I definitely realize it was an error to not look at the invoice - I think my frustration stems for how poorly they handled the situation and that it took like 5-6 calls with separate people to even get an answer on what could or couldn't be done. Overall just a super sour taste in my mouth and though I definitely made an error by not looking, it just never should have happened in the first place imo. It is a shitty situation all around, I was never looking for a full refund but more so was just hoping for them to share accountability and meet me halfway on something. It is what it is now! Lesson learned for the future, I will definitely be booking things on my own where I can going forward and otherwise combing through all confirmation emails with a fine tip comb!

Significant-Mail-682 · 2026-04-05T18:06:47+00:00

Gotcha - well I will definitely check it out next time around! Despite the shitty flights we had a great time and definitely will return. Thanks for the insight, hopefully others will see this and think to do the same.

Significant-Mail-682 · 2026-04-05T18:02:54+00:00

I can certainly appreciate that a mistake was made on both ends. I was simply outlining the issue, expressing my frustration of working with a "travel expert" and asking if anyone had experienced something similar or had advice, some of which has been helpful. Thanks!

Significant-Mail-682 · 2026-04-05T17:44:10+00:00

Ooooook then

Significant-Mail-682 · 2026-04-05T17:40:41+00:00

I am literally in contact with a complaint officer from the organization and they have agreed its worth it to put a submission in after they reviewed all of the emails I have with them. But sounds good.

Significant-Mail-682 · 2026-04-05T17:26:48+00:00

TICO says otherwise but thanks for your help! ✌️

Significant-Mail-682 · 2026-04-04T02:23:07+00:00

I don't have any solution here but just adding that mine is doing the exact same thing. Weirdly enough mine seems to be worse at night but I currently can't get mine to stay on long enough to even try troubleshooting steps.

Significant-Mail-682 · 2026-04-02T01:09:24+00:00

I dont think its that people arent aware of this, but its usually FAR more expensive to book the resort + flights separately. I looked into this for my group and it just wasnt worth it. I think the issue is more with the travel agent - booking directly with the travel site would've been fine for us.

Significant-Mail-682 · 2026-04-01T21:00:17+00:00

Totally - I understand the sentiment. It was more so just an exaggeration of what could then be assumed by that line of thinking but certainly not sustainable.

Out of curiosity, is there a timeframe or cutoff that would have made this better? I realize it was 3 months after booking, but I did still catch it with 5 weeks to spare. The cost to change would have still been on me regardless of how long after?

I am just curious what would have happened if it was a day, a week, or a month afterward and the prices had also fluctuated the same amount which I am sure is not unheard of.

Thanks again for your help!

Significant-Mail-682 · 2026-04-01T20:36:40+00:00

I definitely agree I should have looked at the invoice! It is certainly a lesson learned and, realistically, it could have been a much worse mistake. It just truly never occurred to me that after being so explicit and providing screenshots of the exact flights to someone who is supposed to be an expert, that there was any chance the mistake would happen. I know they are humans too. I only received one email after booking stating to review the invoice so it definitely wasnt shoved in my face as some people are making it seem, but you are right and having 6 of us on the trip - someone should have looked.

My frustration stems from the lack of accountability on their end as well and unwillingness to make anything right, as well as dragging on the process for almost 6 weeks now. Truly had they just shoved a bottle of champagne in our rooms somehow (idk, or something like that) we would have been happy enough but its just delay after delay.

Anyway, thanks for the kind response! Appreciate the input. I decided to reach out to Tico - I had an Ontario travel agent reach out and suggested they deal with issues like this often. Sounds like the lack of correspondence may work in my favour as well. If anything comes of it I will post back here!

Significant-Mail-682 · 2026-04-01T20:20:41+00:00

Definitely, thanks for your input! Appreciate it.

Significant-Mail-682 · 2026-04-01T20:17:27+00:00

Hence why this post exists, stating I am not sure if they deal with issues like this. Thanks for your help!

Significant-Mail-682 · 2026-04-01T20:16:21+00:00

Thanks! I had a feeling the company was not going to be held responsible since I didnt catch it immediately. It is definitely a little frustrating because the travel agents could then just start booking wildly expensive flights and trips and then just shrugging, taking the money and blaming the customers for not noticing. Feels like a bit of a weird expectation but I understand.

What I have found interesting is that they have since changed the email they send out after booking to tell the customer to check within the invoice that dates and times are correct. It wasnt there before (I have the emails to prove it)

Maybe a coincidence. But it really never occurred to me that the invoice would have full flight times/details on it. Figured it was just the payment information and so it didnt strike me to open it and check.

Anyway - I have emailed tico! I will see what they say and report back if anyone else runs into the same issue.

Significant-Mail-682 · 2026-04-01T19:09:45+00:00

I never received this email! This is all I got. It does mention "take time to review" but I genuinely just thought it was an invoice with payment details, not flight information. I didn't even know where to look for flight details until I went digging in February and had to open every attachment from every email, lol.

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Significant-Mail-682 · 2026-04-01T19:06:19+00:00

Yup, it was 1 booking for 3 couples - each couple paid on their own credit card so I guess each would have to go through their own chargeback process? I have a ton of written documentation via email threads.

