Hapi Travel Destinations Review: The Happy Co. travel spinoff
Hapi Travel Destinations’ provides no information on its website about who owns or runs the company.
The only thing disclosed on the “about us” section of Hapi Travel Destinations’ website, is that it is ‘powered by The Happy Co.’
BehindMLM reviewed The Happy Co. in April 2021, noting at the time it was a rebranding of Elepreneurs.
There is no executive information provided on The Happy Co’s website.
Revisiting The Happy Co.’s website today reveals that is still the case.
I came across Hapi Travel Destinations as part of BehindMLM’s TheClub.Travel review, published December 2021.
TheClub.Travel is headed up by Jonathan McKillip, former President of Hapi Travel Destinations
McKilip was appointed in February 2021. He left Hapi Travel Destinations in August 2021.
In researching Hapi Travel Destinations for this review, I came across this unlisted video on the company’s official YouTube channel:
The Happy Co., and by proxy Hapi Travel Destinations, is owned by Fai Chan (aka Chan Heng Fai).
Chan appeared on BehindMLM back in 2019, as co-founder of iGalen.
iGalen collapsed in November 2019, after losing the rights to its flagship product.
In BehindMLM’s iGalen review I noted Fai’s “partnership” with Elepreneurs and Elevacity. This partnership existed through Fai’s company Health Wealth Happiness.
Elevacity was a travel booking engine themed MLM company, launched by Robert Oblon in 2014.
In 2017 Oblon launched Elepreneurs, which would functionally operate as Elevacity’s successor.
In BehindMLM’s second Elepreneurs review I noted ongoing confusion with Elevacity’s and Elepreneurs’ co-existing branding.
Elepreneurs’ parent company Sharing Services Inc. accused Oblon of “gross financial misconduct” in February 2020.
It appears at some point after this Fai Chan acquired an ownership stake in the company (he might have been a silent owner prior), and rebooted it as The Hapi Co. in early 2021.
I’m unclear on why Fai Chan doesn’t openly disclose his ownership of The Hapi Co. and Hapi Travel Destinations.
Beyond ownership, whether Fai is running The Hapi Co. and Hapi Travel Destinations is unclear.
Update 17th January 2022 – Master Trainer Jeremy Jenkins has revealed in the comments below that Hapi Travel Destinations separates its retail and affiliate websites.
Executive information is provided on the affiliate website, revealing Garrett McGrath is CEO of both The Happy Co. and Hapi Travel Destinations.
McGrath (right) appears to have made a name for himself in EvolvHealth.
That started in 2010, however McGrath’s LinkedIn profile credits him with “over 25+ years of experience as a top network marketing professional”.
McGrath has also been President of the Association of Network Marketing Professionals since 2012.
McGrath was appointed CEO of The Happy Co. in November 2021, having previously worked as President of Elepreneurs. /end update
One final note I’ll make is that Hapi Travel Destinations was originally scheduled to launch in early 2021. Following whatever happened between Fai and McKilip, the launch was then shelved till around October.
As always, if an MLM company is not openly upfront about who is running or owns it, think long and hard about joining and/or handing over any money.
Hapi Travel Destinations’ Products
Hapi Travel Destinations markets a discount travel booking engine.
Exclusive Club membership costs $29 a month and provides access to the Hapi Travel platform, hotel discounts, rental car savings, airfare discounts, restaurant discounts and “exclusive discounts”.
Premium Club membership is $59 a month and adds
- Cruise Discounts
- SwiftMD Telemedicine
- Gift Cards
- Show & Save Offers
- Koiyn Cash Back
- Shopping Boss App
Vendors Hapi Travel Destinations uses are not disclosed.
Hapi Travel Destinations’ Compensation Plan
Hapi Travel Destinations do not provide compensation details on their website.
I typically don’t review MLM companies I can’t verify compensation details for, however with Hapi Travel Destinations I’m making an exception.
I’ll go over why in the review conclusion below.
Joining Hapi Travel Destinations
Hapi Travel Destinations affiliate membership is $49.95.
Hapi Travel Destinations affiliates receive access to the company’s travel memberships at a discount:
- Exclusive Club membership is $25 a month
- Premium Club membership is $50 a month
It is unclear whether Hapi Travel Destinations affiliates have to purchase and maintain a travel membership subscription.
Hapi Travel Destinations’ Conclusion
Hapi Travel Destinations’ compensation details not being available anywhere is strange. Strange in that there’s plenty of affiliate presentations out there, from The Happy Co. affiliates.
I believe the reason for this is Hapi Travel Destinations doesn’t have it’s own compensation plan. Rather it’s incorporated as a product within The Happy Co.’s base MLM opportunity.
There is a precedent for this confusion with Elevate and Elepreneurs.
Update 17th January 2022 – The Happy Co. Master Trainer Jeremy Jenkins has confirmed, compensation wise, that Hapi Travel Destinations is considered a product under The Happy Co.
Both opportunities do in fact share the same compensation plan. /end update
Personally I think if Hapi Travel Destinations is going to be marketed as a standalone company, which it is, then this integration within The Happy Co. needs to be clear.
If an MLM company can’t be honest and open about who’s running the show however, perhaps that’s too much of an ask.
As a consumer Hapi Travel Destinations’ memberships can be evaluated at face value.
This isn’t a consumer product review however. As an MLM opportunity, Hapi Travel Destinations’ lack of transparency is a major red flag.
