An owner update at the fountains, Feb 2012

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

So my wife and I went on an owner update just the other day here at the Fountains. I had a couple of questions for crew here and some comments. I love BG resorts and love at I get out of my points. I m posting this to see what others think and hopefully help someone out in future presentation.

So to begin with we told an hour presentation vs 90 mins elsewhere... We got out in 2 hours and did purchase any upgrades. *It was stated that they would have pastries for us there, sadly there were only bulk purchased little Debbie looking cinnamon rolls. Fail #1.

The first thing the really pushed was the travelers plus 3 ( what happen to travelers plus 2?) of anything mentioned - it did sound really cool to use point for hotels - particularly Disney property hotels. Others like Hilton and Marriott were mentioned and the approximate trade was stated as 100 dollars equals 1000 points. The funny thing is that they mentioned this as something costing about a 1000 dollars to enroll in ( maybe 1500?) anyhoo- we inquired about just purchasing the tp3 - no dice. However the sales folk would gladly waive the enrollment fee and give the first year for free if we bought points. Fail #2 as they misrepresent the product. This was quickly followed by Fail #3 as the sales rep told me we could use the tp3 to use points for Disney resorts (DVC). *I did not inquire further on this one but I am guessing this is a connection like Shell vacation club vs what's available in RCI. she really thought this was awesome, but given I can use RCI, no thanks.

Next was the hard sale on upgrading to silver ( we're bronze right now) . So many benefits. *Fail #4 was the attempt to convince me her theory on getting free points via free upgrades could work. She claims the way to do this is to book the upgrade unit and a regular unit, then pay the $35 cancellation fee on the upgraded unit, and bam! - you will have saved a upgrade unit for you to grab for less points and hence earning you free points. In theory I guess this could work, but so could Communism. *How effective have folks been with getting upgrades?

Fail #5 is a classic one. I am by no means an expert, but I am a veteran on many timeshare presentations. They bring in a older gentleman who is the guy with the deal of the day. He claims he's going give us 1000 free points if we buy 5000. *The guy proceeds to play with the numbers on the calculator thinking I would nt catch him. I caught him entering a set of numbers twice that we're not what he was saying or matching the deal I just mentioned. He gets flustered and says he needs a real estate calculator ( really? ) and excuses himself. *He comes back with a sheet that had some prices on it to try to earn my trust back- I check the sheet and there is like a 300 dollar difference between 5000 and 6000 points. From my quick math in my head - he was trying to charge us the 6000 price every time.*

To confuse matters more - when we started out the older gentleman stated we never made a decision on some public offering price. He said it got mailed out sometime ago (2008 was our last * owner update) apparently twice. We were getting the special price since we never made a decision apparently. Fail #6 is that he makes a crack about how long have we lived at our home address- and since I ve owned the same home since becoming a BG members thought this was odd . I read every piece email and mail from BG. I ve never heard of this public offering and this really sounded like a sales tactic- Does anyone know ANYTHING about this?*

I start to have some "fun" with the older gentleman, he ups the ante a bit and offers me a 5 day cruise on Royal Caribbean and *the ever popular RCI certificates, one for each of the next three years and claims he can do 1.83 a point. *I dance with him a bit and he doubles the RCI offer to two a year. I tell him why do I want that? I love BlueGreen not RCI, plus the RCI stuff is based on availability in their system, no thanks try again, fail # 7. Oh yeah, not to mention those lovely 4000 blue and white week bonus points- like I can use those!

So after I dispatched the older gentleman, they bring in the closer. Younger guy who plays clueless to anything going on, and wants to "get answers" to my questions. *He plays "good cop" and I tell him- enough with the "game", give me the rock bottom price. 2.10 a point is what he says he can do, *I ask to see the sheet the other guy had at 1.83 point, but it s no where to be found. the young guy doesnt know anything about the sheet, and there's fail # 8. Funny though he asks me if my other updates are like this( blaming me?, really ?) and tell him no and we rack up fail#9. We look over his numbers and say no thanks.

The young guy bids us adieu and we are ready to get out of Dodge and older guy comes back with the hail Mary. This is sorta new one. We started with a sample years ago and rolled it into a package. *This is the same kinda of deal- the want to sell you a "owners sampler". It like 1000 dollars for 9000 points for the year but I get a letter (no word if would have given to me live or mailed) to lock in today's prices. *I give him credit, he was persistent, but no thanks.

We get our completed tour voucher and stand in line for about 10 minutes. The folks in front of us chat us up and we tell them they offered us silver. They tell us they've been silver for 6 months and we offered the gold upgrade. They told us that they were trying to just figure out the benefits of silver. *We share a laugh and wish each other the best.

We get our gift card and we get another offer. Fail #10 comes in the offer to exchange our gift card for an RCI certificate, $249 value. I pass and we go our merry way.

