Hapi Travel Review v2: Travel expanded with pyramid concerns
Hapi Travel is a spinoff of The Happy Co.
BehindMLM first reviewed Hapi Travel back in January. We were initially confused as to Hapi Travel’s compensation plan, later finding out it shared that of The Happy Co’s.
This seemed cumbersome, owing to the company’s having different products (nutritional supplements versus travel memberships).
Turns out we were on the money, leading to Hapi Travel spinning off with its own compensation plan on or around July.
Today we’re revisiting Hapi Travel as a fully-fledged stand-alone MLM opportunity.
Hapi Travel Corporate
Hapi Travel still don’t provide corporate information on their website.
This was a compliance problem BehindMLM identified in January, and it remains unresolved.
I went looking for corporate information on parent company website The Happy Co, there’s still none provided there either.
BehindMLM first identified this as a problem back in April 2021.
The choice to hide company ownership and executive information from consumers does not reflect well on The Happy Co’s and Hapi Travel’s management.
As far as we know, The Happy Co is still owned by founder Fai Chan, aka Chan Heng Fai.
Back in January Garrett McGrath was working as CEO of both The Happy Co. and Hapi Travel. Having only been appointed to the role in late 2021, it seems sometime after January 2022 McGrath split.
There’s no mention of McGrath in a September 1st press-release, announcing the launch of Hapi Travel in the US (Hapi Travel already launched in the US last year so I’m not sure what this marketing nonsense is about).
Named executives in the press-release are:
- John Thatch – CEO of Sharing Services Global Corporation (parent company)
- Dave Dove – Vice President of Hapi Travel and
- Dave Price – Operations Director of Hapi Travel
Whether Thatch is also CEO of Hapi Travel is unclear.
Update 11th September 2022 – In the comment below, Hapi Travels distributor Jeremy Jenkins has confirmed John Thatch is Hapi Travel’s interim CEO.
Presumably Thatch will hold this position till a new Hapi Travel CEO is found. When or why McGrath left remains unaddressed. /end update
Hapi Travel’s Products
Hapi Travel markets a $50 a month Explorer membership.
Explorer membership provides access to a discounted travel and entertainment booking portal, savings apps, gift cards and a telemedicine service.
HAPI Travel Members save on everything from professional sporting events and concerts to movie tickets, Disney & other theme park admissions, Broadway and Las Vegas shows, local and regional attractions and much more!
Additional savings apps include Shopping Boss.
Telemedicine is provided through SwiftMD.
SwiftMD is leading the modernization of routine medical care for patients and reducing costs for clients.
There are no long, complicated forms or online questionnaires to fill out and our average callback time to connect to a doctor is 7 minutes.
SwiftMD is a third-party company which, as far as I know, has no direct corporate ties to Hapi Travel.
Hapi Travel “add ons” include Elite+, Share Pack and Share & Stay Pack.
Elite+ is $2500 and then $244 a year.
Supercharge your membership with our value-packed ELITE +.
Get access to thousands of additional vacation options and huge savings on resorts in more than 80 nations around the globe.
A Share Pack is $250 and a Share & Stay Pack is $500. No information about these add ons is provided.
Hapi Travel’s Compensation Plan
Hapi Travel’s compensation plan pays on Explorer membership sales to retail customers and recruited affiliates.
Direct Commission
Hapi Travel affiliates earn a 15% commission on Explorer memberships they personally sell to retail customers and recruited affiliates.
Residual Commissions
Hapi Travel pays residual commissions on Explorer Memberships via ten bonus pools.
Each bonus pool is referred to as a “club” and is made up of 3% of company-wide membership revenue.