This sort of thing might be forgivable for a startup, but Fai Chan has been running MLM companies for years. And The Happy Co. itself dates back to 2013 with Elevacity.
There is no excuse, and this reflects poorly on The Happy Co., Hapi Travel Destinations and Fai.
Throw in the ongoing global uncertainty with travel as the COVID-19 saga drags on, and this is probably an MLM nice best to avoid at the moment.
Looking forward, The Happy Co. needs to address disclosure issues with respect to Hapi Travel Destinations.
If, for whatever reason, you’re approached about Hapi Travel Destinations and are considering the opportunity; a quick litmus test is how many retail memberships your prospective upline has sold.
Weigh this against how many Hapi Travel Destination affiliate memberships they’ve sold and evaluate (you’re looking for at least a 1:1 spread).
Unfortunately things get a lot more complicated if the affiliate is in and promoting The Happy Co. too. That said, retail was a noted focus in BehindMLM’s The Happy Co. review.
All in all I think if The Happy Co. can clear up confusion about what Hapi Travel Destinations is and, more importantly with respect to due-diligence, how it fits into The Happi Co.’s MLM opportunity, they might have something here.
Hapi Travel Destinations itself is relatively straightforward and avoids the “bundling travel booking engine access to affiliate membership” pitfall. This would instantly rule it a pyramid scheme.
Pending The Happy Co. addressing issues raised in this review, approach with caution.
Update 10th September 2022 – Hapi Travel now has its own compensation plan.
BehindMLM published an updated Hapi Travel review on September 10th, 2022.
Hey Oz, as Master Trainer for Hapi Travel, I wanted to share some clarifications for you.
Hapi Travel is indeed an additional product offering from The Happy Co.
There is one single compensation plan. Distributors of Hapi Travel are Brand Partners of The Happy Co. and we can promote ALL of the products, whether digital or physical.
As per the compensation model you previously reviewed for The Happy Co, everyone must qualify for uni-level compensation by having either 80 personal volume or 240 customer volume.
That can come from any combination of Happy Co products, for example, a Brand Partner can purchase a Hapi Travel membership of $50 (50 volume) plus a purchase of Probiotic 8 (30 volume) or have 3 customers purchasing 80 volume worth of product each to achieve 240. No one is forced to have a Travel membership.
VERY important as you mentioned is the Happy Co requirement of having customers. That requirement is the same whether we promote Travel or the Wellness products and a Brand Partner cannot achieve higher ranks without customers.
The Hapi Travel membership has retail pricing for customers and wholesale pricing for Brand Partners.
Everything The Happy Co does is separated by customers and Brand Partners.
When sharing products for Customers, we use either thehappyco.com or hapitravel.com
When promoting for Brand Partners, we use either sharethehappy.com or myhapitravel.com
We even have VERY separate overview zoom presentations scheduled, Tuesday for customers and Thursday for Brand Partners. We never mix them.
When Jon McKillip left in August, Dave Dove was promoted to VP of Sales over Hapi Travel. When that happened, they made some major changes and enhancements to the offering because of Dave’s experience in the Time Share world.
This is what caused the delay in the launch. However as of last week, Hapi Travel is now officially launched.
You can see Mr. Chan and Dave Dove as well as Happy Co. CEO Garret McGrath listed as the executive team on the MyHapiTravel website: myhapitravel.com/teamkaizen/hapi-community
Mr. Chan has invested heavily in the launch of the Hapi Travel offering and we will soon be opening Hapi Cafes in various locations, the first being in Utah, where people can come and try out the Wellness products as well as find out more information about the Travel membership, complete with VR headsets to show them their dream destinations.
We are confident that we will FAR surpass a 1 to 1 ratio of customers to Brand Partners as that will be our main focus as people come to the Hapi Cafe to learn more.
Our goal is to sell them the memberships and other products at retail price to maximize the commissions and of course not scare them away by making it an MLM presentation.
We are also confident that customers will find enough value in the offering that they will want to participate without it being about making money on the back end.
That is honestly the principle reason I chose to work with the Happy Co. A company where there is a real customer focus/requirement and products that can be truly retailed because people like them for what they are and they are priced right.
Hope that clarifies everything. Please comment if there is anything else unclear. Thanks!
Hi Jeremy, thanks for stopping by.
Cool. Why isn’t this clarified on the standalone Hapi Travel Destinations website?
Why is Hapi Travel Destinations executive information only provided on a Brand Partner website?
I researched Hapi Travel Destinations and didn’t know that website existed.
Both the Customer and Brand Partner websites were literally launched less than a week ago so all of this is brand new.
There is no mention of compensation on the Customer site because, again, we are trying to keep it very separate. Customers don’t need to know there is a compensation plan.
The MyHapiTravel site DOES have the compensation plan listed. Under the What you need to know section, if you click Read Now it downloads the Happy Co comp plan document.
Yes, there are improvements to be made. For example the comp plan doc will be updated to mention the Hapi Travel memberships and yes, I like your idea of adding at least Mr. Chan on the Customer website, so we will get with marketing to see about making that happen.
We avoided having Garret or Dave on there because they represent the MLM side of things, and again, we are trying to keep that separate.
Fair enough, I’ll pay that.
What I’d suggest though is placing a link to the distributor website in the footer of the main public website. That way you keep your retail customer focus but those looking for the information aren’t left confused.