New to Bluegreen...Any insight??

Hello! Just signed with Bluegreen and second guessing as this is our 1st exposure to a program like this. Are any of you owners with Bluegreen or had exposure to them? Any thoughts or insight would be greatly appreciated! We only have 48 hours to bail!!

timothyh28 wrote:

Hello! Just signed with Bluegreen and second guessing ... We only have 48 hours to bail!!

If you can Bail , BAIL !!

That is , if you bought Bluegreen retail , that is you bought directly from Bluegreen , themselves .

You can buy BlueGreen on EBAY for some fantastic prices !!!

BlueGreen itself is a very very good TimeShare program and many people highly recommend it . So ., by all means BlueGreen is a go , just dont buy retail. By resale on EBAY or here at RedWeek and you will be very happy . - -

robertr269 wrote:

timothyh28 wrote:

Hello! Just signed with Bluegreen and second guessing ... We only have 48 hours to bail!!

If you can Bail , BAIL !!

That is , if you bought Bluegreen retail , that is you bought directly from Bluegreen , themselves .

You can buy BlueGreen on EBAY for some fantastic prices !!!

BlueGreen itself is a very very good TimeShare program and many people highly recommend it . So ., by all means BlueGreen is a go , just dont buy retail. By resale on EBAY or here at RedWeek and you will be very happy . - -

Thanks a lot for your response! You're right...there is a lot of $$ to be saved! Thanks for the good feedback! T.

timothyh28 wrote:

robertr269 wrote:

timothyh28 wrote:

Hello! Just signed with Bluegreen and second guessing ... We only have 48 hours to bail!!

If you can Bail , BAIL !!

That is , if you bought Bluegreen retail , that is you bought directly from Bluegreen , themselves .

You can buy BlueGreen on EBAY for some fantastic prices !!!

BlueGreen itself is a very very good TimeShare program and many people highly recommend it . So ., by all means BlueGreen is a go , just dont buy retail. By resale on EBAY or here at RedWeek and you will be very happy . - -

Thanks a lot for your response! You're right...there is a lot of $$ to be saved! Thanks for the good feedback! T.

We have owned Bluegreen (retail) for several years and are "VIP Silver". You might want to inquire about the status of resale points. Can you become VIP with them or not? You will probably learn that you must buy some retail to get those benefits. Look at the VIP chart in your directory. Are these perks important to you?

If you do buy "resale", be sure you are going to have points, good at all Bluegreen resorts, not just a set week at one resort. I'm not sure when the company went to points but there are probably some owners still trying to sell the old set week or floating week (within a "season") arrangement. These are probably not your best option. Of course, your contract and maintenance fees will be based on a specific resort. You just don't have to go there all the time.

Mary D

I work for Bluegreen and your right you can find things on ebay for cheaper then retail but there is some major problems with that. The biggest problem is that you can not upgrade those points if you choose to upgrade you will have a seperate deed and two maintenance fees. Also Bluegreen membership sold on ebay do not come with the member benefits of buying through a authorized agent. Beside the above you will not get bonus nights for 49-79 a night, travelerplus or bluegreen will not pay your RCI dues for you. Which if you purchase through bluegreen you will get all of that and some... remember cheaper doesn't always mean better...

georget81 wrote:

I work for Bluegreen and your right you can find things on ebay for cheaper then retail but there is some major problems with that. The biggest problem is that you can not upgrade those points if you choose to upgrade you will have a seperate deed and two maintenance fees. Also Bluegreen membership sold on ebay do not come with the member benefits of buying through a authorized agent. Beside the above you will not get bonus nights for 49-79 a night, travelerplus or bluegreen will not pay your RCI dues for you. Which if you purchase through bluegreen you will get all of that and some... remember cheaper doesn't always mean better...

HI..I never post on forums but thought I would in your case..We have been owners with Bluegreen for 6 years. When we purchased, we were told how "easy" it would be to use our points..I called in Feb. to make a reservation for Oct. at Laurel Crest in Pigeon Forge only to be told there was no availability using our points...yet, I logged onto their site, www.bluegreenonline.com and went to their rental page. I was able to rent exactly what I had asked for when I called to use points at $ 139 plus tax per night..tell me who is ripping who off..we can't use our points because there is "nothing available", yet I can rent from them and so can any regular non-owner if we just pay them per night????????? I wish we could get out of our's but we are just kind of stuck with it. You have to just about give them away once you buy in. If you can get out, do..it is much cheaper and easier to just rent from another owner or company in the longrun. Hope that helps...

