TheClub.Travel, one of the more awkwardly named MLM companies I’ve come across, provides no corporate ownership or management information on its website.

TheClub.Travel’s website domain (“theclub.travel”), was privately registered on July 26th, 2021.

Further research reveals Jonathon McKillip citing himself as CEO of TheClub.Travel on Facebook:

McKillip made a name for himself as WorldVentures’ Global Sales President.

In 2016 Malaysia went after WorldVentures for violating tourism laws. McKillip defended the company, inadvertently admitting WorldVentures was a pyramid scheme.

Our product is not travel packages. Our product is merely the (WorldVentures) membership.

McKillip resigned from WorldVentures in December 2017. He signed on as President of MaVie in January 2018.

In June 2018 McKillip was a named defendant in WorldVentures’ lawsuit against Ariix and MaVie.

The litigation pertained to unfair competition alleged against Ariix, MaVie, McKillip and several former WorldVentures employees.

In July 2018 an injunction was entered against McKillip, barring further use of confidential information obtained from his WorldVentures employment.

In late 2019, it emerged prosecutors in Taiwan had filed criminal charges against WorldVentures.

Taiwanese prosecutors alleged WorldVentures was a “classic pyramid scheme”. Then President Eddie Head and McKillip were named as defendants.

To the best of my knowledge neither Head or McKillip defended the charges.

McKillip left Mavie in December 2019. In February 2021 he was appointed President of Hapi Travel.

Parent company Elevacity Holdings, now The Happy Co., eventually launched Hapi Travel as Hapi Travel Destinations in October 2021.

Jonathan McKillip wasn’t part of the company. As per McKillip’s LinkedIn profile, he left Hapi Travel in August 2021.

That brings us to the launch of TheTravel.Club, McKillip’s own travel MLM company, on or around August 2021.

That’s not a typo. McKillip left Hapi Travel and launched TheClub.Travel in the same month.

Why McKillip isn’t featured on TheClub.Travel’s website is unclear.

Read on for a full review of TheClub.Travel’s MLM opportunity.

TheClub.Travel’s Products

TheClub.Travel markets three travel booking membership subscriptions:

  • Leisure costs $25 a month and provides access to a travel booking platform, 50% hotels and resorts pricing discount, car rental booking service, cruises, “activities at destination cities” and “hotel credits”
  • Globetrotter costs $50 a month and adds 100% hotels and resorts pricing discount, vacation rentals, “advanced access to club travel posting” and cyber protection
  • High Flyer costs $100 a month and adds “daily discounts (US only)”, a VIP concierge service”, personal travel agent and “fast pass passport and visa service”

Of note is TheClub.Travel’s Policies and Procedures referencing a “Value Package”.

Currently Members can choose a monthly subscription. They can also purchase a Value Package.

The Value package is offered as an added value for those who may travel more than the average consumer.

No details of the Value Package are provided on TheClub.Travel’s website.

In addition to travel memberships, TheClub.Travel also directly sells “hotel credits”:

  • Economy costs $250 for 550 in hotel credits
  • Club costs $500 for 550 hotel credits plus $50 credit towards your first “Club Trip”
  • Premier costs $1000 for 1150 hotel credits plus $100 credit towards your first “Club Trip”.

Presumably hotel credits are put towards hotel accommodation. No specific information is provided.

The “Club Trips” section of TheClub.Travel’s website is marked “coming soon”.

TheClub.Travel also don’t disclose who any of their booking partners are.

TheClub.Travel’s Compensation Plan

TheClub.Travel’s compensation plan pays on sales volume generated via sales to retail customers and recruited affiliates.

This includes travel membership subscriptions and hotel credit packages. It does not include actual booked travel and travel related services.

TheClub.Travel Affiliate Ranks

There are twelve affiliate ranks within TheClub.Travel’s compensation plan.

