Mountain Run at Boyne

[swirg53 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close swirg53]

Internet Access

When we checked in Monday night, in addition to listing Platinum, Gold, Silver & Bronze owners, there was also a spot for SVC Elite. That stands for “Shell Vacation Club” Elite. Just thought it interesting that they were giving this honor to the Shell Vacation Club “premier” (Elite) members.

Also, I am using Lodgenet here at Mtn. Run from our unit and when I logged in, it said that the cost was $0.00; I was rather surprised by that. I’m assuming that otherwise, it would have asked me for a credit card number and it didn’t. The only other thing would be if it is being billed to my room. It is only a 24 hour access and then I’m sure all you have to do is re-register, which wasn’t anything more than hitting continue!!!!! Never entered my name or anything like that. Someone else on the yahoo board concurred when they were there two weeks ago that there was indeed no charge to use it, but it used to be that there was a charge.

So that's good news: maybe BG is going that route now.

[swirg53 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close swirg53]

Owner Update

Yesterday, we had our owner update and this is what I posted on the Bluegreen Yahoo Group site:

We were assigned to a salesperson who used to be in administration in the sales department; we had purchased from him another time at the suggestion of Mike Terry. I was glad to have him because I know he is good at sales and would not be too irritated by not making a sale with us. I learned so much today and I also was able to do some education with him and the manager. (He took a step down to “just” sales so that he has more time to spend with his teenage daughters. When I told him that was great, he said most people question him about that and he appreciated my agreement….and I said, you just can’t put a price on quality time with your kids.) In fact, the papers for that deal were signed at our house. We were never down at Mtn. Run at all. I called them and told them I wanted to consolidate my resale contracts, etc. and who I wanted to meet with and that he would have to come to us in the evening because of our work schedules! (That was all a few years back.)

We did the typical chit chat this time and then some owner update stuff. I asked lots of questions, having written them down ahead of time. We talked about DRI and he indicated SunTerra owners were not happy with the condition of things since the takeover; I didn’t challenge him on that but I did tell him how I thought the DRI owners are not treated very nicely. He agreed that basically the DRI deal is completely off, unless things change and they are able to secure financing. It was interesting because he brought up DRI to me.

He did mention to me that Shell has added a resort into our Select Connections portfolio and it is in New Hampshire; its name of all things is Crotches Mountain Resort!!!! At first, I thought I read “Crutches” Mountain Resort……………………..I said, not a cool name for a ski hill! But then again crotches isn’t much better. He said some sales staff are using a French pronunciation for it so it doesn’t sound like CROTCH!

I asked about the sales ploy (he laughed at my term) of some being told recently that EOY points would no longer be sold at the end of this year and that all owners with EOY points would HAVE to upgrade to annual points. He laughed and he said, “where were they told that? Wait! Let me guess….Myrtle Beach and Gatlinburg.” I said, “right! How did you know?”………………he said because they do not have to have a real estate license to sell timeshares in south Carolina or Tennessee, so they can say lots about anything they want to……………I wondered how the Florida real estate laws governing the vacation club worked with this?

I asked about David Seigel selling off some stock and he didn’t think too much of it because after all, Siegel is all the time buying and selling BG stock and owns a ton more of it. I asked him about Motley Fools prediction of BG going bankrupt in the next two years. He said, no that they haven’t had a quarter in 12+ quarters where they haven’t increased sales and they are doing well in this fourth quarter of 2008 also.

Then I asked about the layoffs/firings last week and he said that they have to meet a quota (he used an acronym, the letters I don’t remember or what they stood for---some average). They have to make commission of at least $1,000 per $10,000 sold, which equates to 1 in every 10 customers he meets with, he needs to sell. This was upped from $800 just recently and when it was upped, the line was drawn and those who fell below the line were canned. He didn’t seem to think that was an indicator of economic problems for the company.

I asked then about the land holdings and why the sales were down so much for that and he said because there is no new inventory to sell……………there are some lots left but no new communities and so there is no inventory being added.

He asked if I knew about the patio homes and presidential suites and I said, yes, we did but that the points were too high for them. He then told me about a lady who had figured out a way to get a whole week without using points for the Saturday night! Where there is only one presidential suite, this works very well.

Reserve Sunday through Friday nights and then reserve the same unit for Sunday through Tuesday night or even just Monday night…..so that you are tying up that one night so that it can’t be used (unless for bonus time—but who would book one of these units for one night of bonus time?). Then within 48 hours or whatever it is of your reservation, extend your first stay (premier member benefit) for one additional night which you know is available since you tied up the nights around that Saturday night and then you don’t have to spend points for that Saturday night. Sweet, eh?

They are no longer giving VISA check cards for gifting at Mtn. Run. We got several choices of $25 gift cards for local restaurants to total $100 (the couple before us only got $75). There were a few things to get in lieu of the $75, one of which was a three piece black “leather” suitcase set and my husband has been wanting a travel bag on wheels for a briefcase, so he chose that and then we got a local restaurant $25 gift card too. I was bummed though that we could not get $100 in VISA gift cards. (The couple before us only got the luggage set because their gift was only $75....that part is so unfair...that they are not consistent. And they had a new gray bag with binder and all in it, so I knew they had just purchased! When I said, I wanted the usual VISA check card, that guy said, "boy are you going to get a surprise" as they were looking over the list of $25 gift cards from local restaurants and chain restaurants and mentioning they weren't prepared for that....they also took the luggage but no additional $25 gift card to a restaurant. Anyway, when he said that to me, I realized we had been had, and that we weren't getting $100 in check cards.)