Let me ask you a few things dreamtravelinc. how long in advance did you try to book your vacation? (8 months for leaf season, very tall order) Every single day of the year at 8:00am every room is available in all 47 resorts 11months from that date. For example, if I was to call tomorrow at 8:00am and wanted to book a week for august 17th, 2008 in any of our resorts I would have a 99% chance of getting what I wanted. also remember the rooms on the rental website are rooms that an owner (not Bluegreen) had booked (using their points) and placed in the rental program not Bluegreen or the resort itself. That $139 a night is actually an owner making money, not Bluegreen. They aren't going to allow one owner to use their points for that same room that is already set up by another owner that has used their points and placed it in the rental program 11 months in advance. The program is very easy to use, if used correctly and wisely, especially during the busiest times aka Leaf Season and Ultra Red Season. For further knowledge if you were to go in OCT 08 to either resort in Tennessee I would recommend booking in NOV 07 to ensure your request. I hope this helps...

GT

mike1536 wrote:

georget81 wrote:

I work for Bluegreen and your right you can find things on ebay for cheaper then retail but there is some major problems with that. The biggest problem is that you can not upgrade those points if you choose to upgrade you will have a seperate deed and two maintenance fees. Also Bluegreen membership sold on ebay do not come with the member benefits of buying through a authorized agent. Beside the above you will not get bonus nights for 49-79 a night, travelerplus or bluegreen will not pay your RCI dues for you. Which if you purchase through bluegreen you will get all of that and some... remember cheaper doesn't always mean better...

=========== George, I just want to thank you for being up front about stating you work for Bluegreen prior to touting the benefits of buying from the developer. This is when the buyer has to do all his/her homework as to how they intend to use the vacation week. Just one question for you as an employee... Why all the high pressure at a timeshare sales pitch? Why can't they just tell me the highlights of the resort's program, tell me their best price, then let me get back to them in a day or two. It would save much aggravation.

Well Mike, I wouldn't say that I really fall into that pushy salesperson and I do my job productively. We just have same day purchase incentives that I don't want my clients to miss out on. You can purchase it at any time at retail value without the incentives. If you want you can take it home and look it over and think about it but when you come back you wouldn't get the discount or the price that was discussed. When someone talks with you their trying to give you the best price for that time, not tomorrow's or three weeks from now.

I don't high pressure anyone they put the pressure on themselves. All I show them is a way that they can vacation better and at a fraction of what they are already spending in hopes to give them the incentives of doing the business that day. The clients put the pressure on themselves before they even come in the door saying to themselves that someone is going to pressure them into buying something today. It's human nature, we all do it.

For example "Mike let me guess when you woke up this morning you jumped out of bed, screaming hurry up let's go see George and buy one of those timeshare things" RIGHT? Probably not. Nobody does...

GT

georget81 wrote:

Let me ask you a few things dreamtravelinc. how long in advance did you try to book your vacation? (8 months for leaf season, very tall order) Every single day of the year at 8:00am every room is available in all 47 resorts 11months from that date. For example, if I was to call tomorrow at 8:00am and wanted to book a week for august 17th, 2008 in any of our resorts I would have a 99% chance of getting what I wanted. also remember the rooms on the rental website are rooms that an owner (not Bluegreen) had booked (using their points) and placed in the rental program not Bluegreen or the resort itself. That $139 a night is actually an owner making money, not Bluegreen. They aren't going to allow one owner to use their points for that same room that is already set up by another owner that has used their points and placed it in the rental program 11 months in advance. The program is very easy to use, if used correctly and wisely, especially during the busiest times aka Leaf Season and Ultra Red Season. For further knowledge if you were to go in OCT 08 to either resort in Tennessee I would recommend booking in NOV 07 to ensure your request. I hope this helps...

GT

George, since you work for Bluegreen, do you tell buyers that they must make reservations 11 months out to get what they want? I very seriously doubt it.

We have been (retail) Bluegreen owners for several years and have been generally very happy with our purchase. We did run into the problem with Tennessee you mentioned, but I do understand that the time is gone early because other owners reserved it early with the intention of making a profit on rentals. (If you read this site, you have seen all the complaints against the exchange companies because they do NOT allow this! You can't have it both ways, folks!)

There is one genuine problem and George may not even be aware of it. It was news to other BG sales people we've spoken to and the BG directory is not clearly written on this point.

