GolfNow.com Reward points - What a joke

[tytler32u]

He is talking about the service industry. I.e hotels, restaurants etc.

[dcmidnight]

The course I play most often in the summer (20+ times) I save right around 50% because I always book the hot time. Today it looks like its 49%, tomorrow its 54%. The rest of their Golfnow times are usually 15-20% off what you'd get by calling the clubhouse. I'd say on average my group saves $50-60 a week at that course alone. FWIW its not a slouch course either, hosted the USGA Pub Links last year.

If someone wants to go out and invent a quick and easy way to make tee times at hundreds of courses like this - I'm all ears, I'll be the first one to test it for you. But I travel a bit - both in and out of the area - and nothing is easier after a meeting than bringing up the app on my phone and seeing who in the area has availability. Yeah I guess I could sit there and call 4 -5 courses each, write down their times and costs and then call them back. But why would I do that, its 2014 not 1994.

And honestly the rewards are terrible anyway. I would continue to happily use GN without any rewards program at all.

[spagett34]

The best is when you would confirm payment on the tee time and then the next screen says "that the tee time is no longer available", but the transaction for payment would hit your account and would take a few days to get back. Go through that 2 or 3 times before you finally get a tee time that exists still and you're out $100 for a few days.

[prorobo]

GolfNow's best year in terms of rewards was last year with their free hot deals and discounted rounds. But the issue op is complaining about was in fact put into service last year so I'm not sure why he has a problem now.

This year they've done away with free rounds altogether and next year they're doing away with free booking fees. So GolfNow is quickly becoming less attractive for bargain hunters.

I do have GolfNow to thank for aiding my decision to join a private club this year though as I played so many different public tracks last year and spent so much with the total of travel, food, etc that I got sick of them all especially the slower rounds on less than ideal conditions. So thanks for while it lasted GN!

[harold baines]

[quote name='spagett34' timestamp='1394546302' post='8846797']
The best is when you would confirm payment on the tee time and then the next screen says "that the tee time is no longer available", but the transaction for payment would hit your account and would take a few days to get back. Go through that 2 or 3 times before you finally get a tee time that exists still and you're out $100 for a few days.
[/quote]

the answer is credit card... not debit card

[4Wedges]

Golfnow is maturing...they had great deals to get the courses and players signed up...now that the hook is set they can start trimming expenses.

[PutterHo]

I dont blame GolfNow.com for changing the rewards policy. It was possibly to spend $150 and end up with 10 rounds at TPC Sawgrass stadium or the equivalent of $3,750 in round value at $15 per round last year.

[baseballfrk8998]

I normally only book the Hot Deals on GolfNow and contrary to what's been said in this topic, there are some great deals to be had. I can normally save 40-50% easily by booking a Hot Deal the day of, or day before. You aren't going to save any money by trying to book a time 4-5 days out, but why should you? GolfNow is a for-profit business. They're not into giving stuff away, which is why you can save money by waiting until the day before to book. They'll mark a tee time down significantly and attempt to book it before they'll just let it pass by and they make nothing on it.

Makes sense to me.

[LansingMI]

I feel like my foursome was personally to blame for them no longer offering "free rounds" as rewards for booking hot deals. Three of us in the group hit the 50 rounds booked mark....getting a free single,double and foursome round along the way.

*EDIT*

Forgot to add .... THANK YOU GOLFNOW.com

[tdogg21]

I still use it and haven't gotten some great deals. Typically we decide where to play by which course offers the best deal. Obviously some courses don't have good deals, and you have to be aware of that before booking. But even if it's the same cost as booking through the course, the convenience of being able to book online 24x7 is worth it to me.

[GoldenBearCub]

The course I currently work at here has partnered up with Golf Now and they're saying that accessibility will be better developed this year... iPad use on the first tee and all that jazz so no more going into the clubhouse to check in which is kind of convenient. They're still in it for the money though, like everyone's said. More convenient for them to reward us less the more we use their service too..