Qualifying for each club requires the following criteria be met:
- Club 1 – sell and maintain 3 Explorer memberships, and generate and maintain 5 company Explorer memberships
- Club 2 – sell and maintain 6 Explorer memberships, and generate and maintain 15 company Explorer memberships
- Club 3 – sell and maintain 10 Explorer memberships, and generate and maintain 80 company Explorer memberships
- Club 4 – sell and maintain 15 Explorer memberships, and generate and maintain 250 company Explorer memberships
- Club 5 – sell and maintain 20 Explorer memberships, and generate and maintain 500 company Explorer memberships
- Club 6 – sell and maintain 30 Explorer memberships, and generate and maintain 1000 company Explorer memberships
- Club 7 – sell and maintain 40 Explorer memberships, generate and maintain 1200 total downline and 2500 company Explorer memberships
- Club 8 – sell and maintain 50 Explorer memberships, generate and maintain 3000 total downline and 5000 company Explorer memberships
- Club 9 – sell and maintain 60 Explorer memberships, generate and maintain 8,000 total downline and 10,000 company Explorer memberships
- Club 10 – sell and maintain 100 Explorer memberships, generate and maintain 20,000 total downline and 25,000 company Explorer memberships
Clubs are qualified for sequentially and accumulate, provided qualification criteria is maintained.
Note that a Hapi Travel affiliate’s own travel membership counts towards their own membership quota.
Total downline memberships are travel memberships sold by anyone in a Hapi Travel affiliate’s downline (directly and indirectly recruited affiliates).
Company memberships refer to any memberships sold within Hapi Travel, tracked after you join the company.
Only active Explorer memberships count towards residual commission qualification.
Bonus Club
The Bonus Club is funded by another 3% of Hapi Travel company-wide Explorer membership sales.
To qualify for the Bonus Club, new Hapi Travel affiliates must qualify for Club 2 within 30 days of signing up.
Once qualified for, as long as Club 2 qualification is retained, affiliates will continue to receive the Bonus Club every month.
For Club 2 qualification criteria, refer to “Residual Commissions” above.
Joining Hapi Travel
Hapi Travel affiliate membership is $25 annually.
Hapi Travel Conclusion
Hapi Travel is a more streamlined offering than what was available in January 2022.
We don’t know who’s running the company, there’s now only one membership option, and The Happy Co’s “this doesn’t really fit” compensation plan is gone.
Whereas Hapi Travel’s membership previously cost $59 a month, it’s been dropped to $50 a month. The previously cheaper $29 a month option is also gone.
As far as I can tell the offering is mostly the same, perhaps minus Koiyn Cash Back?
Hapi Travel’s simplified compensation plan’s weakest point is there being no requirement for retail Explorer membership sales.
This means you can pay $25, sign up for Explorer at $50 a month and get paid to recruit others who do the same.
This would be your classic MLM pyramid scheme.
Something I haven’t seen addressed anywhere is whether Hapi Travel affiliates are required to purchase and maintain an Explorer membership.
Regardless, if the majority of Explorer memberships are held by Hapi Travel affiliates, this would confirm the company is operating as a pyramid scheme.
Establishing whether your potential Hapi Travel upline is running their business as a pyramid scheme is easy.
Ask what Club tier they’ve qualified for, see how many personal memberships they’re required to sell to qualify, and ask how many of those memberships are retail memberships (memberships sold to people who haven’t paid the $25 Hapi Travel affiliate fee).
If the ratio is anything less than a 50/50 split, that affiliate is running their Hapi Travel business as a pyramid scheme.
I can’t say whether this is the case company-wide, but the intentional vagueness and lack of retail membership requirements would certainly suggest so.
Between Hapi Travel’s ongoing disclosure issues, rudderless management and a question mark over retail sales compliance, I don’t think Hapi Travel is ready for (re)launch.
Update 7th September 2023 – A few months after this review was published Hapi Travel appears to have rebooted as My Travel Ventures.
Jeremy Jenkins is promoting this big time. After Nui, rNetwork and MyCOM Jeremy is putting together quite a resume of other than legal MLMs to his name.
Hmm… I wonder who GlimDropper could be… obviously a fan. 🙂
Anyway, regarding “legality”, being a student of Oz and this website for the last 15 years, believe me, I know what to look for and I also know that not every review gets “everything” right and what is “legal” may not necessarily be “ethical”.