If you try to reserve early to secure an especially busy vacation time, you will often (usually) be reserving BEYOND your current Use Year and therefore are using points which, technically, you do not yet have. Most timeshare companies will allow this.

Some companies will require you to pay the maintenance fee early for the following year in order to make a reservation using the following year's points. This does not seem unreasonable and we sometimes did it with Bluegreen. (Our Use Year starts Feb. 1) Last fall, however, we paid the next year's fees when billed and thought we were OK to then make reservations for the following June only to be told that since the fees we paid were "due" in the fall for the up-coming Use Year, we had to pay for a year BEYOND the "Due" fees for the next year to reserve into the coming year. (Confused yet?) In other words, I can make a reservation for my next Use year by paying only that year's fees IF I do this BEFORE being billed . If I wait till I have been billed, I must pay MFs for the year AFTER next to use next year's points. ( Please understand, this has nothing to do with trying to use next year's points in the current year. ) This is not a matter of paying fees for the points you want to use to make an early reservation. You are paying a YEAR BEYOND what is due for the right to do this.

At a "review" I asked about this and the salesman could not believe it was true. After kicking the question a few levels up, however, it was confirmed. They said some owners double pay intentionally at some point to "get ahead", and after that they are always OK.

The other alternative is to make your far future reservations before being billed for the next year. I believe Bluegreen does all it's billing at the same time in the fall, regardless of when your Use Year starts.

Note also that full weeks can be reserved earlier than partial weeks. This leaves fewer "shredded" weeks in inventory, so I understand the logic, although it sometimes complicates life!

MD

jayjay wrote:

George, since you work for Bluegreen, do you tell buyers that they must make reservations 11 months out to get what they want? I very seriously doubt it.

GT

adahiscout wrote:

We have been (retail) Bluegreen owners for several years and have been generally very happy with our purchase. We did run into the problem with Tennessee you mentioned, but I do understand that the time is gone early because other owners reserved it early with the intention of making a profit on rentals. (If you read this site, you have seen all the complaints against the exchange companies because they do NOT allow this! You can't have it both ways, folks!)

There is one genuine problem and George may not even be aware of it. It was news to other BG sales people we've spoken to and the BG directory is not clearly written on this point.

If you try to reserve early to secure an especially busy vacation time, you will often (usually) be reserving BEYOND your current Use Year and therefore are using points which, technically, you do not yet have. Most timeshare companies will allow this.

Some companies will require you to pay the maintenance fee early for the following year in order to make a reservation using the following year's points. This does not seem unreasonable and we sometimes did it with Bluegreen. (Our Use Year starts Feb. 1) Last fall, however, we paid the next year's fees when billed and thought we were OK to then make reservations for the following June only to be told that since the fees we paid were "due" in the fall for the up-coming Use Year, we had to pay for a year BEYOND the "Due" fees for the next year to reserve into the coming year. (Confused yet?) In other words, I can make a reservation for my next Use year by paying only that year's fees IF I do this BEFORE being billed . If I wait till I have been billed, I must pay MFs for the year AFTER next to use next year's points. ( Please understand, this has nothing to do with trying to use next year's points in the current year. ) This is not a matter of paying fees for the points you want to use to make an early reservation. You are paying a YEAR BEYOND what is due for the right to do this.

At a "review" I asked about this and the salesman could not believe it was true. After kicking the question a few levels up, however, it was confirmed. They said some owners double pay intentionally at some point to "get ahead", and after that they are always OK.

The other alternative is to make your far future reservations before being billed for the next year. I believe Bluegreen does all it's billing at the same time in the fall, regardless of when your Use Year starts.

Note also that full weeks can be reserved earlier than partial weeks. This leaves fewer "shredded" weeks in inventory, so I understand the logic, although it sometimes complicates life!

MD

MD you can always change your Anniversary Date which may help you with booking those dates in the fall. All you would have to do is call tell them you wanted to change your use date. I believe that you are required to pay is the next years maintence fees upfront to do this.

Also you are correct. The reservation window for basic owners is as follows Full weeks 1months in advance; partial weeks 5months in advance.

Silver members Full weeks 12months; Partial weeks 6months.

Gold members Full weeks 13months; Partial Weeks 7Months.

Bonus Time $49-$79 a night 45days in advance for all owners...

