A part-time travel agent has reacted angrily to claims from holiday club members that he is stockpiling fees and not delivering discount cards.

A letter to The Royal Gazette claimed Kevin Darrell had failed to send out club membership cards, eight months after promising cheap hotel and travel rates.

The author claimed he had "probably made seven percent interest on our money by now'' -- and said prospective members had been left in the dark.

It is understood the BPSA has hundreds of would-be club members, who each paid $50 to join.

But Mr. Darrell, the exclusive Bermuda agent for Norwegian-owned Hotel Express, said he was not to blame for the delay in handing out membership cards.

And he promised travel discounts would be valid for a full year when the cards finally arrived.

Mr. Darrell, who only works for Hotel Express in his spare time, sent out flyers to members of the Bermuda Public Service Association last June.

Several forms were faxed back to him weeks later.

But the confusion began when Hotel Express was taken over by new owners around the same time.

Mr. Darrell told The Royal Gazette : "Yes, there's been a delay but it has nothing to do with me.

"The company was under new ownership in the States last June and I didn't find out about it until the end of August.

"The new owners are based in Norway, I have been dealing with them and they have a new representative for the US and the Caribbean, based in Virginia.

"He's been trying to get this new programme developed and it's been a case of starting from scratch.

"I have only been telling my customers what the firm has been telling me.'' He said bosses sent him company information on cheap hotels but told him to print his own booklets -- and he wanted to send the brochures out with the new membership cards.

Mr. Darrell added: "They said I would have to have booklets published myself, they sent me some information on computer but it wasn't formatted for publishing on disk.

"I went to some printers to get the booklets out but I was quoted some utterly ridiculous prices.

"Someone was going to charge me $75 an hour and it was at least a ten-hour job.

"This is now what I have been trying to get organised for the past few weeks.

I got a copy done on my own printer but they came out terribly so that led to another delay.

"Now I'm getting a computer disk reformatted so the job can be done once and for all.'' Mr. Darrell added that the cards and booklets would be available "as soon as possible''.

And he quashed fears the membership cards may only be valid for the remainder of the year.

"These people are going to get their membership cards,'' said Mr. Darrell.

"And I had been planning on sending people cards valid for a year anyway. I would not give them half a year's membership.

"I have had difficulties too. I have had nothing to sell since June because the company's under new ownership and they have taken months and months to come up with a new list of hotels.

"The membership booklets include the lists and I just wanted to send them out at the same time as the cards. But my finances are very low at the moment and I do not feel this has been my fault.'' The letter to The Royal Gazette added: "Mr. Darrell, what type of business are you running? "Not even a public apology to your customers. We should get a card for 1998/9 free of charge on top of the ones that we are still to receive.'' BPSA General Secretary Edward Ball said: "We only act as a medium between our members and Mr. Darrell and we pass the applications directly on to him.

"It's his job to process them and get them back to the club members.''