Along with their respective qualification criteria, they are as follows:

  • Difference Maker – sign up as a TheClub.Travel affiliate and generate and maintain 25 PV a month
  • Explorer – generate and maintain 50 PV and 500 GV a month
  • Achiever – generate and maintain 100 PV and 1000 GV a month
  • Leader – maintain 100 PV a month and generate and maintain 2000 GV a month
  • Visionary – generate and maintain 150 PV, 50 RV and 5000 GV a month
  • Star – generate and maintain 200 PV, 100 RV and 10,000 GV a month
  • Rising Star – maintain 200 PV and 100 RV a month, and generate and maintain 20,000 GV a month
  • Winner – generate and maintain 250 PV, 150 RV and 50,000 GV a month
  • Champion – maintain 250 PV and 150 RV a month, and generate and maintain 100,000 GV a month
  • World Changer – generate and maintain 300 PV, 200 RV and 250,000 GV a month
  • Legend – maintain 300 PV and 200 RV a month, and generate and maintain 500,000 GV a month
  • Icon – maintain 300 PV and 200 RV a month, and generate and maintain 1,000,000 GV a month

PV stands for “Personal Volume” and is sales volume generated by sales to retail customers, recruited affiliates and a TheClub.Travel affiliate’s own purchases.

RV stands for “Referral Volume” and is sales volume generated by personally referred retail customers and recruited affiliates.

GV stands for “Group Volume” and is sales volume generated by an affiliate and their entire downline.

Note that for Leader to Champion, up to 50% of required GV can come from any one unilevel team leg.

For World Changer to Icon, this percentage is reduced to 40%.

Travel Subscription and Hotel Credits Commissions

TheClub.Travel affiliates earn a 40% commission on sales volume generated by travel membership fee payments.

These commissions are paid monthly for the life of the membership subscriptions.

Commissions are also paid on optional Economy, Club and Premier hotel credit package sales:

  • sale of the Economy hotel credits package pays $85
  • sale of the Club hotel credits package pays $170
  • sale of the Premier hotel credits package pays $340

Note that the same commission amounts are paid on retail and recruited affiliate purchase volume.

Residual Subscription Fee Commissions

TheClub.Travel pays residual subscription fee commissions via a unilevel compensation structure.

These are ongoing travel membership subscription fees paid both by retail customers and recruited affiliates.

A unilevel compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a unilevel team, with every personally recruited affiliate placed directly under them (level 1):

If any level 1 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 2 of the original affiliate’s unilevel team.

If any level 2 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 3 and so on and so forth down a theoretical infinite number of levels.

TheClub.Travel caps payable unilevel team levels at seven.

Residual subscription fee commissions are paid out across these levels based on rank:

  • Difference Makers earn 4% on level 1 (personally referred retail customers and recruited affiliates)
  • Explorers earn 4% on levels 1 and 2
  • Achievers earn 4% on levels 1 to 3
  • Leaders earn 4% on levels 1 to 4
  • Visionarys earn 4% on levels 1 and 2 and 5% on levels 3 to 5
  • Stars earn 4% on levels 1 and 2, 5% on levels 3 and 4, 6% on level 5 and 5% on level 6
  • Rising Stars earn 4% on levels 1 and 2, 5% on levels 3 and 4, 6% on levels 5 and 6 and 5% on level 7
  • Winners earn 4% on levels 1 and 2, 5% on level 3 and 6% on levels 4 to 7
  • Champions earn 4% on levels 1 and 2, 5% on level 3, 6% on levels 4 to 6 and 7% on level 6
  • World Changers earn 4% on levels 1 and 2, 6% on levels 3 to 5, 7% on level 6 and 8% on level 7
  • Legends earn 4% on levels 1 and 2, 6% on levels 3 to 5, 8% on level 6 and 9% on level 7
  • Icons earn 4% on levels 1 and 2, 6% on levels 3 to 5, 9% on level 6 and 10% on level 7

Residual Recruitment Commissions

TheClub.Travel pays residual recruitment commissions via a 3×10 matrix.