GT

georget81 wrote:

adahiscout wrote:

We have been (retail) Bluegreen owners for several years and have been generally very happy with our purchase. We did run into the problem with Tennessee you mentioned, but I do understand that the time is gone early because other owners reserved it early with the intention of making a profit on rentals. (If you read this site, you have seen all the complaints against the exchange companies because they do NOT allow this! You can't have it both ways, folks!)

There is one genuine problem and George may not even be aware of it. It was news to other BG sales people we've spoken to and the BG directory is not clearly written on this point.

If you try to reserve early to secure an especially busy vacation time, you will often (usually) be reserving BEYOND your current Use Year and therefore are using points which, technically, you do not yet have. Most timeshare companies will allow this.

Some companies will require you to pay the maintenance fee early for the following year in order to make a reservation using the following year's points. This does not seem unreasonable and we sometimes did it with Bluegreen. (Our Use Year starts Feb. 1) Last fall, however, we paid the next year's fees when billed and thought we were OK to then make reservations for the following June only to be told that since the fees we paid were "due" in the fall for the up-coming Use Year, we had to pay for a year BEYOND the "Due" fees for the next year to reserve into the coming year. (Confused yet?) In other words, I can make a reservation for my next Use year by paying only that year's fees IF I do this BEFORE being billed . If I wait till I have been billed, I must pay MFs for the year AFTER next to use next year's points. ( Please understand, this has nothing to do with trying to use next year's points in the current year. ) This is not a matter of paying fees for the points you want to use to make an early reservation. You are paying a YEAR BEYOND what is due for the right to do this.

At a "review" I asked about this and the salesman could not believe it was true. After kicking the question a few levels up, however, it was confirmed. They said some owners double pay intentionally at some point to "get ahead", and after that they are always OK.

The other alternative is to make your far future reservations before being billed for the next year. I believe Bluegreen does all it's billing at the same time in the fall, regardless of when your Use Year starts.

Note also that full weeks can be reserved earlier than partial weeks. This leaves fewer "shredded" weeks in inventory, so I understand the logic, although it sometimes complicates life!

MD

MD you can always change your Anniversary Date which may help you with booking those dates in the fall. All you would have to do is call tell them you wanted to change your use date. I believe that you are required to pay is the next years maintence fees upfront to do this.

Also you are correct. The reservation window for basic owners is as follows Full weeks 1months in advance; partial weeks 5months in advance.

Silver members Full weeks 12months; Partial weeks 6months.

Gold members Full weeks 13months; Partial Weeks 7Months.

Bonus Time $49-$79 a night 45days in advance for all owners...

GT

As for changing our Use Year, I'm not sure it would help, since we are not trying to reserve the same time periods every year. Fairfield/Wyndham, which we also own, does not require any advance payments to reserve ahead using points from the proper year. (If we don't pay our mantenance fees when due, they can always cancel us.) Another place we own requires that the fees for the year we want to use be paid before making the reservation but never a year BEYOND what is being used. I just don't see that it "costs" Bluegreen anything one way or the other, so why confuse and infuriate owners?

Anyhow, I hope my warning will be of help to the new owner. I don't want to scare her away from BG which is otherwise a fine company. MD

MD, Good EYE!!! it actually was supposed to be an 11 not 1. Thanks...

Being an owner of a gold crown resort as well as Bluegreen have you looked into the AIM program to receive more BG PTS. Just wondering

George

georget81 wrote:

MD, Good EYE!!! it actually was supposed to be an 11 not 1. Thanks...

Being an owner of a gold crown resort as well as Bluegreen have you looked into the AIM program to receive more BG PTS. Just wondering

George

With Wyndham, a PIC is a contract which is available only when you make a Wyndham purchase but is separate from the purchase. It applies to a particular non-Wyndham resort and the points it is worth are stated up front. There used to be no limit to the number of PICs as long as each was paired with a new FF/Wyndham contract, so folks bought resales and magically turned them into Fairfield/Wyndham points. I believe there is now a limit of two.)

