Busch Gardens Williamsburg Membership Program

[RKRCC]

This reminds me of the random promotions BGW did years ago, but eventually stopped. Let me explain....

When we were dating, the husband and I used to go to the park only a few times a year, so we didn’t do season passes. We could get them on special or through the military cheaper for a few visits a year than buying season passes. Then one day in December 2012 we saw an advertisement for a 18 month season pass for the price of 12 months. The cost was $120 per season pass at the time. By this time, we were newly married and decided what the heck, so we got each other a 18 month pass for Christmas.

In June of 2014 we received an email that if we renewed our passes, we could get water country for free. We talked about it again and decided it was worth it since we liked Ocean Breeze here in VB. So we renewed with that new promotion.

In June of 2015 we received an email that if we renewed we would get 20% off. I believe prices were still $120 or may have gone up to $144 by then, not sure. Anyway, with the discount, we still thought it was a good deal, so we renewed.

In June of 2016 no promotion email came... I called and asked if any promotion was available and was told no. By now prices were $144 a pass and we would pay full price for the one year pass or could be set up on EZ Pay. We talked about it and with the hopes that a promotion may be available the next year, we renewed the 1 year passes.

In June of 2017 again no promotion was offered. We were scared that the $144 price per pass or $12/month on EZ pay may go up so we wanted to lock in. So we renewed, but this time we were set up on EZ pay. We have since switched to the new membership plan during one of the special offer days in March this year.

My point.... when we renewed under the yearly pass promotions, I don’t know if those particular promotions were given all year long or just at certain times. I am definitely sure anyone on EZ Pay never got 6 months free, free water country, or 20% off like we did. 5 years ago members on EZ Pay didn’t get some of the same incentives year by year pass buyers received. The only benefit they had were rates were locked in, where year by year buyers were not locked in.

 

[Zachary]

RE: Call for Ideas: New Membership Program Perks

NOTE: I merged four posts from the Membership Perk Ideas thread into this thread.

Not to defend anything either, but on year two the early-adopters (my family included) will be ahead of the game of this recent backhanded promotion.

That is, if our $2 discount sticks past 12 months.

The park made it clear that rate increases won't be "automatic," but after 12 months they can increase your rate after giving you notice. Additionally, the park was careful to state that the $2 off introductory rate was only guaranteed for those first 12 months.

For this reason, without a further commitment from the park, I'm comfortable calling the value of the introductory offer $24.

If the park wants to fix this by guaranteeing that the introductory offer will stick around long enough to recoop the market value of this sign-up bonus (hence, making good on their commitment to the introductory offer being the best offer), that's works for me too.

Oh, and, of course, all of this assumes that the promised additional discounts, rewards, events, etc actually do start showing up for all Membership holders. Without those, the park is still squarely in the "false advertising" realm here.

 

[..…]

The economist part of my brain understands the idea behind this pricing strategy of capturing as much consumer surplus as possible using price discrimination (i.e., first target those customers willing to pay the most, then sweeten the deal for those with a lower price point, etc.) The analyst part of my brain believes this strategy would work fine for some parks. BGW's fan base is different than most parks, and a potentially undermining factor for this strategy.

I'm way too busy at the moment to sit down and dig into SEAS' financials, but I know they're highly leveraged. So, a question for anyone here who may be on top of their financials: what does BGW's cash flow look like compared to SEAS' other assets? If it is healthier, I'm curious as to whether SEAS views the park mostly as a cash cow to pay down its debt. If so, it might help to explain why this pricing strategy was implemented, seemingly without much regard to possible fall out. Companies in financial trouble to have a tendency to slaughter any cash cow they're hoping will bail them out, rather than keeping that cow healthy.

Lots of speculation on my part, so I'm wondering if anyone here has a more informed perspective on this?

 

[whanna]

NOTE: I merged four posts from the Membership Perk Ideas thread into this thread.

Not to defend anything either, but on year two the early-adopters (my family included) will be ahead of the game of this recent backhanded promotion.

That is, if our $2 discount sticks past 12 months.

The park made it clear that rate increases won't be "automatic," but after 12 months they can increase your rate after giving you notice. Additionally, the park was careful to state that the $2 off introductory rate was only guaranteed for those first 12 months.

Point taken. I don't anticipate the $2/month savings to last forever, though it would be nice that with future price increases, the early-adopters maintain that $2/month savings. hastagPipeDream

 

[Nicole]

Unless things change, when the park does implement a rate increase, it will be across the board, and everyone will have to pay the same amount. In other words, the introductory rate should not continue past the first rate increase.

