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Please see the letter below that I have written to Bluegreen. If anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated. I cannot believe that they would screw us like this after owning for 15 years.
'Dear Mr Kaminer
I would like you to look in to the material breaches of our contract that we have with yourselves. We have owned weeks and points with Bluegreen since you took over the ownership of The Fountains and have had recently found the companies practices unacceptable and in breach of our contract.
Until September 2008 we owned 2 deeded weeks at Oasis Lakes (now The Fountains). These were either used at the resort or deposited with RCI, who then gave us an additional two years to exchange with them.
During our trip in 2008 we met with your sales staff who explained the ‘benefits’ of moving to your points system and buying more points to become a gold member:
• We could book any week rather than a fixed week – OK
• We could book earlier than most points members – OK
• We could book affiliated resorts, all in the USA – NOT OK. We informed the sales person that as UK residents we could not afford to holiday in the USA every year, let alone a number of times a year. Your sales persons response was to show us a Bluegreen promotion board with the following on:
‘Guaranteed exchange power through an exchange company
10,000 = 1 RED WEEK
8,000 = 1 WHITE WEEK
6,000 = 1 BLUE WEEK’
They also encouraged us to buy 9,000 additional points for $11,110 so that instead of getting four weeks, every two years, through RCI we would get seven weeks.
On the guarantee above we purchased the additional points so that we would increase our weeks through RCI from four to seven every two years.
In 2010 we used 26,000 Bluegreen points to stay for 2 weeks at The Fountains and asked you to bank the remaining 44,000 points with RCI. This was duly done in February 2010, where our weeks were deposited on our RCI account and converted to 100,000 RCI points, which expired in February 2012.
We exchanged three of these weeks for Silver Crown resorts in Spain as that is all that we could get for the points (using 69,000 RCI points). The remaining points were combined and the use extended until February 2014.
All of the above was exactly as our contract with you stated.
HOWEVER;
In 2011 we again used 26,000 of our new allocation of Bluegreen points to stay for 2 weeks at The Fountains and in early 2012 asked you to bank our 44,000 points with RCI. I was informed by the ‘customer services’ person that I did not have to go through to the RCI website and, in fact, could access RCI exchanges directly through the Bluegreen website.
On accessing this website I found that my 44,000 Bluegreen points were now ONLY WORTH 44,000 RCI POINTS. But how could that be? I checked the points value of the resort in Spain assuming that the exchange value should also have fallen by 66%. I had changed nothing and Bluegreen had merely given me access to RCI through their website.
I contacted your ‘customer services’ people who told me that it was all RCI’s fault as they were refusing to take deeded weeks off Bluegreen and would only take points. She could not answer why there was such a discrepancy in the exchange conversion. She did confirm that the points were showing as deposited with an extended expiry date (as we had previously received through RCI when points were deposited).
So I contacted RCI who told us that they were fed up with Bluegreen blaming them for this and it was nothing to do with them.
I went on to your website in September to find that our 44,000 points had DISAPEARED! Upon contacting your ‘customer services’ staff again we were told that they expire at the end of August. So why did the previous lady tell me that these had BEEN DEPOSITED as I requested into RCI and that THEY EXPIRED AT A LATER DATE, as previously with RCI. Also the gentleman then told us that RCI DID NOT ACCEPT POINTS (what! the previous lady had told me they did not accept weeks, only points) and that Bluegreen could ‘do what they like as they can change your contract when they want and there is nothing you can do’! Is this true? Looking through my contract you cannot vary it without notifying us for agreement and agreed to exchange points for weeks and deposit them with RCI, which you duly did until 2012.
As I sit here today, and I kid you not, this is what I see on the RCI website compared to your ‘RCI’ website:
Silver Crown resort in Spain June 2013 17,000 RCI points
SAME resort through your system 22,000 Bluegreen points.
Putting this into context, the following has suddenly happened to our points:
• If we had never converted to points we would have exchanged four weeks every two years with RCI.
• In 2010 when you converted our points into weeks and deposited them we got two Bluegreen weeks and four RCI weeks which could be used for an additional two years.
• By paying you AN ADDITIONAL $11,110 we now have 70,000 Bluegreen points which will only give us three weeks exchange every two years, which expire after the second year. How can this be right?
I would appreciate it if you could look into this matter as it just doesn’t make sense that you would suddenly reduce the value of somebody’s points by 66% after honouring the contract in full.
At this time we feel that there has been a material breach of our contract by yourselves, regardless of any issues you have with RCI as that is nothing to do with our contract with you, and that you should re-instate the agreed contract by depositing the 44,000 Bluegreen points, that were taken from us by misrepresentations from your staff, as four weeks into RCI as you did in 2010 and to continue to run our agreement in that way, else end the contract and buy the points back from us.