Needless to say this was the roughest *BG sales pitch I ve had. * I love BG and the experience *i ve had , I was really thrown but this update. It seemed like an old school one from like Fairfield or one thing. The Older gentleman said that he used to work for Westgate, but I ve only had family members attend there presentations, not me personally.

A few notes on the fountains ... Bldg 4 is getting a refresh and I see a few painters here in bldg 5. The food is very good and the location of the resort is outstanding. The free wifi is awesome as well.

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

Thanks for the heads up.
I'm going in December and will not be doing the "update".

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

Enjoy your stay. It really is a nice resort- one the nicest BG for certain. It definitely had the best pools and fitness room I ve ever seen at a BG resort.

To be clear we did not buy any upgrades ( sorry for any typos - I wanted to post this while it was still fresh in my mind last night and this iPad autocorrect can be tricky).

If anyone has real info on the "public offering" bit the fed to us in the sales pitch or anything else i mentioned please post it.

Owner updates from my experience have not been this high pitch before. I attend because I want to be informed, though BG does a pretty go job in there in monthly emails. If you have 3 hours to kill, and the "prize" they offer is worth it, just keeping say no in your head and at the end.

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

I have had 2 updates at the Fountains. First was with a guy with experience. He didn't give me the usual 'you have xxx points and are silver' when we have 5 accounts and a much higher point amount and are gold. He figured by our travels we could not be silver, so talked to us about using the points we have. No pressure. Also, very poor breakfast with pre-formed egg things, old rolls and tiny plates.

Second update was with a future trophy wife. Hair and nails and dress all perfect and little brains to go with it. She didn't know the basics, she was new she said. I hope she quit and went home to her sugar daddy cause I never want to deal with her again.

As far as a building, I have stayed in 3 both times. If you are not in the corner room, it is a nice large unit. We had the corner last time, it had a tiny kitchen table that would have a tough time with 2 people, we had guest over one night and ate on the table in the porch. I like the old buildings location, not near the new water park and the noises generated in the area. However, if you have kids, that would be the perfect place, let them have fun while there. That is why you vacation, to have fun.

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

system change

Thank you for posting your experience, we had a very similar experience in St. Augustine this week. It just really made me start to wonder if there was anything that the sales people say that can be believed.

We received the digs about not responding to our mail and that they were closing our account because we did not respond to the tons of e-mails they sent. Our correspondance must have been lost in "mail" and sent to spam, because we did not received this information. Personally, I was insults by the way they made us feel as if we were lazy and irresponsible.

The sales people went on to tell us, that since we did not take advantage of our year to purchase additional points, that if we want to upgrade in the future that we will have to pay two seperate membership fees, and maintenance fees because we are in the old system and they can't combine our account with a new account. They also started the presentation by telling us that additional points would cost us $5/pt since we didn't respond to the public pricing e-mails.

Like others, the sales team came back with $1.8 per share, with all the previously mentioned "gifts" (i.e. traveler's plus 3 fees for a year). We declined to upgrade after two hours, and after reading the post about the best way to purchase points, will not be purchasing them through BG.

I am left with the question though, will we really have to pay two seperate club and maintenance fees if we decide to upgrade in the future?

This is the first time we have used our pts and the first update meeting we have been to. It did not leave a good taste, and I wish I would have done the research that everyone has suggested prior to buying last year. We got taken in by the high pressure sales and didn't make the wisest of decisions. On the flip side we are having a wonderful vacation, which was the point of buying the timeshare in the first place.

[Tom in GA Member Find all posts View Profile Close Tom in GA]

Update at Club 36

We just got from Las Vegas Club 36 ten days ago. Our owner update was professional and thorough. We were offered the update to silver..we are bronze...the Travelers Plus 3 and the MasterCard deal. We did not take any of the offers. The two gentlemen who work with us were pleasant, non-pushy and professional. We walked out with our $100 gift card which we used to see Jubilee...a very nice production number at Bally's.

Now I have to admit one thing. My wife and I are both owners and stockholders in Bluegreen (not a lot, but enough to know how the company is performing... which is not too bad in this economic environment). I printed off several stock analyst reviews and percent of ownership of Bluegreen stock. The two gentlemen were interested in the printouts so I left them for their reading. They could see that I knew more than the average owner (info from this great forum, etc.) so their pitch basically turned out to be a check-off list of things they had to present at each update. They were curious about my thoughts on my blended point mix (Bluegreen and resale) and what I thought of owner impressions of other resorts. I did convey that resale points do 'hurt' the original point sales, but do help in keeping the maintenace fees paid. As I expect employees of Bluegreen to be thorough and professional in their jobs....well done.

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

Tom, what day did you go? We did ours March 10 and certainly did not get the guy you had.