[Medic]

I use GN for the convenience, the selection and variety, the useful course info that now includes some really good reviews, and for the savings. Anything in addition would be icing on that cake for me and the cake is sweet enough that I will keep digging in even without anything extra.

Having year round golf I use GN a lot and have yet to end up suffering any issue after booking through them. And frankly I have found some really great courses that I never had heard of to give a try. Because of GN I have found some awesome courses that are some of my favorites. (Layout, price, treatment by staff, location, and pace of play are all factors)

To GN - job well done where I am concerned.

To the OP, don't worry about the little things. If you are going on GN just to earn perks you aren't really realizing just how much time/money/inconvenience GN is saving/sparing you.

[arnold palmtree]

[quote name='GoldenBearCub' timestamp='1394670597' post='8859217']
The course I currently work at here has partnered up with Golf Now and they're saying that accessibility will be better developed this year... iPad use on the first tee and all that jazz so no more going into the clubhouse to check in which is kind of convenient. They're still in it for the money though, like everyone's said. More convenient for them to reward us less the more we use their service too..
[/quote]

At your course you pick up the cart on the first tee?

[Noyes26]

There is no doubt about it that the more discounts you give the more complaints/returns you will receive. And thats for any and everything you sell. There has been plenty of tests out there proving this. I've seen one where selling a product for $100 with a 30 day return policy had 50% returned. 3 months later same exact product for $150 had 25% return, 6 months later same exact product with a $250 price tag had 10% return... you get the picture.

There is no doubt that discounting things hurts that dollar vision of the product/golf course. Many people will look at something and base it off the price they paid, good or bad. It's been like that forever. The quality of any product is dictated by what the buyer thinks. If they buy a p.o.s. for $10 they have no problem trashing it and saying they hate it. Buy that same p.o.s. for $100 and all of a sudden that person will learn to love it and try to justify their purchase to their friends.

This is a strange topic with a little bit of everything in it. I am fortunate enough to not have to live paycheck to paycheck and honestly if I did I probably wouldn't play an expensive game like golf. But that's just me.

[teckneeklyperfect]

The Golf Now program is a complete sham now, over the years it got so watered down, even if you do use it now and have earned promo codes for 10 dollars off, you are forced to use them only on full priced tee times, ( tee times at least three days in the future ). what a crock

[jeenyusss]

Last year when I was in flordia, I used all my saved up rewards from the year ($30 worth). I booked a nice course (Waldorf Astoria) for $100 - $40 reward= $70. A couple days before the tee time the price dropped to below $70, therefore making my value close to nothing. It's sad.

[596]

Golf Now is basically a portal site. Just like Hotel.com, Trivago.com, sedona.net and on and on.

 

Some smart guys that stuck himself between the customer and the business. All they do is draw money directly from the business. Ya, ya, I know the argument about exposure and selling more tee times or rooms or whatever. But, I've been there done that and lost money to these middle men. I was better off driving traffic to my own web site and offering discounts and varying rates on my own. I varied my rates daily based on occupancy. I didn't need a portal site doing it for me an then taking my room rate. it got so bad that some sites were taking as much as 66% of the already discounted rate. I actually lost money when those people stayed with us. So why even sell that room through a portal. Can you tell I hate portal sites? They are great if you have 100's of rooms or 100's of tee times. But for small businesses they can plunge your profits.

 

I will not use portal websites to book rooms or golf tee times. Those businesses will give me the same rate as the portal site when I call and keep the entire rate, eliminating the middle man and associated fees. Especially for small businesses.

 

I used Golf Now when they first started but have not used them in over 8 years.

[STPBMW]

Saved 75% on my first round of the year. I dont use this exclusively for my rounds but would be bummed if it went away.

[8602081]

Teeoff is so much better.. no service charges..

Golfnow does have more courses, but their service fee sucks balls..