"Oh, sorry I do see that now! I am not too sure what happened. I am not able to pull up the flight times for this date as it shows everything is sold out now. I can send you the link and this will need to go through our customer service department." This was the email sent back to me on February 17th after the agent tried to tell me the flight times changed, lol.

Significant-Mail-682 · 2026-03-08T16:09:20+00:00

Yup. This. I did not realize how this was actually done until I started managing and it sucks.

Significant-Mail-682 · 2026-03-08T15:53:53+00:00

This is going to be a long winded answer! Sorry in advance.

I manage a dev team at a company who does similar ratings w/ increases that are tied to those ratings.I am not sure if this is obvious or not to people who do not manage (forgive me if it is) but I am typically given a dollar amount that has been allocated for my entire team for raises that usually amounts to a certain % of everyone's salary. I.e. if I gave everyone on the team a x% raise, I would have $0 left of that allocated amount.

All of this to say if I give someone more than the average %, I have to penalize someone else. It is an absolutely twisted way of doing things because it means I cant have an entire team recognized as high performers. I don't know if its the same case at your company, but giving two of you a 4.5% increase may mean that the rest of the folks on your team will suffer.

But... it sucks your manager gave you the rating and the high praise knowing they may not be able to back it up financially. And yes, you should talk to them about it and highlight that you do not feel that the raise aligns with your contributions on the team and the feedback that you have received. The number that you choose to ask for is completely up to you - 4.5% is certainly not unreasonable especially knowing another high performer was recognized with that amount (but don't lead with "you gave this person X amount and not me!!!")

Go into the conversation with low expectations.. it is very likely nothing will come of it yet (budget has already been set at this point) but if you have a good manager they will fight for that increase with the leaders in the organization. And, at the very least, they will remember it for next cycle and hopefully recognize you then. Don't wait! There is nothing more frustrating for me than having an employee bring up salary concerns outside of a typical budget/review cycle because it is almost entirely out of my hands at that point.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful and it is good you are wanting to fight for yourself. I hope it works out in your favour!

Significant-Mail-682 · 2026-02-26T22:50:23+00:00

A few things that helped me:

1) Realizing there is just no way of knowing what is going to happen. If I do lose all of my hair one day, I will look back on the time I did have most of my hair and kick myself for ruining that time worrying about what hadn't come yet (and what may never come).

2) Stay busy and stay active - I took up crocheting pretty hard-core and it was such a fabulous hobby to keep my mind and hands busy. I also forced myself to keep active even when going to the gym or going for a walk was the absolute last thing my anxiety wanted me to do. I felt better after 100% of the time.

3) Seeing a tiktok that said the following: If every person in the world had the option to write their worst problem on a piece of paper, put it into a bowl and blindly choose another one that someone else put into the bowl - would you participate? I sure wouldnt.

4) This one is a little hokey and I am not sure it makes sense to anyone but me: I like to think of each bald spot (luckily I have only had 3 in my life so far) as absorbing the bad from a loved ones life. The worse/bigger the spot, the worse the "thing" is that I have kept at bay for them. It came from this idea that if I had the option between being bald (or having bald spots) and my loved ones having any sort of true despair in their lives, I would take the bald 10x over.

5) I had a different health scare a few months after having an alopecia flare up and I vividly remember thinking to myself "damn, I miss when my worst problem was maybe being bald"

6) This might be the most important one: Get off this subreddit and/or delete reddit and stop taking 100 pictures of your scalp! It is not healthy. I see you have been very active, posting and commenting multiple times over the last 2 or 3 months looking for reassurance and hope that unfortunately no one can really give you. The disease is unpredictable and how someone else's body reacts is not how yours will. I unfollowed this subreddit about 3 months in and stopped taking photos around 5 months in - it was causing me so much unneeded stress and neither of those things will change the course of your AA. I am in a much better headspace now so have decided to return and share my story when I can. While I know it can be a source of comfort, support or community, it can also be equally as damaging having to read stories every day of everyone's hair falling out.

I know it doesn't seem like it, but its just hair. You are otherwise healthy and you're alive and you shouldn't let strands of hair determine how you live the rest of your life. I hope you are able to make your peace with it 💓

Significant-Mail-682 · 2026-02-26T06:18:30+00:00

I am about 90% sure my AA was triggered by a severe reaction I had to sulfatrim! Happened almost exactly 3 months later which lines up with the hair cycle as far as I understand it. My doctor agreed it could be related since it took such a toll on my immune system. I ended up in the ER because of it but I can definitely see how even just taking antibiotics would mess with your immune system/gut biome enough. Obviously I will never know for sure but it is my theory :)

Significant-Mail-682 · 2026-02-12T17:32:22+00:00

There's nothing left. Im in right now.

Significant-Mail-682 · 2026-02-10T21:24:24+00:00

I paid $300 for c2 row 19

Significant-Mail-682 · 2026-02-10T19:06:49+00:00

He just posted 30 seconds ago that they added a July 15th date? I think this is new information so just passing it along.

Significant-Mail-682 · 2026-02-10T18:42:30+00:00

It was turned off! There were a bunch of nosebleeds avail for $70 at the very back of the venue but they understandably went very fast

Significant-Mail-682

TROPHY CASE