Okay, back to the owner update/sales presentation. He said to me, ‘You know I’m going to ask you to buy points.” I told him, “yeah, but you know I’m not buying.” Eventually, I admitted that we are in the midst of buying points from Pinnacle, but I wanted to first find out how much they were going to charge me to upgrade. Well, the reasons were the same for why I should upgrade: all points would be platinum then (which is really no advantage, unless you want to pay maintenance fees with points but it just really isn’t worth it anymore to do that), we would have one anniversary date, they would all be deeded at the same location, it would lower our maintenance fees. I explained to him that one of my resale packages of non-qualified points was in trust fund D and the other was in Trust Fund E….so the trust fund D points’ maintenance fees would indeed be cheaper by consolidating. He said but you are being double billed on the maintenance fees with the other one. I told him I was not. He looked at my billing and he couldn’t figure it out and I said, okay…this is the deal…the $310 base fee is charged to my resale package that IS in Trust Fund E but then my qualified points have no base $310 fee attached to any of those.

Of course, his manager came over to sell me and she stood there and told me I was being double hit on for the maintenance fees and I told her I was not and she asked him if he had looked at that to figure out if I was right…………..so again, I quipped off about trust fund E and what I said above about which pkg of mine had the $310 assessed to it. And he said to the manager, “She knows her stuff.”

So, I said, okay so what’s your deal…………I was getting restless………..and I had to get to work back in Petoskey and I already had 50 minutes into this presentation. Well, she came over with a non-useable offer since I have an EOY package that would require us to have to buy X500 “new” points to match up with those EOY points……………………so she goes away and returns with the offer….bottom line….we would have to buy 3500 points for over $7,000……………….I about flipped out………….I said, “How come others are being offered points for $1.20 per point and $1.35 per point?” He then wrote down a schedule for me of the prices which made the most sense I had ever seen from anyone. $1.20 if you are buying over 20,000 “new” points…………….downward on points packages and up goes the price per point.

I had told him we had borrowed our 2009 points and I had pre-paid my maintenance fees to do that. So, this was when he pulled out his ace and told me that by buying today, we would get the new 3500 points today and then on January 1, we could get our full allotment of 74,000 points again. EVEN though we had already borrowed them. I think he is incorrect with that notion. I think we were promised that another time and it didn’t happen. Besides, I told him I get those extra points one time and it wasn’t worth it to me…………………….he did make a smart comment then……………….that I could rent those “extra” points I would get and I could recoup most if not all of the money I would spend on those 3500 points. I told him I thought that was great marketing and an enticing offer. Then I told them that we had already begun the process of buying with Pinnacle. He wanted to know what my price per point was and I told him but I said it really doesn’t matter what price per point he was at……………….I had $3,000 I could spend on points and that was that. His big thing was that we couldn’t get the double dip on points doing it that way and I said that’s okay, because I just didn’t’ have $7500 to spend……..

That was another hoot with the offer: they offered financing at 12.9% with no early payment penalty or NO payments for a year at 8.5% interest. This was balloon however, which since I wasn’t interested, I didn’t really ask about……………….but you are paying the 8.5% interest on the entire balance at the end of that year! Trying to trick you with the lower interest rate but then rape you by back dating all the interest even if you paid it off before the year was up.

They didn’t really realize that I meant we had signed paperwork…they thought I was just in the talking stages…………….that’s when he pulled out the wild card!!!! He said, but you won’t be deeded all to the same property AND you will still have multiple anniversary dates…………….I said yes to the former but no to the latter………….I would have all one anniversary date…………..I would still have EOY points but a matching set to go along with my first set……admittedly a little bit cumbersome still but workable……..all of my points would be platinum…….he said, are you sure? I told him yes I was sure. He told me to be sure I saw that in writing………………………..I said I know it is that way. I did commend him again on his marketing technique of being able to rent out the double dipped points but that I just didn’t want to spend that much money.

Then the manager lady hit me with, “So, if you were already buying points, why did you come in today?” just a wee bit indignant……………..and I said, “To get any new information that I might not already know, which I did today; to educate anyone here with things I know that you don’t know (not to challenge; just to educate; I love to explain to them about my UDIs for instance); and for a hundred bucks.” (Little did I know THEN that I wasn’t going to be able to get check cards.) And then I just smiled at both of them. Per my usual, when she left, I apologized to our guy for getting us and when he took us to gifting, he said, “I will take you anytime you want to come in…….makes me one more closer to my tenth one to sell to.” I told him that was right…..and then he added, “but there’s always next year, and you might buy.” I said, “Ya just never know!!!”

As a last ditch effort before taking us to gifting, he offered us the sampler package as an equity builder to lock in this offer for a year; I told him yes I knew about it as we had signed on the dotted line for that before but then canceled before they had the complete sale done because the paperwork lady told me an owner can’t use it any differently than a sampler owner: still can’t use it in the summer, can only be used at certain resorts and the killer: you can’t combine those points with your current points that you own. So, no, thank you!

So that’s the news from Lake Wobegon……………….I mean Lake Michigan…………….or maybe it's from the Boyne River!

Susan

[swirg53 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close swirg53]

Susan, did you do an owners update at Mountain Run yesterday and is that your name on the Platinum Board? I think I saw you.....did I?

If that was you, hope you had a better rep than we did. What a jerk we had.

Call us in unit 2113 if you see this and that is you I saw!!

When are you checking out? I have an idea if you can stay longer!!!!!

[Craiger9er Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Craiger9er]

Anybody know what its like around this time of year. I'm taking my family up there next week, and besides Avalanche Bay, what can people recommend.

Thanks

Craig