ON 12 NEWS
Watch Veronica Sanchez’s report on this story at 10 tonight. have no way to physically contact anyone with the company.
Purchase agreements signed by customers state that Premier is under the umbrella of a Nevada company called Sierra Management & Consulting.
Records filed with the Nevada secretary of state show that Sierra is run out of a postal box in Las Vegas.
A limited-liability company called Premier Resorts was registered with the Nevada secretary of state, but records show it was dissolved in 2012. There is no indication this is the same company referenced in purchase agreements or if it is affiliated with Sierra.
There are also listings in Nevada for One Stop Travel and Global Adventures, but there is no information about whether these companies are affiliated with Sierra Management & Consulting.
The manager of Sierra Management is listed as Michael Midkiff, who uses a Scottsdale postal box on East Via Linda as his address. Via Linda is the same street where Premier’s postal box is located. A physical address for Midkiff could not be located.
Sierra Management & Consulting is not listed as a corporation doing business in Arizona.
Premier and One Stop feature the same video testimonials from happy club members. But attempts to locate some of those members based on names and locations proved unsuccessful.
Premier and One Stop and Global use 1-800 numbers that route calls to a company calling itself Member Services Consulting, which is also not listed as a registered company with the Arizona Corporation Commission, records show.
Phone and address searches for Member Services Consulting indicate the company uses Mesa postal boxes for its mailing address.
Messages left at the number for Member Services were not returned.
Resorts raise questions
Officials with two hotels featured on Premier Resorts’ website say they have no affiliation with the company and have not done business with it.
The controller at the Parkside Hotel and Spa in Vancouver, British Columbia, said he has been trying to stop Premier from linking to the hotel for about a month, but has been unable to contact the company.
“We have zero connection with them,” Parkside controller Chris Zyla said last week. “We don’t get any business from Premier.”
Zyla said his company began looking into Premier after receiving phone calls from some of its customers in Arizona.
“We are trying to track down who has our link on their site,” he said.
The link to Parkside is through another Vancouver hotel pictured on Premier’s website, which says members can book for $379 per week.
Premier offers even lower weekly rates for members at the Hona Koa Resort in Maui, Hawaii. The resort is pictured on Premier’s site, with links to the resort’s website. But representatives for the company managing Hona Koa say they have no affiliation with Premier.
The Hona Koa is a time-share resort, where owners buy weeks of vacation and often exchange those weeks for stays at other hotels around the world. But he said the Hona Koa doesn’t do business with Premier. He said any claims that Premier has special buying power at any of the resorts managed by Soleil should be considered suspect.
Warren said he has no one other than himself to blame for signing up with Premier. He said he hopes his story will serve as a warning to other excited travelers to do their research before signing any kind of vacation contract.
“We were in our right minds. I did it,” Warren said. “Don’t be stupid like I was.”