BlueGreen Vacations

[siddikia Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close siddikia]

Hi, I recently (Saturday) attended at BlueGreen Promotional sessions, and walked out purchasing a 5,000/year point plan. From the presentation and the sales discussion, it seemed like a great idea. Upon returning home, I was able to look up online about BlueGreen Vacations, and almost everything that I can find indicates it's a scam, lies, everything is overbooked and hard to schedule.

Now, I know that most people will post their horrible experiences, and few to none will post their good experiences with the company. After reading so many negative reviews, I can't help to feel a little buyers remorse, which may not even be justified. Thus, I am on here to see what some of your opinions are.
I have to look at my paperwork, because I do remember something that said I had 5 days to cancel.

Please let me know your experiences, and recommendations.

Thanks

[SallyHoover Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close SallyHoover]

It's not a bad system but 5000 points bought from the developer is going to be overpriced and you won't be able to get very much with so few points. You should rescind and then do some more research to see if bluegreen is really the system that will work best for your travel needs and then look into the resale market and the authorized reseller pinnacle if you want some of the developer perks like bonus time throughout the system.

[siddikia Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close siddikia]

Thank you Sally for your honest opinion. I am very new to this timeshare thing and want to make sure that I get something that will be beneficial for my family and not a hassle.

Another question... In order to rescind, I need to generate a letter informing that I want to use my right to cancel this contract before the state regulated time by the state of MO. Is there anything else that I need to do? Maybe write cancel on all the documents that signed and date them next to my cancel signature? Also, send everything back via certificated USPS before the 5 days?

Any other input that you might have would be helpful.

[GrayFal Silver Contributor and supermoderator Find all posts View Profile Close GrayFal]

Thank you Sally for your honest opinion. I am very new to this timeshare thing and want to make sure that I get something that will be beneficial for my family and not a hassle.

Another question... In order to rescind, I need to generate a letter informing that I want to use my right to cancel this contract before the state regulated time by the state of MO. Is there anything else that I need to do? Maybe write cancel on all the documents that signed and date them next to my cancel signature? Also, send everything back via certificated USPS before the 5 days?

Any other input that you might have would be helpful.

Hi, welcome to TS4Ms. I am a very happy Bluegreen Owner but I still encourage you to rescind your purchase

Follow the directions exactly as indicated on the contract .... The important thing is to get the letter in the mail and post marked before the 5 days are up.

You are right in that people tend to post their negative experiences rather then the positive. Also, with only 5,000 points, you can only book 3-4 nights mid week off season.
How is this going to make you happy?

In order to be successful with this ownership, you need to plan ahead. For prime time vacations, you need to book at 11 months out when inventory is released. Not everyone is that organized or able to plan ahead.
If you are looking for a warm weather vacation during spring break you can't wait until October to book March.
If you do, you will be disappointed.

Bluegreen is a great ownership but do you homework, buy on the resale market for next to nothing and enjoy some great vacations.

But rescind now exactly as directed on your contract. Do not call Bluegreen as they will try and talk you out of rescinding.

[siddikia Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close siddikia]

Hi, welcome to TS4Ms. I am a very happy Bluegreen Owner but I still encourage you to rescind your purchase

Follow the directions exactly as indicated on the contract .... The important thing is to get the letter in the mail and post marked before the 5 days are up.

You are right in that people tend to post their negative experiences rather then the positive. Also, with only 5,000 points, you can only book 3-4 nights mid week off season.
How is this going to make you happy?

In order to be successful with this ownership, you need to plan ahead. For prime time vacations, you need to book at 11 months out when inventory is released. Not everyone is that organized or able to plan ahead.
If you are looking for a warm weather vacation during spring break you can't wait until October to book March.
If you do, you will be disappointed.

Bluegreen is a great ownership but do you homework, buy on the resale market for next to nothing and enjoy some great vacations.

But rescind now exactly as directed on your contract. Do not call Bluegreen as they will try and talk you out of rescinding.

Thank you for your honest opinion. I really appreciate it. It goes to show that not all timeshare situations are bad. Just some education before purchasing is definitely required in order to get a happy product. Thanks again.

[rapmarks Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close rapmarks]

people are offering to give away their ownerships all the time on this site on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/1415493675355850/ Bluegreen owners buy and sell.

