Bluegreen offering us free airline tickets????

[hillaryk Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close hillaryk]

Hi, My fiance and I were contacted last week to go down to Wisconsin Dells to one of Bluegreen's resorts to listen to a presentation for timeshares. (We're not interested in purchasing one right now, but they said we're not obligated to buy anthing either.) After we listen to the presentation we're guaranteed 4 roundtrip tickets to a variety of destinations. We got the confirmation letter in the mail, and we're supposed to go down there Sat.

I've read on some other sites that there's a lot of "catches" with this, such as having to stay in certain hotels, etc.

Just wondering if anyone has had this experience and how it worked out for them. Basically, we'd like to use these tickets and go to Cancun this winter, but we want to stay in an all-inclusive hotel. If we have to pay $400 a night with nothing included, the tickets aren't worth it to us.

thanks,
Hillary

[dougp26364 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close dougp26364]

While I haven't done this with Bluegreen, I have seen this offer presented to me from other companies more than once. Generally speaking, there is an associated hotel booking the must go along with the "free" airline tickets and must be made through a specific TA. They make up for the "free" airline tickets with an inflated price for the hotel.

The only time this was not the case was a travel club presentation for Travel More Now (a worthless travel company plan IMO). However, we did have to go through their TA and had the devil of a time getting what was promised. We had to choose three different dates and then wait on them to reply. Generally, they replied less than 30 days before our latest (furthest out) date of travel to tell us there was no availability and to choose new dates. There was no phone number listed to call them and all business was one through snail mail. They did list a phone number but it was a dead end recording directing you on how to mail your request in.

In the end I had to research the company online and finally located a working phone number for them. They tried the same song and dance about choosing three dates and they'd get back to me. I told them I'd been doing that for over a year and I wanted THEM to pick the dates. That was the only way we recieved our "free" airfare.

Having been through this three of four times with different companies, I just toss these offers in the trash when I get them.

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

Often times these "free" tickets require paying an airport tax of about $200 per ticket.

It is too good to be true. The total cost of a premium for attending a timeshare presentation is usually less than $100. Everything else is just smoke and mirrors. You are better off just taking cash.