 

[Zimmy]

The economist part of my brain understands the idea behind this pricing strategy of capturing as much consumer surplus as possible using price discrimination (i.e., first target those customers willing to pay the most, then sweeten the deal for those with a lower price point, etc.) The analyst part of my brain believes this strategy would work fine for some parks. BGW's fan base is different than most parks, and a potentially undermining factor for this strategy.

I'm way too busy at the moment to sit down and dig into SEAS' financials, but I know they're highly leveraged. So, a question for anyone here who may be on top of their financials: what does BGW's cash flow look like compared to SEAS' other assets? If it is healthier, I'm curious as to whether SEAS views the park mostly as a cash cow to pay down its debt. If so, it might help to explain why this pricing strategy was implemented, seemingly without much regard to possible fall out. Companies in financial trouble to have a tendency to slaughter any cash cow they're hoping will bail them out, rather than keeping that cow healthy.

Lots of speculation on my part, so I'm wondering if anyone here has a more informed perspective on this?

I have been wondering many of the same things. I am also curious how big procurements are financed. Presumably they have seperate financing and potentially multiple streams for really big projects. So could/ do they leverage paid for assets like say, Nessie to build new assets? If they can and do, can that happen across park lines?

Here is the thing, how do they Seas internally treat the various parks? Are they grouped, if so how by type or region? Certainly they each have some kind of independent budget, but is it just discretionary or does it include large projects? (just paperclips or paperclips and rollercoasters)

Based off of the income to debt ratios that I have seen for the corporation as a whole I can, (and have) built some metrics based off of past performance. As we saw by the frankly not so subtle trends, the debt load is approaching unmanageable. (Personally I consider any good will capital as a bad sign) Further we know one of their backers is also up to their ears.

I don't know how detailed their SEC filings are, I'm not an accountant, so I'm the wrong person to ask. I expect they keep their internal operations and spending as close to the chest as legally possible. I'm also not a lawyer, so I'm not much help there either.

So there you have it, zero help from me, just more questions.

 

[Zachary]

Personally, I really hope that rate changes do become automatic. If you start letting people get comfortable with a pass rate that doesn't keep up with market value, people will start expecting their pass rate not to keep up with market value. As soon as that process starts, this Membership program is right back where the annual pass system was before.

The park should increase the value of the Membership program by adding benefits (as they promised at launch). Discounts should, frankly, never be offered.

"But Zachary! The introductory rate!" Yes, yes, I know. That is why it should only last for one year as a reward to those who, frankly, went through a ton of trouble to take a leap of faith based solely on the park's word that they would make it worth our time and money.

Anyway, I'm a realist too. I get the need in marketing to impose a sense of urgency on sales. My solution to that problem is actually pretty simple.

Make a seasonal rewards program. Every three months there are a new selection of small free perks membership holders can redeem. Those seasonal perks can only be made available to members who sign up before the start of that perk period.

In other words, take this promotion. Summer Rewards are redeemable starting in June. Advertise all of the place that "Anyone who has an active park Membership before May 31st gets [insert basically free-for-the-park Summer Rewards perks here]!"

In effect the park will have made good on their promise of additional rewards for all Membership holders while also providing a "Get it before its gone!" promotion for the masses.

This just seems like such an obvious solution to me...

 

[tursiops]

I thought the benefits posted from BGT looked pretty reasonable too.

 

[Franco]

It just really frustrates me that this park, which is so vastly different in operational terms than SWO and BGT, doesn't have its own CS team that I can call and talk to about this. Right now, being a member doesn't feel like it's a good deal for me. I don't have a sense of belonging to anything other than a corporation that doesn't care about trying to screw me over just to make a quick buck. Nobody on the phone down in the Florida will understand this, and making the call will be a waste of my time, which means I just won't do it. It might be the one thing about this whole ordeal that I think BGW actually understands.

 

[Turbo]

This has all helped me finalize my decision to invest my money into KD / Carowinds passes for at least the next 2 years. Just growing tired of the BS at BGW. I will re-evaluate based on a large coaster addition or how the next 2 years play out. If I want pretty things, I will go to a park / garden somewhere. If I want good food, I will go out to eat somewhere. If I want coasters / rides, I am more than happy traveling to Richmond or Charlotte.

 

[..…]

So there you have it, zero help from me, just more questions.

