On a recent stay at Stormy Point Village (Branson, Missouri) we were directed to the ‘parking pass’ desk after a brief stop at check-in. We were the only guests so the concierge was quite chatty, asking about our timeshare (MROP, bought 15 years ago for $1), places we have visited, etc and seemed suprised that our week at Stormy Point was purchased as an II getaway for less than $300. As I explained that we would be poor prospects for a sales presentation the next day (no chance we would buy anything), he kept upping the offer until it was a $250 Amex gift card, a Branson discount book, and a provided lunch. “They want people there to create a buzz, even if you have no intention of buying”. He pointed out the next day was going to be very rainy (it did rain all day); I was surprised that DW was in favor of the extra ‘vacation cash’ so we signed up for the presentation. This involved a $99 charge on a credit card (which was refunded when we checked in for the presentation). We were provided a document stating this would not be high pressure sales pitch, we would be treated respectfully, and that we were agreeing to a 90 to 120 minute presentation.
We have only been to 1 other TS sales presentation, actually several years ago for this same resort when sales were under Summerwinds. Club Interval Gold points was their product at that time. It was fairly low key, not particularly convincing, and we were done rather quickly. This presentation was in the same ‘Sales Center’ location as before, which is about a 10 minute drive from the resort.
We were paired with our sales rep after check-in at the sales center and picked up our ‘to go’ packaged lunch of a ham or turkey wrap, bag of chips, cookie, and fountain drinks and returned to a small table in a large open room where we chatted with our rep about our TS ownership, places we’ve visited, what we liked and didn’t like, dream trips, etc. There were 30+ guests in this room and we were all moved to a presentation room after finishing our lunch. The presenter was quite polished and hit all of the emotional touchpoints of spending time with family, great experiences, etc. One statement I found amusing was that CV had grown at the fastest rate in the industry because of their superior business model of acquiring legacy properties rather than developing new properties (yes, the same model that Diamond and others used before them). The ‘growth rate’ statement may be true but let’s ignore what this means for their collection of resorts!
Of course this is a points based product and the presenter detailed all the wonderful things you could do with their points! I don’t own in a points system but I’m familiar with many of them from all the info here on TUG. The multi-tiered CV points system seems to be needlessly complicated in comparison. There was no substantial explanation of actual availability. I can’t imagine anyone purchasing would know what their points will really (not just theoretically) provide.
After the feel-good presentation we moved back to our table with the sales rep. Our rep said we had done exceptionally well with our timeshare but CV could ‘supercharge’ our ownership and allow flexibility to achieve those dream vacations such as Alaskan cruises, multi-location NE fall foliage trips, etc. The CV ownership could ‘pay for itself’ in just those trips! He started down the ‘your maintenance fees will be $$$$ in 10 years’ path but he saw I wasn’t buying that reasoning. He then offered that CV could bring our MROP ownership into the CV points system with a purchase of additional CV points … theoretical numbers mentioned but no $$ as of yet.
And now it was time to go tour a 4 bedroom cottage at Stormy Point … (we were staying in a 2 bedroom cottage there). My sense is that Stormy Point is likely one of the nicest CV properties. So a 10 minute drive there in our own vehicle, 10-15 minutes going through the cottage, and then a 10 minute drive back to the Sales Center.
Back to the small table and the final presentation came out. Over $11,000 for 75K points, they would give us 150K points for our MROP week (which we would keep paying our existing MF on) and over $600 more in MFs per year. Based on the CV charts I don’t think that would even be capable of reserving a summer Stormy Point week.
After the obvious ‘NO’ answer, followed by the ‘NO’ answer to ‘Is there any price at which you are a buyer’, we were requested to sign a document stating we were turning down this offer only good for today and that we wouldn’t be eligible for this special deal in the future. After that we were moved to another table where a soft spoken salesman made a last attempt to sell us a $2,000 ‘try us out’ package with 200k one time CV points. After turning that down, we moved to the gifting counter down the hall and retrieved our gifts.
