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| - I've gotta tell you. I just hate getting ripped off.
I would have LOVED to have awarded this monorail a full five stars: It's clean, fast enough, offers entertaining little voice overs as you take it back and forth down the strip. It's easy to buy tickets and it sure beats cab fare or trudging along in the sun.....but......they have a scam going on. And that's a big ol' turnoff.
I recently took this monorail with my 4 year old daughter in tow. I scoured the signs on the ticket machine...I just couldn't imagine that a young child or a baby would be charged the same rate as an adult for a three day pass.
Unfortunately, their instructions and their posted signs are less than forthcoming. They also have NO live persons stationed there...anywhere...from whom you can buy your tickets. You must rely solely upon their ticket machines.
I noticed that the charge was $28 per person for a three day pass. There is no age pricing mentioned for children. Not anywhere.
Not wanting to be dishonest and to just smuggle my little girl onto the tram, I did what I thought would be the right thing, I ponied up the extra $28 to buy her a pass as well.
Big mistake.
We entered the tram, took our seats and blasted off...enjoying the scenery, the ride, and even enjoying the perky little voiceovers. Well...that was until the voiceover made a cheerful little announcement in a self congratulatory tone...saying something like this:
"Awwwww! Isn't it fun to be riding this monorail? And aren't you happy knowing that your children...ALL children, ages 5 and under are riding absolutely free of charge?"
Having just shelled out $28 for a ticket that was intended to be free of charge...I was more than a little dismayed.
I made a mental note to ask someone at the terminal upon our departure from this tram for a refund for my daughter's ticket...and then I sat there...doing the math.
Now....with absolutely NO SIGNS POSTED to alert the public of this fact...just how many innocent parents...some of whom could be hauling around 4 or 5 kids with them and paying full price or those tickets...well, you do the math. This Monorail system is ripping off the public for upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars every year.
As soon as we disembarked, I picked up the courtesy phone provided by their company. The person on the other end made it clear, they just didn't want to refund me for my daughter's ticket.
I offered to present the tickets themselves, which proved they had been purchased only a few minutes earlier, as well as my daughter's birth certificate (which I happened to have in my purse from our airline ride)...they refused to budge. Finally, in hopes of getting rid of me, their representative instructed me to present her ticket back at the originating station of our ride (within the MGM).
Now, I'd like to tell you this was the end of our story, and that the monorail cheerfully stood behind their neverending reel of commercials from their ride. But nope...they didn't.
The person on the courtesy phone told me that I was basically out of luck in getting reimbursed for my four year old's "free" ticket. She admitted that they have no signs posted whatsoever...that would indicate a different charge for children than for adults. And then told me that if I wanted to "possibly be refunded down the line" I needed to write a letter directly to the company itself, enclosing both original passes as well as a copy of her birth certificate...and that I should then "wait to hear back from them to see what they wanna do".
Oh...my...god. Great! I can dedicate my life to playing letter writing games with some anonymous an unyielding people at their corporate headquarters....only to find what? That they claim I brought some other person aboard other than my daughter?
i asked them to please refund me on site rather than put us through any more of this. I also asked her just how many other unsuspecting tourists (many of whom might not even speak our language and would entirely miss the on board commercials) were being ripped off by them daily. She made it clear..she just couldn't care less.
Finally, she sent a particularly rude man by the name of "Sam" up to send me on my way. Sam must have taken classes in being a jacka$$. He was very very good at it.
So...rather than just give up, we marched straight up to the front desk of the MGM. I had to tell and retell our story to about 5 different employees, I had to present both my daughter and her birth certificate and I had to convince them that yes..as this ticket dispensing machine and all of it's signs were situated within their premises, they shared a certain amount of liability.
The way they were refusing to step up and do what's right, you'd have thought I was asking them to refund my gambling losses.
Finally, they made me sign a form to acknowledge the return of the money and we were on our way.
Geez Monorail Company.. don't you earn enough?
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