[Laura72 Banned Find all posts View Profile Close Laura72]

One thing ive learned over the years is you have to always be careful with timeshares most of them are scamming people in one way or the other. They got my parents sit through their presentation while on vacation and convinced them to buy into a timeshare. Im sure it wasnst that difficult because my parents are pretty naive and are not hurting for money. To make a long story short they bought into the sales pitch. They ended up getting lied to about places they could use and ended up paying all kinds of fees. It was basically just a money trap for them. So I did what I could to help them get there timeshare cancelled with emailing, calling, and whatever I could do. I was not getting anywhere so we decided to look for lawyers that could possibly help them. edited to remove name of group specialize in timeshare cancellation so thats who they went with! They took care of there case in just over 2 months which included the documentation, rescission, and credit restoration which was very important to them. Of course it was not free but my parents said it was worth every penny to get rid of this nightmare! I know there are people in similar situations so if you are I recommend you check some timeshare cancellation lawyers. Just make sure you do your research. I hope this information can help someone in need! Any questions about our experienced are welcome. These timeshare scams are absolute nightmares and i would not wish this crap on even my worst enemy!

[Marty L Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Marty L]

I'm new to this site, too, have been a Bluegreen 8,000 biennial point owner for five years. I just purchased another 6000 annual points for 11,500 pts. and now I feel bad now that I read GrayFal's comment on you can buy points on the resale market next to nothing. What resale market and how do you go about doing that legally? Should I have gone to Pinnacle first? Just like siddikia's comment of seeing so much negativity about Bluegreen, I'd like to see some positive comments. Thanks.

[Hobbitess Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Hobbitess]

What resale market and how do you go about doing that legally? Should I have gone to Pinnacle first? Just like siddikia's comment of seeing so much negativity about Bluegreen, I'd like to see some positive comments. Thanks.

There's a resale market right here at Timeshare Forums, although not a particularly active one:

http://www.timeshareforums.com/forum...hare-or-Points

We bought our resale points on TUG. It's perfectly legal, however the resale points don't carry all the benefits of points bought direct from Bluegreen or full price from Pinnacle. You don't get bonus time at any resort except your home resort, for instance, and very rarely you'll run across resale points that are so old they don't include an RCI membership. If you hope to get premiere benefits, resale points don't count toward your total.

You used to be able to get cheap resale points through Pinnacle, and I don't see any reason why that would have changed, however they won't be as cheap as points from other sources. Bluegreen charges a transfer fee (I'm thinking it was $500-600 or thereabouts, but don't quote me -- well under $1000, at any rate), which the seller will sometimes pay, but you also need to have someone who knows what they're doing to either explain it to you or to help you walk it through the system. I found someone here to help me, but he's long gone. You still might try posting to the Bluegreen sub-board here, although I think half the people still active there have posted here.

http://www.timeshareforums.com/forum...egreen-Resorts

I haven't been there in a while (good group; hate yahoo's format), but if the yahoo Bluegreen group is still active you could probably try there as well. You could also try Facebook -- there's a half dozen or more positive Bluegreen groups there (and some groups of people who hate it as well, I expect). The challenge on Facebook is that, while the bigger and more active groups surely have people who know how to walk you through it, those are the same groups so active your message may get shoved down before the right people see it!

In terms of positive comments -- we got a BG Sampler in 2008, bought 8000 resale points in 2009, and love it to pieces. With five kids, 8000 points doesn't get us a whole lot; we're homeschoolers and originally just going off season enabled us to stretch points considerable (the fact that hubby only got two weeks vacation a year and we used at least one of those every other year to visit family helped, I suppose). We also rented points from fellow owners (the best deal was from a guy who only rented to fellow BG owners and expected you to look up the reservation and make sure there were openings and do the points calculations and whatnot), and we've gotten a number of Extra Vacations from RCI. Since I love to plan way ahead, we haven't done RCI Last Call yet, but some of our rentals are almost as cheap (we've got two weeks in an Orlando 3 BR for $350 a week this November, for instance).

