World Ventures Review: I Don’t Think You’ll Want to Travel with Them!

Welcome to my World Ventures review!

Chances are, someone has just introduced to you this great opportunity to make money while traveling around the world.

Or you're just like me, received a video showing you the luxurious lifestyle with people holding on to a sign saying "You Should Be Here", right?

If you've seen World Ventures's website or watch their videos before, you'll definitely be familiar with this sign.

In this WorldVentures review, I will focus more on the business part of this company and reveal to you "WHAT's THE CATCH?" behind making money while traveling.

A lot of people have been asking and questioning if World Ventures is a pyramid scheme. I'll give you the facts and prove it to you whether it is or it isn't...

World Ventures is a travel Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) company that encourages distributors to share photos of themselves holding signs saying “You Should Be Here.”

It's founded in 2005 by Wayne Nugent in Plano, Texas. One good thing about this company is that it has been in business for more than a decade and it's now expanded to 34 markets with more than half a million members.

What they actually do is that they offer the following 2 things:

1. Discount travel packages for you to enjoy cheaper holidays
2. A way to make "easy money" by sharing this opportunity to others

I highlighted "easy money" because just like many other MLM, they make it sounds so easy to make big cash with them.

(Side note: You should be really cautious when you're presented with new opportunities that sound too good to be true!)

Have you heard of Walmart?

Walmart has its own supermarket selling discounted grocery products. Walmart purchases their stocks in bulk so that they can offer you products at a much cheaper price.

World Ventures work in a similar way as Walmart. They book their trips and hotel rooms in bulk so that they can offer members discounted travel packages.

On the other hand, World Ventures is kinda like Costco for its members.

World Ventures members have to pay a monthly membership fee to enjoy travel discounts. It's just like Costco where you pay a membership fee to get discounts on their products.

Finally, World Ventures' Independent Representatives (IR) are kinda like those salesmen/saleswomen trying to persuade people to become a Costco member.

They're paid based on how many people they "enroll".

So that's basically how World Ventures work. I hope these analogies make sense to you...

DreamTrips is a brand developed by World Ventures to help you plan, book and organize your trips.

And DreamTrips membership is the main "product" for World Ventures.

This is their basic membership level and the cost is a one-time fee of $199.95 and a monthly recurring fee of $26.99.

With this membership, you have the basic rights to collect DreamTrips points, redeem DreamTrips discounts and also make money by sharing World Ventures as an Independent Representative.

(Note: You'll be paying around $500 for the first year)

The cost of joining the Gold membership is a one-time fee of $199.95 and a monthly recurring fee of $49.99.

The additional benefits of Gold membership as compared to regular membership include things like Airport transfers, flight accident insurance, Airport parking discounts, etc...

(Note: You'll be paying around $750 for the first year)

Lastly, DreamTrips Platinum Membership costs a one-time fee of $299.95 and a monthly recurring fee of $99.99.

Some additional benefits include:

• DreamTrips Platinum experiences (basically better services)
• Upgraded Trips (e.g. Hotel room upgrades, SPA discounts...)
• Emergency evacuation service
• Advance booking access

(Note: You'll be paying around $1400 for the first year)

These are the 3 main products you'll be using and selling if you want to make money.

For example, you will earn $50 for every DreamTrips Platinum Member and you'll earn $250 bonus for every 6 referrals.

FYI, if you don't want to travel or you can't travel, you can use the points to dine at your local restaurant, receive entertainment discounts, get roadside assistance, identify theft protection, etc...

That's the solution for people who are not traveling. But honestly, I think it is overpriced to get these services.

For the sake of those who are not familiar with MLM, let me briefly explain how MLM works.

Basically, if you join a MLM or network marketing company, there are 2 main ways for you to make money:

1. Sell the company's products and earn retail profit (In the case of WV, you sell travel packages)
2. Introduce this business opportunity to your friends or any other people and "recruit" them into the system.

However, it's usually more profitable to recruit more people as you can work as a team and you can earn money if your downline make sales.

Let's take a look at how you can make money with World Ventures:

World Ventures has a very complicated compensation plan.

As you can see in the video above, this guy called James, was trying to make the whole plan easier to understand. But let me ask you, do you actually understand their whole compensation plan?

All I know is that:

• You need to pay an upfront fee to join and continue paying a monthly membership fee.
• You need to recruit at least 4 active downlines so that you don't have to pay the monthly fee (This is what they called the "Refer 4 Pay No More")
• The more people you recruit the more money you can earn

Now, let's also take a look at the Compensation Plan Overview published by World Ventures.

​Normally, one MLM company will just adopt one type of plan such as the very common Binary Compensation Plan.

But in the case of WV, they not only have Linear, but they also have Binary plus many other types of Bonuses which only get more confusing.

World Ventures offer quite a number of training to help you hone your sales techniques and make more money.

Just like any other MLM business, you can get help from your sponsor (the person who introduce you to this business).

However, sometimes this creates a problem of "blind leading the blind" if the company doesn't have solid training in place.

Basically, it's a portal for members to learn everything they need to know about running the WorldVentures business.

Last but not least, World Ventures has its own Live Events where you can immerse yourself in the right environment and learn from the top leaders in the company/industry.

I believe this is very common for majority of the MLM companies out there. There will often be some conventions held every year and/or every season.

Another tool you'll get as a WV member is a personal website for you to share your trips and promote WV to others.

However, since these websites are all duplicated and even identical to one another, it's really hard for you to get any results by running this website.

Duplicated websites won't get rankings in the search engine so the only way to drive traffic is by using paid methods like Facebook Ads.

Unless you're already an experienced internet marketer, it's really hard for you to fully leverage this personal website they offer you.

First of all, World Ventures is for you if you...