[Tom in GA Member Find all posts View Profile Close Tom in GA]

Club 36 Update

We had our update on March 8th. We find that if you go into these things with a lot of knowledge, how the system works and what you will 'get' in the update presentation it makes the whole thing tolerable. We always allow 2 hours for it all. We tend to start asking questions about new facilities, maintenace updates to properties, how sales are going, how long they have worked for Bluegreen (our salesman actually commuted from Phoenix), what they liked about Bluegreen, what resorts they have visited, etc. It tends to put both parties are ease. They we suprised I knew about the different trusts the different fees and I knew exactly how our trust maintence fees were calculated. I was interested in the Bluegreen MasterCard, but I explained that the point postings were...well, a bit delayed at best. They took note of that comment.

FYI. The six stock analyst reports that I left with them indicated 3 buy and 3 hold recommendations for Bluegreen. Mr Maloney, our President, has done a good job with cash flow, but earnings are flat and a bit below the average for our industry. Also, look for a new possible large property in St. Pete, FL in the future.

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

Did they tell you about the new owner that has 52% of bluegreen?
We were told the BG has a possible (can't remember what he called it) setup for running the operation of the resort. There were a possible 50 that could be added to Bluegreens operation.

I posted a review of my owner update, I was not happy with mine.
You can see more of mine here http://www.timeshareforums.com/forum...ut-update.html.

[Tom in GA Member Find all posts View Profile Close Tom in GA]

Club 36 Update

I already knew about the new stock holding company (BFC) months ago. They bought 16+ million shares in late 2009. I don't think it is going to change anything in the near future. As far as land around Club 36, that was going to be developed back in 2007/2008, but we all know what happened to Las Vegas real estate. If something gets built on it by 2015....we can call it a miracle. The plane noise doesn't bother us as we could barely hear it. I suppose if you had a villa on the top floor facing the parking lot you might hear a little more.

We always try to enter these updates on a positive note full knowing that it will be a sales pitch at one point. We realize that this is the way the sales people make money as well as Bluegreen. So by being polite and patient to the sales folks, the update has gone well (except for one in Mountain Loft.... a really pissy lady (complaint filed)....the majority of sales people were let go later). By the way the stock is up about 12% this year. Mr. Maloney was able to save it from becoming a penny stock after the 2008 crash.

P.S. The sales people were suprised that I knew who owns Bluegreen. I don't think they really knew.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

Sounds like business as usual.

That's a good thing . . . right?

[Tom in GA Member Find all posts View Profile Close Tom in GA]

Bluegreen Merger with BFCF

For the short term I see no major changes for the vacation ownerships. Whether I vote my tiny number of shares for the merger....I just don't know yet. BFCF is a penny stock. Bluegreen shareholders would get 8 common A shares of BFCF for 1 share of Bluegreen stock. BFCF doesn't have a great financial record...same CEO and President (Levan) and several late SEC filings.
Hummm.... Bluegreen is selling off its residential and land development. They lowered the price from $32 million to $29.5 million. I beleive Southstar is one of the potential buyers. Another interesting note...the Benihana resturant chain is up for sale by BFCF.

Things just continue to get odd, odder and oddest in this world.

[kcbedo Member Find all posts View Profile Close kcbedo]

If anyone has real info on the "public offering" bit the fed to us in the sales pitch or anything else i mentioned please post it.

The part about sending some mail or email offer that somehow you never received is a common LIE that the sales guys use. If you notice, this is always followed up with "well we're prepared to give you this one last chance, but you need to decide today..." The whole point is to give you a sense of urgency so that you make a decision before you find out the real facts.

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

The part about sending some mail or email offer that somehow you never received is a common LIE that the sales guys use. If you notice, this is always followed up with "well we're prepared to give you this one last chance, but you need to decide today..." The whole point is to give you a sense of urgency so that you make a decision before you find out the real facts.

Yep... We'e had it twice now. I 'm trying to use forums like these and contacts with other owners to share experiences and information to get everyone educated. Thanks for sharing.

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

My wife and I just had an update in Shenandoah Crossing and I have to say that they once again tried the lie about the letter. They however didn't sit there and tell us that we will never be able to take more than 1 vacation a year with the points we have. However they did try and tell us that when our son is at school age we will not have enough points. I find this insulting personally. First off, they don't know us or how we like to use our vacation time. Second, it is supposed to be an owner update to let us know anything we might have missed, not try to badger us into buying more points. I absolutely love when they bring in the other person to meet us and say hi and then they go right into trying to sell us something. They did tell us that there are different levels of resorts, as in this one was a level 1 and there for the points were cheaper there compared to Gatlinburg, TN. I don't know how much truth there is to this, but thanks to a BG employee, from Pigeon Forge who was there on vacation, we found out about buying points privately. I never knew this before, but now I will never buy from them again at that rediculously high price.