Gold Key Travel

I recently went to Jamaica for a wedding and was told to use Gold Key Travel in Novi, Michigan; per the bride and groom. Ed and Mary Jane were very pleasant to speak to. They booked the hotel room and plane tickets. I was told that I had a spa/tour credit of $300 for booking through them. Sounds like a nice deal. Here is where the problems started. The hotel room was booked, but the spa/tour credit amount changed to $205. The receipts that Mary Jane kept sending me were incorrect. The totals didn’t match up. When I would call or email about this issue, it would take days before I would hear back sometimes. But when she needed information, she would send out an email with the title “URGENT!!!!” This happened a few times. If Ed asked for information, I would send a reply. Then Mary Jane would ask the same question. I would reply back to that. About a month later, I would get another email requesting that same information again. There was one time that she had sent me an email stating she didn’t receive a response, which is funny because she responded back after I had sent the response. I started to question whether or not they actually booked my room and flight so I called both the resort and the airline. American Airlines only had part of my trip booked and U.S. Airways didn’t have any record of my flight information. Mary Jane told me when she spoke to the airline agent, he had all of my flight information; without her having to tell the agent (her words). I called the airlines numerous times and they said they were still missing part of my flight information. Obviously I’m going to worry if I had a flight to make it to the wedding after I had paid for it. Ed and Mary Jane are very nice people, but their customer service skills are very lacking, their attention to detail (especially on client receipts) is poor, and their ability to get things done in a timely fashion doesn’t exist. It has been nothing but a headache booking through Gold Key Travel in Novi, Michigan. Apparently, other guests going to the same wedding had issues booking through this agency as well. Next time, I am definitely using a larger company to book my next trip. At least they would hold one another accountable for their actions.

They booked us at the Newly Rennovated "Sandals Barbados" There were cockroaches in the room, smoke from Sandals redoing the roof that made the room smell like it was burning, Raw Steak. Mary Jane didn't get our Sandals Points applied in time, cost us an additional $200. She checked in with us via facebook, asked how our trip was going, and we said not so good. What she said was "focus your review on the positive things" When I stated Wow as I was shocked and flabbergasted that a TA who is supposed to advocate for me totally brushed away my concerns. I decided not to respond for an hour, as there was a smoke smell in my room from the tar, that Sandals was putting on the roof of the hotel. I then come back to a message that says "I don't think I should be your TA" so she completely abandoned us. If you want a Travel Experience where the TA takes your money, and you don't hear from them again, use Mary Jane. We had to ask for our Sandals Docs to be mailed, we had to make our final payment to Sandals since we couldn't get a hold of Mary Jane, and she couldn't even get our Sandal Points applied in time. Don't use Goldkey travel, if you need help, they won't be there. The service is non-existent. I wouldn't trust them with my dogs birthday party, let alone a wedding, or a honeymoon.

Ed and Mary Jane are truly amazing people and love what they sell you. They made booking our honeymoon the easiest part about our wedding. We traveled to sandals grand riviera in ocho rios, and everyone there knew Ed and Mary Jane and treated us like royalty. Highly recommend booking through them!

Mary Jane Leininger and Ed Leininger were nothing but helpful in booking our honeymoon in August 2014. Goldkey Travel was recommended to my husband and I by my sister and brother-in-law and they did not disappoint. From providing pricing of 4 different Sandals resorts that we were interested in, giving advice on which resort to choose from their own personal experiences, providing receipts for every payment we made, and scheduling a meeting to go over how trip logistics will work, the Leininger's were nothing short of amazing for helping us book and know what to expect on the trip! Before your trip, you will meet with Ed who gives you a handy Goldkey Travel bag and document holder that we used every day on our trip! We went over all the restaurants, pools, social events, etc. at the resort and most importantly what to expect when we arrive and leaving Grenada. We have already booked another trip in February through Goldkey and will continue to book our Sandals trips through them! Thank you Leiningers!

My wife and I booked a Beech Front Walk Out room through Gold Key and the whole process went smoothly. There is a whole lot of talking involved so make sure you have at least 1.5 - 2 hours per visit with them to kill. But they are very friendly and answered any questions we had so over all for Mary/Ed was good. St Lucia was less than impressive however. We spent a ton of money for a beach front walk out (aka walk out to the pool area to walk down the stairs to the beach), which wasn't really the worst part. For the thousands of dollars spent to get there and for the room, really didn't match up for the crap-tastic service we got for having a "concierge" room. The concierge lounge they had was always locked, and they made you feel like you had to have a reason to be there, unlike how Mary/Ed made it sound. They said you can come and go, read a book, hang out and have a drink, but how can you do that when it's always locked and had to knock to come in? Then when you do get let in they ask if you need anything like you're not supposed to be there. Crap-tastic service Day 1 - We check in to our room and we are hungry so we stopped by the lounge and they said "we'll take you on a tour tomorrow at 11 am." Well that's fine and dandy but where can we eat now? There wasn't many places open for lunch, and practically no where you could just grab and go food. So after checking out the place for a bit we went back and asked where we can eat. Oh the cricketer is open upstairs. Well I'm glad I had to actually ask where food was. In our room we didn't have an umbrella and we asked 4 different times, even went to the concierge lounge and asked and all we got was "we'll send someone down" and by the end of the 8 days (which rained 7 of those) we still didn't have an umbrella. Our room was what seemed to be in a tunnel and when ever carts full of dishes were coming down from the other end of the hall, you'd hear it nice and early starting around 7 am, clinking and clashing with the wait staff yelling to each other from the opposite sides. Most of the other staff (besides the bar tenders and some of the nicer restaurants) just walked passed you as if you didn't exist. You're supposed to get a pamphlet telling you what is going on for that day, everyday you stay there. Well we didn't actually get one until our 4th day when we realized that would be a good reason we had no idea what was going on each day. Honestly if you plan on going to St. Lucia get the cheapest room and go enjoy the weather and activities they have. Don't spend a ton of money for service that can't hold up to it. I could have gone on a 9-14 day cruise with a outside balcony for about the same price and had 100% better service, food options (more of them not so much quality because St. Lucia had good food), and more things to do.