• Have enough capital to invest every month
• Have some experience in MLM. If not, it'll be very hard for you to withstand the pressure
• Don't mind travelling with other WV members whom you may not be familiar with

On the other hand, World Ventures is NOT for you if you...

• Are in debt
• Don't have enough cash-flow to support you
• Are shy and afraid to talk to people
• Don't like recruiting
• Have money but no time to learn and grow your business
• Don't like to travel or you don't like travelling with people you don't know

World Ventures managed to achieve the No. 25 rank on the Direct Selling News Global 100 list!

Other achievements include:

• No. 1 in the list of Top U.S. Mid-Market Companies ($300M to $999M) with $926.6M
• No. 1 in Consistent Growth from 2009 to 2016 with a 927% increase
• No. 2 in the $100 Million Growth Club ($233M growth in 2016)
• No. 12 in the top 20 U.S. Companies

World Ventures set up their own World Ventures Foundation in 2010 which aims at creating positive change in the lives of children all over the world.

This means that they support sustainable programs that promote children's health, happiness, safety and development.

Just like many other MLM companies, there's a monthly recurring fee you need to pay for your World Ventures membership.

This monthly fee ranges from $27 per month to $100 per month depending on your membership level.

By paying this membership fee, you won't get anything physical in return. Instead, you'll gain points which can be accumulated and redeemed for discount trips or meals when you need.

Like what I've mentioned earlier on, the only way for you to waive the monthly fee is by referring 4 active members joining World Ventures as your downlines.

To determine a MLM company's income potential, just take a look at their Income Disclosure Statement:

As you can see, 5.19% of members are earning around $245 per year, 9.58% are making $243 per year. That's how you look at the table.

But do you notice that the percentages in this table don't add up to 100%? That's because majority of the members are not making any money at all.

Take a look at the disclosure statement below:

It says...

"At the end of December 2016, there were 225,742 WorldVentures IRs (Independent Representatives) in the United States. During the period of January 2016 to December 2016, 20.05% of ALL IRs earned a commission or overrude, while 79.95% did not."

This really shocked me. The stats show that about 80% of ALL WorldVentures IRs never make any money at all!

I'm not saying it's impossible to make money with WV but it's just too hard to even earn a decent income.

The benefit of DreamTrips is that you don't need to spend hours researching and planning for your own trip.

But I think it's important for me to expose some of the negative sides of the trips planned by DreamTrips.

1. Flights are NOT included in their packages
2. You need to be prepared to share trips with other WV members

The downside of having everything planned for you is that you lose the freedom to discover the world. Everything in the trip are all well-planned in advance.

As you can see earlier on, it's really hard to understand WV's compensation plan even though James has tried simplifying it.

They're combining Linear with Binary structure and also including a number of different bonuses.

It really misleading because they keep on showing attractive photos of members travelling the world holding the sign "You Should Be Here."

But in reality, it's really hard to make any money as you have just seen in the income disclosure statement.

Also, if you've checked out WorldVentures website, you'll realize that:

1. They don't even mention to you what you'll be selling or doing
2. You have no idea how much does the travel packages costs because you can't even view any of them on their website

What they do is all about creating hype and false hopes that it's very easy to travel and make money at the same with with the help of WV.

Although they didn't explicitly say that, that's the main message they are trying to deliver.

That's why I said it's very misleading.

Last but not least, this is the most important part about whether WV is a pyramid scheme.

World Ventures has gotten into quite a number of lawsuits all over the world.

For example...

• World Ventures was identified as pyramid scheme in South Africa by the National Consumer Commission
• In 2014, World Ventures ceased operation in Norway because they were identified as pyramid scheme once again
• Recently in 2017, there's a lawsuit filed against World Ventures by Melody Yiru who accused the company of being an endless chain recruitment scheme that is prohibited under California law.

There are lots of these information online. You can go and read them if you're interested.

But the most important thing here is that we all know World Ventures is a very controversial company. Whether WV is a pyramid scheme is really subjective.

But the fact that there are countries banning WorldVentures show us that this is definitely not the kind of business you'll want to go into, right?

World Ventures is not considered as a pyramid scheme because they can make money by selling travel memberships/packages. 

These are considered real products or services. Once there are real products and services involved, it's not a pyramid scheme.

A program can only be called a pyramid scheme if the only way to make money is by recruiting people into the system.

However, the fact that World Ventures is banned in certain countries tell us something else about this program.

Some countries call WV a pyramid scheme because World Ventures rewards recruiting over sales of travel packages.

WV Independent Representatives all focus on recruiting more downlines into the system so that they don't have to pay the monthly fees themselves.

Just this incentive alone shows that they focus a lot on recruiting. Who doesn't want to have their monthly fee waived?

So my conclusion is that the line between whether WV is a pyramid scheme is very blur.

But I think the most important thing is to stay away from this "business opportunity" after knowing all these downsides of this program.

Let me ask you a question...

If you want to plan a trip, would you rather trust Travel Agencies than your friend who probably has never been to the place before?

I know some people don't like Travel Agents. But at least they're more reliable to help you plan a trip than your inexperienced friend, right?

Oh by the way, there are also many travel Apps and platforms to help people plan trips and book hotels, such as Expedia and Travelocity.

There are lots of them out there today and you can easily compare the prices, etc. Why do you need WorldVentures which you need to keep paying a monthly membership fee?

That's why I don't recommend World Ventures, regardless you want to plan your trip or make money.

You don't have to travel with other World Ventures members whom you may not be familiar with. There are much better ways to make money online.

Why not create your own passive income streams and travel anytime anywhere you want?

My top recommended way for creating your own passive income stream is via Affiliate Marketing.

You don't need to...

• "Recruit" your friends & family members in order to make money
• Keep paying expensive membership fees just to get some discounts

In fact, with affiliate marketing...