Total time was over 3 hours. There was no way with the lunch start, group presentation, trip out and back to Stormy Point and the sales pitch, that this was going to be concluded in 2 hours. I didn’t feel like we were pressured or treated poorly so I suppose 2 outta 3 ain’t bad. We weren’t impressed with the CV product or the many misrepresentations by sales but did come away thinking about all the slick psychology and the cleverness of the sales presentation experience. Overall it was an OK rainy day experience for the $250 Amex card.
We have only been to 1 other TS sales presentation, actually several years ago for this same resort when sales were under Summerwinds. Club Interval Gold points was their product at that time. It was fairly low key, not particularly convincing, and we were done rather quickly. This presentation was in the same ‘Sales Center’ location as before, which is about a 10 minute drive from the resort.
We were paired with our sales rep after check-in at the sales center and picked up our ‘to go’ packaged lunch of a ham or turkey wrap, bag of chips, cookie, and fountain drinks and returned to a small table in a large open room where we chatted with our rep about our TS ownership, places we’ve visited, what we liked and didn’t like, dream trips, etc. There were 30+ guests in this room and we were all moved to a presentation room after finishing our lunch. The presenter was quite polished and hit all of the emotional touchpoints of spending time with family, great experiences, etc. One statement I found amusing was that CV had grown at the fastest rate in the industry because of their superior business model of acquiring legacy properties rather than developing new properties (yes, the same model that Diamond and others used before them). The ‘growth rate’ statement may be true but let’s ignore what this means for their collection of resorts!
Of course this is a points based product and the presenter detailed all the wonderful things you could do with their points! I don’t own in a points system but I’m familiar with many of them from all the info here on TUG. The multi-tiered CV points system seems to be needlessly complicated in comparison. There was no substantial explanation of actual availability. I can’t imagine anyone purchasing would know what their points will really (not just theoretically) provide.
After the feel-good presentation we moved back to our table with the sales rep. Our rep said we had done exceptionally well with our timeshare but CV could ‘supercharge’ our ownership and allow flexibility to achieve those dream vacations such as Alaskan cruises, multi-location NE fall foliage trips, etc. The CV ownership could ‘pay for itself’ in just those trips! He started down the ‘your maintenance fees will be $$$$ in 10 years’ path but he saw I wasn’t buying that reasoning. He then offered that CV could bring our MROP ownership into the CV points system with a purchase of additional CV points … theoretical numbers mentioned but no $$ as of yet.
And now it was time to go tour a 4 bedroom cottage at Stormy Point … (we were staying in a 2 bedroom cottage there). My sense is that Stormy Point is likely one of the nicest CV properties. So a 10 minute drive there in our own vehicle, 10-15 minutes going through the cottage, and then a 10 minute drive back to the Sales Center.
Back to the small table and the final presentation came out. Over $11,000 for 75K points, they would give us 150K points for our MROP week (which we would keep paying our existing MF on) and over $600 more in MFs per year. Based on the CV charts I don’t think that would even be capable of reserving a summer Stormy Point week.
After the obvious ‘NO’ answer, followed by the ‘NO’ answer to ‘Is there any price at which you are a buyer’, we were requested to sign a document stating we were turning down this offer only good for today and that we wouldn’t be eligible for this special deal in the future. After that we were moved to another table where a soft spoken salesman made a last attempt to sell us a $2,000 ‘try us out’ package with 200k one time CV points. After turning that down, we moved to the gifting counter down the hall and retrieved our gifts.
Total time was over 3 hours. There was no way with the lunch start, group presentation, trip out and back to Stormy Point and the sales pitch, that this was going to be concluded in 2 hours. I didn’t feel like we were pressured or treated poorly so I suppose 2 outta 3 ain’t bad. We weren’t impressed with the CV product or the many misrepresentations by sales but did come away thinking about all the slick psychology and the cleverness of the sales presentation experience. Overall it was an OK rainy day experience for the $250 Amex card.