A 3×10 matrix places an affiliate at the top of a matrix, with three positions directly under them:

These three positions form the first level of the matrix. The second level of the matrix is generated by splitting these first three positions into another three positions each (9 positions).

Levels three to ten of the matrix are generated in the same manner, with each new level housing three times as many positions as the previous level.

A 4% residual recruitment commission is paid on sales volume generated via affiliates directly and indirectly recruited into the matrix.

Mentorship Bonus

TheClub.Travel qualify for the Mentorship Bonus by recruiting three affiliates and generating 2000 GV within their first thirty days.

Mentorship Bonus qualified affiliates earn $700 per personally recruited affiliate who also qualifies for the Mentorship Bonus.

Global Bonus Pools

TheClub.Travel takes 10% of company wide sales revenue and places it into seven smaller Global Bonus Pools.

  • 2% is put into a Momentum Pool
  • 1% is put into a Master Pool
  • 1% is put into a Legend Pool
  • 1% is put into a Founders Pool
  • 1% is put into an Icon Pool
  • 1.5% is put into a Legacy Pool
  • 2.5% is put into a Consistency Pool

TheClub.Travel don’t provide specific qualification criteria for the pools, stating only;

You can qualify for multiple pools each month—for some as the
result of your activity, and for some because of your rank.

Joining TheClub.Travel

TheClub.Travel affiliate membership is $99.95 and then $29.95 a month.

TheClub.Travel Conclusion

TheClub.Travel is pretty much a continuation of Jonathan McKillip’s time at WorldVentures.

Retail subscription sales are possible but there’s no incentive or requirement to focus on it. Within the wider context of TheClub.Travel’s compensation plan, it’s clear recruitment is what’s being pushed.

This begins with the previously stated lack of retail volume requirements. It continues through TheClub.Travel’s rank qualification criteria.

I’ve used standardized PV/GV definitions in the compensation analysis above. I had to introduce referral volume (RV), because of MyClub.Travel’s non-standard terminology.

RV is as close to retail volume requirements as MyClub.Travel gets, but it includes recruited affiliate volume.

Nonetheless, RV doesn’t kick in until Visionary, where 50 RV is required against 150 PV.

The only difference between RV and PV is PV includes an affiliate’s own spend. This implies that, at a minimum, 100 PV of the required 150 PV will be a MyClub.Travel affiliate’s own spend.

This isn’t set in stone but becomes obvious as you go along higher ranks and see RV consistently trailing by 100 PV.

Then we have certain commissions and bonuses targeted at recruitment.

This includes matrix commissions, the Mentorship Bonus and likely the undefined Global Bonus Pools.

It is in the “matrix income” description that we find the core of MyClub.Travel’s business model cited;

You enroll three people, then they enroll three people, and so on to fill your matrix.

So long as everyone has a travel subscription and keeps up with payments, commissions are paid.

Where MyClub.Travel differs from WorldVentures is no commissions are paid on travel. It is important to note however that this came later.

From launch and during McKillip’s tenure, WorldVentures also didn’t pay any commissions on travel (hence the “we only sell memberships” statement from McKillip in 2016).

I’m not suggesting McKillip was solely responsible for WorldVentures operating as a pyramid scheme. I’m merely pointing out MyClub.Travel doesn’t differ much from WorldVentures then compensation plan.

It’s probably what McKillip intended to set up with MaVie, until the granted injunction killed momentum.

The Happi Travel tenure prior to TheClub.Travel launching is certainly strange. No doubt McKillip launching a competing MLM travel opportunity the month he left Happi Travel raised some eyebrows.

But that’s beyond the scope of analysing TheClub.Travel as a standalone MLM opportunity.

The good news is ascertaining whether your potential upline is focused on retail sales is easy.

Just ask them what their active monthly retail subscription volume is, and compare to their personally recruited affiliate monthly subscription volume.

If it’s not at least 50% retail volume, that affiliate is running their TheClub.Travel business as a pyramid scheme.

And if that’s prevalent across the company, well you only need to look at how WorldVentures played out to see where that ends.