My friend Pauline and I headed to the Pearson International airport for a well-needed girls’ trip to the Dominican Republic. Our flight was on time and Air Canada actually played some pretty good movies once we were in the air. We were greeted by sunshine and clear skies in Puerto Plata. As we exited the airport we saw the name of our hotel printed on a sign which was being held by a very good looking Dominican. We followed him back to a shuttle bus with about 15 other tourists. The minute we arrived at our hotel we were so glad we didn’t go with a cheap Groupon vacation. The hotel was luxurious on speed.
We joined the check-in line which seemed to be at a permanent standstill. We were starting to melt and watching the other tourist mosey around with their daiquiri’s didn’t help the impatience. When we finally got to the concierge desk we quickly understood what the hold up was. They wanted a $500 deposit to secure the rooms. There was no mention of this deposit on the website on which we booked our tickets or in the subsequent emails sent to us after booking. Who just has an extra $500 laying around even if it is a fully refundable deposit. Pauline and I had to put our spending money together and we barely had enough to cover it. We didn’t think we needed a bunch of money considering that we were staying at an all-inclusive hotel; meaning we wouldn’t be paying for food or drinks.
Once we were in our room, we literally sat on our beds sulking for what seemed like half an hour. We starting brainstorming ways in which we could get more money sent to us when Pauline suggested calling home for a loan. That plan didn’t work out because her mom could only send us $50 which wasn’t worth a trip to the Western Union. We decided to stay positive and not waste the day. We put on our bikinis and headed down the pool bar.
We ordered Tequila Sunrises and started up a conversation with some folks we had seen on our shuttle bus over. We mentioned the surprise $500 deposit and how it totally killed our wallets. They too were thrown back by such a large deposit request and they agreed that they had never heard of paying a deposit when checking into a pre-paid all-inclusive vacation. The woman explained that they had to go online to get an instant online payday loan otherwise they couldn’t have paid for the deposit. At that moment Pauline and I looked at each other and we knew right away that we needed to get back to our room, connect to wifi and apply for a Toronto payday loan online.
We went to the same payday lenders as the couple that we met by the bar, Private Loan Shop. We both took turns filling out their online form and we were both approved for $300 just a little over what we had originally brought for spending money. The entire loan process from start to finish was super simple. We never had to fax in any documents or speak to anyone over the phone. We literally filled out the application and waited about 45 minutes before the money was deposited into our accounts. It actually was extremely easy and it allowed us to buy souvenirs, go jet skiing, and we took a full-day catamaran boat ride.
Private Loan Shop allowed us to get a fast online payday loan while we weren’t even in Toronto when we applied. Without a payday loan, our trip would have been ruined and we would have been super negative the entire trip. With the short-term loan that we got we almost forgot about the hotel’s horrible security deposit policy.