We used Ed and Mary Jane for our honeymoon to St. Lucia. They were extremely knowledgeable about the resort, the restaurants, the other resorts as well as the island. We met with Ed for about 2 hours before we went on the trip and he answered every possible question that we had and made sure we were 100% prepared. They called and checked in on us to make sure everything was perfect while we were on the trip as well. They were both always available anytime that we had a question or concern throughout the entire process. I would highly recommend Gold Key Travel!!!!!

Review written 9/5/2014 We booked our honeymoon at Sandals Jamaica through Ed and Mary Jane. They booked our flights for us. We paid for the whole trip in advance. THE DAY BEFORE our honeymoon, we tried to check in for our flight- and it didn't exist! Gold Key travel is a joke. They messed up our flights and there is no way to re-pay the stress involved in messing up our entire honeymoon. They should be ashamed of themselves. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Review written 12/29/2014 Mary Jane Leininger and Ed Leininger were practically useless. I was SO disappointed with our experience. We booked our Sandals Jamaica honeymoon through Gold Key Travel because we found them at a bridal expo. We met with Ed and discussed all the details of our trip. He took our deposit. He booked our flights. He booked our stay at Sandals. Ed seemed very knowledgable about this subject. So we trusted them. When the date finally arrived and we were ready to go, we met with Ed again. OUR FLIGHT HAD BEEN CANCELLED. We tried to log in to check in for our flight - and it didn't exist. Ed and Mary Jane never told us. It just "happened." They had no knowledge of the flight being cancelled. Airlines ALWAYS notify you if your flight gets cancelled, so what happened here? Either way, approx 24 hours before we had to leave, we were scrambling to find a flight. Our travel agents gave us a couple ideas - both were completely inconvenient. We wanted quick layovers without a lot a dead time. We wanted to get to Jamaica as soon as possible. Instead we got stuck with a couple hours to kill in Miami, and a delayed arrival to Jamaica. This, of course, stressed us out. I asked Mary Jane and Ed what they could do to make this up for us, and they promised us a "spa/resort credit" when we arrived. When we got to Sandals, they had NO knowledge of this credit OR any communication from our travel agents. So we spent half a day trying to contact them when we arrived - but it was the weekend so they were nowhere to be found. (We traveled Saturday - Saturday.) We didn't get anything resolved until Monday. My least favorite part of this trip was arriving in our room. It was dirty, and the whole entire bathroom was moldy. We asked Sandals for an upgrade and they obliged. When I told Mary Jane about this, she said "I'm glad the staff is taking care of you." What about you?? What about our travel agents? They supposedly have been to Sandals many times and were supposed to advise us on which room to get. Sadly they did not. Then - come Monday, we received a note from Sandals saying that the main pool would be closed for the remainder of the week. There was VERY loud construction Monday - Saturday. The main pool is where all the activities at Sandals are held, and there is a swim up bar. It was closed for a majority of our stay - with no warning. We would have picked ANY other week had we known that. It was quite disappointing. There was construction noise all day long. Luckily we were able to go to the island off the coast to escape the noise. The staff and ambiance of the Royal Caribbean Sandals were EXCELLENT. We loved the resort itself, but our travel agents were useless. We didn't pay them anything, but they still made a commission off of us.

When I began to work with Mary Jane, she told me to call if I needed anything even if its late at night. When my fiancee and I got to mexico, it was a complete disaster! We told Mary Jane we wanted an ocean front ground level room and the hotel said we where not scheduled for one. After hours of trying to fix the problem and not being able to get a hold of Mary Jane; half way across the world! Most of are first day of relaxing was used to fix the problem and get our room! We called many times and did not get a hold of her.

good rates!

They were great, they took care of everything for us so that we could focus on the wedding. We would definately use them for our next vacation.

Valerie Hetkowski was our travel agent for our honeymoon, and she was awesome. She made everything very easy for us to understand for our first international trip together to Rivera Maya, Mexico. Our trip was perfect, and when we travel again down the road we will definitely be using Gold Key Travel again!

Mary Jane was great to work with.