That being said, yes, Nui turned into something I wasn’t comfortable with, so I left. rNetwork wasn’t “illegal” it just couldn’t get things off the ground. MyCOM doesn’t have anything illegal about it either, it’s just in the same situation.
Once it get’s off the ground and offers a real opportunity, I have no doubt it will be totally compliant. But I learned my lesson back in 2010 with TVI Express, having put in $200, invited a few people hoping to cash out my $10k and then having it crash and burn, losing my money and hurting some people I cared about.
Since then, I have been overly careful to no be involved in the obvious “based in Dubai or Southeast Asia, give us your crypto and money and we’ll magically turn it into free money” stuff.
I do prefer services over physical products, as I find them easier to promote for my international friends. I’m sure many would opine that services automatically make it a ponzi, as it isn’t a real product. But that is just opinion.
SO regarding Hapi… here is why I feel it is actually VERY compliant, legal, etc.
To clarify Oz’s question about “retail” requirement… that is the VERY thing that Hapi is doing right.
This new compensation/referral plan is designed SPECIFICALLY to be more like an affiliate program (think Amazon affiliate, or any other affiliate type program that an influencer may wish to promote).
There are only three ways to earn. 1) Rewards points based on actual retail purchases. 2) 15% direct commission on all products/services purchased. 3) Bonus Club pools. No levels. No ranks.
Anyone, even free customers can earn reward points.
Promoters can earn dollars.
To earn dollars, there is NO personal consumption required. You can enroll 100% customers who purchase a membership or purchase travel and earn 15%. Period. No enrolling a single Promoter is required.
To earn on the revenue sharing Clubs, you need to have personally enrolled a certain amount of Customers OR Promoters with a membership to share in the Club. Period. They can ALL be customers. Again, no Promoters required. No legs to build.
Regarding the “ratio” factor, I personally have enrolled over 100 people, of those less than half are Promoters. Of those purchasing a membership, again, more than half are actual customers who are purchasing just because they love the product and are saving tons of money on their travel.
It’s that simple. Nothing fishy. Nothing pyramid like. No forced “autoship”. Join for free. Try it out. If you like it, great, get a membership. If not, be part of the community, earn some points and use those points to get a free membership. No pressure. Real savings. Real customers.
Regarding the corporate structure, yes, technically the parent company of Sharing Services and JT Thatch as CEO is acting CEO of Hapi Travel. So it’s a real company, owned by a real, public company, with real financial backing, a real office in Utah, real customer service and call center, etc.
Believe me, I’m done with companies that don’t have the financial backing and who aren’t doing things they are supposed to.
I am legit about helping my team and finding something that will be LONG TERM because it’s real, easy, compliant and not going to go away on us. I’m just freaking tired of having to start over all the time. That’s why I chose Hapi and I’m “Happy” I did. 🙂
MLM is MLM and Amazon and other single-level commission programs aren’t MLM.
Hapi Travel is MLM. If the majority of active Explorer memberships are held by affiliates, Hapi Travel is operating as a pyramid scheme.
There are no retail volume incentives in Hapi Travel’s compensation plan, as noted in the review. So I’m not sure how this equates to “the very thing Hapi is doing right”.
That’s good to hear. It’d be good to see an active member ratio published by Hapi Travel at some point (after the re-re-launch hype dies down).
Or if most affiliates have a retail heavy membership spread, just implement retail volume requirements and put the matter to rest.
Thanks for clarifying that, I’ll update the review.
Don’t suppose you have any insight into Garrett McGrath’s “swept under the rug” departure?
Is this Happy company and HapiTravel related to the company I saw at:
(Ozedit: link removed)
and at:
(Ozedit: link removed)
If you look at the company of similar name at the links I posted earlier, there are no 50 dollar a month fees, no 2500 dollar startup fee and no MLM structure as well as no volume requirements.
In addition, the travel rates quoted to traveling customers are below discounted retail rates because they are wholesale rates.
Then no, they are not related. Getting strong spammy vibes.