For the benefit of those reading this who have no clue what AIM and PIC are: These programs allow an owner the OPTION of converting one owned resort unit into the points of another resort group for a year at a time. It operates much like an exchange company deposit, but is much cheaper and, of course, limits you to the resort group you exchange into. Everything we ourselves own CAN be PICed into Wyndham points, but we have rarely done this. There are some annual fees to have a PIC contract. I don't think there are with Bluegreen's AIM. George? Can you confirm or deny that?? MD

Hi George T

You mentioned about reserving 11 months out for peak season..Only problem with that is that they require a full weeks stay and on the Bluegreen scale, the point usage for the weekend is outrageous. Most owners don't want to burn all their points for weekend stays which is the category we fall into..So, if you look at the $$ point of view, if we booked 11 months in advance, we would essentially be paying $ 2300 for one week at a 3 star resort. Because, we of course have mortgage plus $ 420 per year maintenance and $ 120 per year club dues. Now, the mortgage will phase out in a few years, but I will still have those other 2 fees and every year, instead of using my BG points to stay at their resorts, I usually end up renting from a Fairfield (now Wyndham) owner. They have really good rates on rentals and the best part of Fairfield is that you never have to book a full week...we like doing 5 nt vacations as that is what works best for our family, so really using our points for a full week just is not feasible for us. I just end up renting our points out in 3-4 nt increments to cover our maintenance fees and club dues. Don't get me wrong, BG has some amazing resorts, and most of all, every single person who works for BG has been genuine, honest and very kind as I am sure you are...There was only 1 I ever met that I wasn't really fond of and he made pushy salespeople look like saints :-) Your info is all right on the money..I am just saying that for anyone who doesn't plan a year out, BG may not be the right choice for them.

dreamtravelinc wrote:

Hi George T

You mentioned about reserving 11 months out for peak season..Only problem with that is that they require a full weeks stay and on the Bluegreen scale, the point usage for the weekend is outrageous. Most owners don't want to burn all their points for weekend stays which is the category we fall into..So, if you look at the $$ point of view, if we booked 11 months in advance, we would essentially be paying $ 2300 for one week at a 3 star resort. Because, we of course have mortgage plus $ 420 per year maintenance and $ 120 per year club dues. Now, the mortgage will phase out in a few years, but I will still have those other 2 fees and every year, instead of using my BG points to stay at their resorts, I usually end up renting from a Fairfield (now Wyndham) owner. They have really good rates on rentals and the best part of Fairfield is that you never have to book a full week...we like doing 5 nt vacations as that is what works best for our family, so really using our points for a full week just is not feasible for us. I just end up renting our points out in 3-4 nt increments to cover our maintenance fees and club dues. Don't get me wrong, BG has some amazing resorts, and most of all, every single person who works for BG has been genuine, honest and very kind as I am sure you are...There was only 1 I ever met that I wasn't really fond of and he made pushy salespeople look like saints :-) Your info is all right on the money..I am just saying that for anyone who doesn't plan a year out, BG may not be the right choice for them.

dreamtravelinc wrote:

HI..I never post on forums but thought I would in your case..We have been owners with Bluegreen for 6 years. When we purchased, we were told how "easy" it would be to use our points..I called in Feb. to make a reservation for Oct. at Laurel Crest in Pigeon Forge only to be told there was no availability using our points...yet, I logged onto their site, www.bluegreenonline.com and went to their rental page. I was able to rent exactly what I had asked for when I called to use points at $ 139 plus tax per night..tell me who is ripping who off..we can't use our points because there is "nothing available", yet I can rent from them and so can any regular non-owner if we just pay them per night????????? I wish we could get out of our's but we are just kind of stuck with it. You have to just about give them away once you buy in. If you can get out, do..it is much cheaper and easier to just rent from another owner or company in the longrun. Hope that helps...

We have been owners for less than 2 years and have been on 5 vacations so far. Laurel Crest is in Pigeon Forge and Oct is a high season for them so it has to be booked further in advance. We have been very satisfied with our purchase. It is true that you can get a better deal through resale, but you have to be careful. The only way to get the VIP program is to purchase from an authorized seller, which is Pinnacle Vacations. You can purchase points from them much cheaper than from the developer.

dreamtravelinc wrote:

HI..I never post on forums but thought I would in your case..We have been owners with Bluegreen for 6 years. When we purchased, we were told how "easy" it would be to use our points..I called in Feb. to make a reservation for Oct. at Laurel Crest in Pigeon Forge only to be told there was no availability using our points...yet, I logged onto their site, www.bluegreenonline.com and went to their rental page. I was able to rent exactly what I had asked for when I called to use points at $ 139 plus tax per night..tell me who is ripping who off..we can't use our points because there is "nothing available", yet I can rent from them and so can any regular non-owner if we just pay them per night????????? I wish we could get out of our's but we are just kind of stuck with it. You have to just about give them away once you buy in. If you can get out, do..it is much cheaper and easier to just rent from another owner or company in the longrun. Hope that helps...