All good questions. My guess is the SEC financials are largely consolidated, but maybe there is something interesting in the MD&A and/or notes. Hopefully I'll have a chance to peruse a 10-K or two in (based on my current schedule) July or so.

 

[Franco]

This has all helped me finalize my decision to invest my money into KD / Carowinds passes for at least the next 2 years.  Just growing tired of the BS at BGW.  I will re-evaluate based on a large coaster addition or how the next 2 years play out.  If I want pretty things, I will go to a park / garden somewhere.  If I want good food, I will go out to eat somewhere.  If I want coasters / rides, I am more than happy traveling to Richmond or Charlotte.

It's tough to argue with this. I really like the additions of both Verbolten and Invadr at BGW, but I still believe the last major coaster addition the park made came in 2007 with Griffon, which incidentally is the last year of what I would cite as a golden era for the park. This park may have doubled their coaster count since then, but it desperately needs a new major coaster, and a new great coaster at that. BGW's B&M trio kept them afloat as being better than most regional parks, especially adding in the classic Arrows and considering the all-around strengths the park offers. However, other parks have caught up and, in terms of rides, easily surpassed BGW as the rides were never the biggest pull the park had to begin with. KD has added Intimidator-305, and now with Twisted Timbers they've added in my opinion their two best coasters since BGW built one of national note. Carowinds has built Intimidator and Fury 325, which I consider to be the best roller coaster in the world - and the Golden Ticket Awards agree. BGW meanwhile has nearly taken the SFA tact, although it isn't quite that bad (with the exception of Tempesto). As someone in your position who's just looking for big thrilling coasters, KD and Carowinds are easily better investments. It's hard to invest in a park that hasn't invested comparably in over a decade. In the last couple of years, I was more invested in Carowinds, and this year I'm more invested in KD than ever. BGW is still my go-to park for a variety of reasons, but I wouldn't argue that it should be yours necessarily.

 

[Luke]

Has the park wrote back yet? And I still haven't got my refund.

 

[Nicole]

Nothing back from the park.

And I don’t have my refund either.

 

[Bring Back Questor 87]

Forgive me if this had been said before, but I have a feeling that someone in the management pool saw a need to heavily finance, at least in part, whatever Project Madrid is to be with funds from this new scheme without a clearcut fare increase. However, we are smart consumers, and though we long for Fury 325-ish thrills at BGW, we also long for honesty and logic when it comes to attracting guests. Yes, at the end of the day, BG is a business, but business can be good, and clean, and open. I'm sure someone is reading this from the internal side of the park, and hopefully they have a sense of direction when it comes to the next moves to sustain a better future for the park and its guests. There's a right way and wrong way of doing things - knowing the difference is worth its weight in Golden Ticket Awards.

 

[WDWRLD]

I’ve held BGW passes every year since about 1992, haven’t missed one. We are at the park
a lot, sometimes a few times a week during the regular season and at least one night every weekend of HOS and sometimes more. Same with CT, we are there every week. We also have had KD passes for quite a few years, but in a normal season we only go 3-4 times in the regular season and then 1-2 times for Haunt. It takes me less than 30 minutes to get to BGW and exactly 90 to KD. So far this season we have made the trip to KD 4 times, more than all of last season. The fact is i’m fed up with BGW and the way things run, the guessing on how things will work and the overall lack of give a crap from 50% of the employees I encounter. I have not had one bad experience this season at KD.

 

[Unagi]

It just really frustrates me that this park, which is so vastly different in operational terms than SWO and BGT, doesn't have its own CS team that I can call and talk to about this.  

They use to and the service was exceptional.  Once the InBev-AB Merger took place they closed the department in Williamsburg and just had the existing one  in Orlando handle all the inquiries.  Ever since then the service has slowly and unfortuantely deteriorated.

 

[bwick29]

I have not had one bad experience this season at KD.

Wish I could say the same. Had a few horrible (also a few excellent) staff interactions at KD this season already. There was no middle ground here. Horrible or excellent.

Plus the locker racket at KD really sucks.

 

[WDWRLD]

We always have a non ridercwith us for coasters so the locker deal there dosent affect us plus we travel light, with the cup deal there it’s perfect that you don’t have to haul around the refillable mug. Busch is getting that way with lockers, we had to buy one last week to ride Eire because we had a hat.....that’s ridiculous.

 

[Nicole]

So.  We heard back from the park on the Member benefits and the Summer Rewards promotion.  For their statement, check out our front page update.  There also a link to the new Member Rewards program.

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