American Fundraising Foundation

We have been trying to book a trip since August. Still not booked, and now they're trying to change the trip that we bought.
Purchased a trip from AmFund through a charitable auction in April 2018. Sent in travel date request in August 2018. After some back and forth on travel dates, received postcard postmarked Oct 29, 2018 saying we'd be contacted within 25 days to schedule trip. 11/2018 - received letter from saying travel dates weren't yet published & we'd be contacted when they were. 1/17/19 - I sent a follow up email b/c I had not heard anything yet. 1/18/19 - got a response saying we'd hear something on travel dates by 3/15/19. 1/28/19 - I responded because the info in the 1/18 email I received was incorrect, and I also needed our travel dates to be confirmed earlier than March. 2/14/19 - I called the office b/c I still had no response. 2/19/19 - finally got our travel dates confirmed and was told full trip would be booked by 3/15/19. 3/22/19 - I contacted them, as I had not heard anything yet. Was asked to give them a little more time. 4/10/19 - contacted them again, b/c I still had not heard anything. 4/11 - received a response saying they were working on our trip now and everything would be booked in the next week. 4/15/19 - received a call saying we'd get another call by 4/26/19 to finalize trip. 4/22/19 - received a call saying an email with our itinerary would be sent same day. 4/22/19 - received said email with proposed trip details, which were not equivalent to the trip we paid for (ie - instead of staying in a castle, were to stay in a "country house") b/c our original locations were not available on our travel dates. 4/22/19 - I responded that trip was unacceptable, as that's not what we purchased and provided my own proposed travel arrangements for when our properties were available. 4/25/19 - I sent a follow up email b/c of no response. As of today, we still have had no response. We began trying to book this trip in August 2018. During this process, we've been passed to 4 different travel agents, been given many deadlines which they've missed, and now they are trying to book us on a much inferior trip with the guise of promised locations not being available, and not responding when I offer a solution to the "unavailability" of the locations. Which all begs to question - if the trip had been booked sometime earlier in the last 8 months, would our locations have been available? Or, if they continue to prolong booking our trip long enough, maybe all the locations will become "unavailable" so they "have" to book us in less desirable (aka cheaper) locations. We paid $7000 for an 8 day, 7 night trip to Ireland which they described as "This eight day, seven night castle trip to Ireland for two is like no other experience in the world with round trip airfare, a hearty Irish breakfast each morning, and luxurious pampering at your 4 and 5 star castle accommodations as you live the life of Kings and Queens in green and gorgeous Ireland". It includes 2 nights at Ballynahich Castle, 2 nights at Dromoland Castle, 1 night at Waterford Castle, and 2 nights at Contarf Castle. We paid with a credit card. This trip was purchased through a charitable auction. Our 4 travel agents we've had over the past 8 months were as follows: May, Lisa R, Diane R, and Ashley M.

The company has yet to begin planning our purchased trip from one year ago and we are less than 90 days from our departure date.
We purchased a trip to Tuscany via a silent auction at Sarasota Memorial Pregnancy Center fundraising dinner in March 2018. We paid approx. $6,000.00 knowing that a portion of proceeds would go to our charity. It was purchased with a Visa that was paid off the following month. The company deals via USPS for documentation. They sent out paperwork with suggested dates for our trip that were varied until May 1 of 2019. They only accept communication and response via certified mail - which was NOT disclosed to us prior to purchasing the trip. I certified mail sent and requested May & June dates for 2019. A few months later, we recieved a response with dates in May & June 2019 available. I followed protocol and certified mail our request for May 29 departure date and information on how to upgrade our flight status and add on to the trip as well - which they offer- on January 2nd 2019 and heard nothing until I repeatedly called and emailed the company for 10 days after their receipt of it on Jan 6. The vice president, Jennifer M, contacted us and gave us a spiel about how the agent assigned to our trip unabruptedly "quit" and another would soon take over and contact us. Weeks went by and we called her repeatedly again. Since our trip was just described as "Tour of Tuscany", we asked to at least know where we'd be staying. Her response was that if we wanted to "choose a place" ourselves, they would try to accomodate. She then said our agent would call us shortyly. I emailed questions for our agent to Jennifer that she said she would forward to our agent, Marjorie. Marjorie emailed us a few days later and had nothing to say. She said she could not talk with us about our trip until her April departure trips were taken care of. Then, she just proceeded to quote the generic information from the brochure that we had from when we purchased the trip at the fundraiser.
She also told us that we were not, in fact, allowed to choose our own place - we have to work with their partners. When asked who they were, she responded it would "depend on who/what is left when we book our trip" and insisted there would be plenty. We "just had to wait" until Feb 25th when she would start to work with us. February 25th has come and gone with no contact from AMFund or our agent or their vice president. Less than 90 days from a departure date and we do not know if we can even DEPART on that date, have no idea if air upgrades are available, have no idea what REGION we are staying in, nevermind what hotel and if we can add on to our trip...it is ridiculous and unheard of for a trip out of the US. We have traveled out of the country many times and have NEVER heard of waiting this long to secure the details. We clearly overpaid but were willing to look beyond that because of the worthy cause. Still, I feel we are being mistreated and scammed. This is unacceptable and something needs to be done.