Complaint Review: Bluegreen Vacation

I was shopping at the Tanger Outlets in North Charleston when a sign caught my eye that said free cruise. Summertime was coming up and we had not yet planned our vacation so I wanted information. I started talking to the lady then I was suckered in. She said I could get 7 nights and 8 days at any participating hotels and I can split up the nights if I wanted. She told me we could stay at a hotel or a one of their resorts. I asked what kind of hotel would they give us and can we get it in Myrtle Beach. She said it would be a min of a 3 star hotel and yes! we can stay at the beach! If we stayed at one of the resorts it would lower the amount of days we had. Also, they will give me a $50 giftcard right then if I went ahead and signed up and a free crusie!!!! I asked "What's the catch?" She said there is no catch. The only thing we have to do is go visit one of their resorts for two hours during our vacation. Without giving me all the details they went ahead and charged my card for $500.

After they charged my card they then told me that the hotel was not on the beach but a couple miles near it. To make a long story short I was there for an hour and a half going back and forth with what they were going to do about us not being on the beach. The lady at the stand was calling customer service and somehow kept getting transfered and would have to explain the whole situation again. They finally found a hotel that would allow us to be ocean front so I went a head and booked it. We get to the hotel and they say it's going to be $20 extra a night for ocean front. I explained to them that we were told ocean front was included and they said okay and sent us to our room that was ocean front but smelled like someone left 5 cats in there for about a week. We somehow manage to deal with the cat piss smell for the 4 nights we were there.

On our last day we get a letter under the door that says they have charged my card for $220 for the ocean front room. Ugh. We go and speak with the manager and he calls Bluegreen and they come to an agreement to where the hotel refunded me the money. When we go visit the resort it was not two hours but FOUR! They gave us our "free cruise" certificates and it says we have to book the crusie within 60 days of that day and we would have to pay $185 per person for taxes and such and we would have to pay if the price of gas went up. After that we called about 3 months later to book the rest of our nights and they say we do not have anymore nights. That we downgraded our package. Hmmm.... WRONG! Why in the hell would I downgrade my package when I've already paid for it??? I spoke with them on the phone for more than 30 min and got no where. RIPOFF!!!!!  You have been warned!

Melinda
Charleston

South Carolina