Bonus Edition! The More Questions-The Murkier Things Get

I’ve sufficiently thawed out from attending ARDA’s Spring Conference, Timeshare Together, to sort out my notes and thoughts; many of which will be featuring in upcoming posts. 

Today I’m going to talk about Bonus Points. I have many questions as you’ll see. 

I’m not breaking any conference secrets by saying that many, and from the Sales and Marketing session I attended, perhaps most developers offer up bonus points as an incentive for the consumer to buy that day. Let’s say you’re looking at a purchase of 100,000 points annually for $25,000.   As an incentive to sign on the dotted line right then and there, the sales manager will offer to “throw in” 100,000 one time bonus points which may bring you up to VIP, Gold, Platinum, Super Secret or whatever “upper” level they have. 

The idea behind this is quite simple; the consumer thinks they’re getting a deal by getting “free” points and the developer gets a chance to sell them more points once the bonus points are gone and the hapless consumer is no longer at the Super Secret level. 

First, as we all know, there’s no such thing as free so get that out of your head immediately. 

Second, and where the basis for this post began are these questions:  Where do these mysterious bonus points come from?  What are they?  Who, if anyone is paying maintenance fees on them?

The more questions asked, the muddier the issue becomes. 

Let’s simplify things. Let’s say that the developer has registered the site and the total number of points available is 10,000. That’s it. They can’t sell more than 10,000 points. So now they’ve been selling for 5 years. Half of their inventory has been sold. They now have 5,000 points to sell. Mr and Mrs Smith come in on a mini-vac and are given the opportunity to purchase 100 points for $20,000. They balk. The closer comes in and offers then 100 one time bonus points on top of the annual 100 points if they buy now. 

So does this mean that the site now has only 4,800 points to sell this year, but thot 100 bonus points will be back in the inventory pool next year?  Is it the same inventory pool?  If not, what pool is this coming from?  

Making things even muddier, if the Smiths are responsible for paying $1,000 annual maintenance on their annual 100 points, who is paying the $1,000 maintenance on the 100 bonus points this year?  If no one is paying those fees, are they being pro-rated among all the owners?  Or, if I suspect, no fees are being paid on the bonus points, because they’re illusionary, why should anyone be charged maintenance fees on something that is illusionary?

You see, the more questions asked, the more questions arise and the muddier things become. 

If anyone can answer these questions and un-muddy these murky waters….please do.