With my chow hounds, the biggest traveling cost by far was food; BG 2 BRs pretty much always have a full kitchen, meaning that even if our particular units are not a great deal (small ownerships the yearly fees are pricey per point), we still save a lot of money vacationing with Bluegreen because we can cook or have TV dinners or otherwise avoid restaurant prices. We also tend to be more experimental eaters at home; on vacation we tend to fall back on old favorite dishes and junk food, so we aren't that big on eating out on vacation anyhow. And we love, love, love having the space and multiple TVs. It's a lot easier to find hotel rooms and hotel suites with kitchenettes now than it was then (or we've gotten better at looking), but even those just don't compare to the average Bluegreen unit.

I think Sampler owners might have an advantage over people who buy directly in, because most of the stuff in the Sampler is easy to get into, so the places we most dreamed about visiting were places (although not necessarily units) we could easily reserve, at least the times the Sampler covered. Big Cedar is tough early summer, but that's the only one from the Sampler I've run across that's a serious challenge to get into (and of course there are now multiple other -- admittedly more pricey -- Big Cedar options). At one time I thought I'd like to visit all the BG resorts, but we keep adding to our favorites list where the kids beg to go back somewhere we've already been, while BG keeps adding resorts, so I'm not sure that's ever going to happen. But we still add a new one every year or two -- we have an Ocean Front unit at Solara Surfside next May, which will be a new resort and location for us.

I've stayed in other chain systems through RCI, and haven't regretted buying into Bluegreen yet. Some other chains, the units are nicer (and the yearly fees higher), but the staff was a pain. Bluegreen also seems a lot more responsive to owners than some others. DVC, for instance, for years would regularly drop really prime weeks in prime locations into RCI, which made most DVC owners who realized it just tear their hair out. DVC has cleaned up their act, best I can tell, keeping back the units their owners most want, but they were weirdly oblivious to it for too long, IMHO. Not that Bluegreen tackled the mega-owners renting out Big Cedar points issue terribly promptly (according to some who were really mad about it), but OTOH I thought the solution to the DVC problem was pretty obvious (and roughly what they eventually did), while the Big Cedar issue was a lot more complex. For one thing, the DVC issue was favoring outsiders over owners, while the BG issue was balancing the needs and desires of the minority big points owners over the majority of little guys. But whatever. They both made the right decision in the end, at least.

Most people who complain about Bluegreen (and point system timeshares in general) were never a good fit for what they bought, IMHO. They don't want to reserve early. They only want to stay in one particular associate resort, at the height of the season, the same week every single year, when Bluegreen only owns 3 units a week there. It's possible to treat Bluegreen as a weeks resort where you stay in the same place the same every year, but not if it's a limited unit resort you don't own in. People who are willing to try, try, try again in order to get bonus time, or who happily rearrange their plans around a Hot Week they scored, or who live somewhere within an easy day's drive of multiple resorts and so can get Bonus Time relatively easily, love those options -- people who want to use Bonus Time as if it were points, by calling in once and making a reservation, or want to score a Hot Week at their preferred resort on a limited number of dates, are not going to be very happy with those options.

People who buy in not knowing what they really want, or not knowing what Bluegreen really is, hate it and resent it. People like myself and my husband, who always thought staying in a condo sounded lovely, but didn't like the thought of being tied to week-length vacations or the same spot every year (unless you went through the added expense and hassle of trading through RCI), recognized that points systems were exactly what we'd dreamed of, and are thrilled to have that option. Add in RCI with its many reasonably priced Extra Vacations, and we feel blessed to have discovered it when we did.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

Those sales weasels hate the Internet.

[Hobbitess Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Hobbitess]

Those sales weasels hate the Internet.

I have great hopes it'll do in the current Timeshare Hard Sell routine. But I'm probably being optimistic. I'm amazed the number of people who have access to this great resource and make no practical use of it.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

PT Barnum was not wrong.

[vintner Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close vintner]

I have great hopes it'll do in the current Timeshare Hard Sell routine. But I'm probably being optimistic. I'm amazed the number of people who have access to this great resource and make no practical use of it.

If you are talking using the internet in the owners update, I have had weak signal at that time not allowing me to get to the internet to show the used cars sales people turn Bluegreen sales people the facts to their lies.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

I heard Pam Bondi is being lobbied to make it a 5-second Rescission period. Crack down on resale scams while the sharks who caused them keep feeding.

JMHO

[rapmarks Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close rapmarks]

Bluegreen timeshare secrets, a closed group run by Sara Strock, mention her name at an update and you get out fast