Misrepresentations, Substandard Service, Failure to Provide Insurance
I scheduled a trip to Europe through The Weekender Trips and specifically Raheem Manning. It was the worst travel experience of my life. There were many significant misrepresentations made by Raheem as well as a failure to provide the services promised. Numerous services claimed to be available and secured at hotels he booked on my behalf did not even exist at such locations. Multiple reservations were not properly made despite assurances. Tours and other services were embellished in their descriptions.
Most importantly, during the booking process, I asked specifically whether I should obtain travel insurance directly and Raheem advised me not to do so because he claimed they had insurance in place on my behalf. I relied on that representation and so did not obtain separate travel insurance on my own. I became seriously ill on the trip, resulting in a documented hospital visit and certain cancellations and re-bookings of hotels, airfare, and other services. It now appears that despite his promises about insurance, there was no insurance in place at all. If insurance was in place as he promised, with a documented hospital visit, I would have been able to get reimbursement for most or all of those costs. Now, I am incurring interest on credit card debt from all the costs I incurred due to cancellations that should have been reimbursed by insurance. All of this caused me to replace canceled and/or substandard reservations out of my own pocket (after paying The Weekender Trips in advance) with no insurance coverage due to his misrepresentation.
I spoke to Raheem afterward and asked for reimbursements. After explaining the whole situation, he agreed in writing to reimburse me for all hotels and certain dinners and other things (which demonstrates to me he knew he had messed up). But he never sent the money and has now ghosted me since October of 2022. He has still to this date never acknowledged whether the insurance he promised exists and he has gone completely silent so I am left to assume he never obtained it!
I’ve repeatedly asked for information from Raheem, including insurance information, and communications with hotels, tours, restaurants and other vendors, to see if they legitimately tried to cancel in a timely manner upon notice that I was ill and would need to cancel, and they’ve failed to provide that information.
As best I can tell, it also appears that this company never registered with the California Attorney General’s Office as a seller of travel as required under California law, so they seem extremely shady to me.
I highly recommend against using them.