I look forward to receiving your prompt response to resolve this matter, as you can imagine this is causing us much concern and anxiety.
'Dear Mr Kaminer
I would like you to look in to the material breaches of our contract that we have with yourselves. We have owned weeks and points with Bluegreen since you took over the ownership of The Fountains and have had recently found the companies practices unacceptable and in breach of our contract.
Until September 2008 we owned 2 deeded weeks at Oasis Lakes (now The Fountains). These were either used at the resort or deposited with RCI, who then gave us an additional two years to exchange with them.
During our trip in 2008 we met with your sales staff who explained the ‘benefits’ of moving to your points system and buying more points to become a gold member:
• We could book any week rather than a fixed week – OK
• We could book earlier than most points members – OK
• We could book affiliated resorts, all in the USA – NOT OK. We informed the sales person that as UK residents we could not afford to holiday in the USA every year, let alone a number of times a year. Your sales persons response was to show us a Bluegreen promotion board with the following on:
‘Guaranteed exchange power through an exchange company
10,000 = 1 RED WEEK
8,000 = 1 WHITE WEEK
6,000 = 1 BLUE WEEK’
They also encouraged us to buy 9,000 additional points for $11,110 so that instead of getting four weeks, every two years, through RCI we would get seven weeks.
On the guarantee above we purchased the additional points so that we would increase our weeks through RCI from four to seven every two years.
In 2010 we used 26,000 Bluegreen points to stay for 2 weeks at The Fountains and asked you to bank the remaining 44,000 points with RCI. This was duly done in February 2010, where our weeks were deposited on our RCI account and converted to 100,000 RCI points, which expired in February 2012.
We exchanged three of these weeks for Silver Crown resorts in Spain as that is all that we could get for the points (using 69,000 RCI points). The remaining points were combined and the use extended until February 2014.
All of the above was exactly as our contract with you stated.
HOWEVER;
In 2011 we again used 26,000 of our new allocation of Bluegreen points to stay for 2 weeks at The Fountains and in early 2012 asked you to bank our 44,000 points with RCI. I was informed by the ‘customer services’ person that I did not have to go through to the RCI website and, in fact, could access RCI exchanges directly through the Bluegreen website.
On accessing this website I found that my 44,000 Bluegreen points were now ONLY WORTH 44,000 RCI POINTS. But how could that be? I checked the points value of the resort in Spain assuming that the exchange value should also have fallen by 66%. I had changed nothing and Bluegreen had merely given me access to RCI through their website.
I contacted your ‘customer services’ people who told me that it was all RCI’s fault as they were refusing to take deeded weeks off Bluegreen and would only take points. She could not answer why there was such a discrepancy in the exchange conversion. She did confirm that the points were showing as deposited with an extended expiry date (as we had previously received through RCI when points were deposited).
So I contacted RCI who told us that they were fed up with Bluegreen blaming them for this and it was nothing to do with them.
I went on to your website in September to find that our 44,000 points had DISAPEARED! Upon contacting your ‘customer services’ staff again we were told that they expire at the end of August. So why did the previous lady tell me that these had BEEN DEPOSITED as I requested into RCI and that THEY EXPIRED AT A LATER DATE, as previously with RCI. Also the gentleman then told us that RCI DID NOT ACCEPT POINTS (what! the previous lady had told me they did not accept weeks, only points) and that Bluegreen could ‘do what they like as they can change your contract when they want and there is nothing you can do’! Is this true? Looking through my contract you cannot vary it without notifying us for agreement and agreed to exchange points for weeks and deposit them with RCI, which you duly did until 2012.
As I sit here today, and I kid you not, this is what I see on the RCI website compared to your ‘RCI’ website:
Silver Crown resort in Spain June 2013 17,000 RCI points
SAME resort through your system 22,000 Bluegreen points.
Putting this into context, the following has suddenly happened to our points:
• If we had never converted to points we would have exchanged four weeks every two years with RCI.
• In 2010 when you converted our points into weeks and deposited them we got two Bluegreen weeks and four RCI weeks which could be used for an additional two years.
• By paying you AN ADDITIONAL $11,110 we now have 70,000 Bluegreen points which will only give us three weeks exchange every two years, which expire after the second year. How can this be right?
I would appreciate it if you could look into this matter as it just doesn’t make sense that you would suddenly reduce the value of somebody’s points by 66% after honouring the contract in full.
At this time we feel that there has been a material breach of our contract by yourselves, regardless of any issues you have with RCI as that is nothing to do with our contract with you, and that you should re-instate the agreed contract by depositing the 44,000 Bluegreen points, that were taken from us by misrepresentations from your staff, as four weeks into RCI as you did in 2010 and to continue to run our agreement in that way, else end the contract and buy the points back from us.
I look forward to receiving your prompt response to resolve this matter, as you can imagine this is causing us much concern and anxiety.
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