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My husband and i purchased at big cedar a week ago for 5000 pts, we got the charter pkg and all the other benefits with our purchase. Our days off are during the week so we figure most of our time spent away will be used during that time. I was wondering the availability of bonus time, peoples general opinion of BG, and what is silver platinum and gold i keep hearing about on here??? we werent told about this status? I know we dont have many points but as ive been reading on here we can buy resale points, which we will def be doing, to add to ours! this site is fantastic so far.
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Welcome
We started the same way you did three years ago (5000 annual points) and a charter. We are now bronze (15000 points per year). We bought 6000 more points on the resale maket from Bocca Bum (Jim) at a much less expensive price. We went to bronze level with more points purchased from Bluegreen. With the new rules you cannot buy those cheap points anymore and have them count toward any premier ownership level. But points are points and by using some good buys, you can take some really nice vacations. You will need to strive toward the 15000 points per year to make your maintenance fee more cost effective. Bocca Bum can help you in this case....a good man. -
If you're looking to use bonus time at Big Cedar, you'll have a hard time
You will make the most of your points by traveling mid-week! Your schedules are a great fit for Bluegreen.
If you're looking in the off-season and aren't picky (ie, studio or one bedroom works), you're likely to do okay. If you hope to get summertime, even mid-week, on bonus time, you're not going to be very happy.
Right now, for June / July 2010, there are only two things available:
6/16-6/18 one bedroom
7/9-7/11 studio
As for general opinion of Bluegreen, I love it. I've been an owner for just over 2 years. They keep adding new resorts (tho I've only been to 3), improving the website, and adding benefits.
Gold and Silver status you can best investigate by checking the bgexperts.com website. He gives a breakdown there of the Premier benefits. You can't get these benefits by adding resale points unless you pay at least $1.25 a point. (Resale points typically sell for much less).
Good luck!Comment
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what are the benefits of upgrading status over the charter membership?Comment
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There are several places to see what the differences are, some of these may not be important to you. Here is a link for the BG section of our forum. Also as akparsa stated you could also find information at bgexperts.com.
Hope this helps..there is a lot of great information in the way of "stickies" on the BlueGreen forum here.Comment
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maintenance pts
Tom,
You stated that we should shoot for 15,000 pts for more reasonable maintenance fees. Could you further explain that please? The more points you buy the less you pay in maintenance? I'm leaning towards buying just resale pts but was thinking about just 10,000 but might rethink that if it saves me a little in the long run.Comment
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The more points you buy, the less you pay per point in maintenance. For instance, if I have 8000 points, I pay $763.00 in yearly fees (maintenance plus club dues), which breaks down to $0.095 a point. But if I have 16000 points, I pay $1087.00 a year, which breaks down to $0.068/point. So I'm paying more per year, but less per point. The more points you own, the higher your yearly fees, but the lower your per-point cost.Originally posted by Bearscubsrule
You can also stretch your "per point" cost other ways - using RCI Last Call weeks, using Bonus Time wisely, etc. But the easiest way to get your per point cost down is to get more points.Comment
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For Trust Fund E, the 2010 maintenance fees are:
310 + 0.0405 * (number of points)
So, the less points you have, the more significant that $310 base fee is.
10,000-15,000 points is around where it starts to make more sense to own points than just rent them. Although currently the rental rates are pretty low.
A 15,000 package versus 10,000 package would cost you about $202 more per year in maintenance fees, and would cost $6,250 more initially if you buy through Pinnacle at $1.25 per point for authorized points.
If you buy unauthorized points, the initial cost difference between 10,000 and 15,000 is a lot less, but you don't get any premiere benefits for bumping up to 15,000.
You don't necessarily need to have the premiere benefits that 15,000 authorized points would give you, like getting on the wait list at 12 months. For example, right now at 11 months there are still plenty of studio, 1 bedroom, and 2 bedroom units available at Big Cedar for the first week June. There is a Fri/Sat 2 bedroom cabin, but you probably won't see more than that during the summer even at 11 months out, and as you get to the 4th of July weekend, all rooms could be fully booked before the 11 month window. Even getting on the wait list at 12 months, it would probably be difficult to get a cabin for a week in the summer.Comment
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Maintenance
Hobbitess has it right as far as cost per point. By the way, we liked Club 36 and Las Vegas so much, we are going back this spring. We are going to the Fountains in October and Daytona Seabreeze in December. Each of those Florida trips is directly followed by a Royal Cribbean cruise on the Freedom of Seas out of Port Canaveral. It sure is fun finally being retired.Comment
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Tom,
Tom,
Please stop gloating
Anita
PS - just kidding. that sounds AWESOME! My biggest problem right now is that I have too many great resorts in BG and exchange opportunities and not enough time that my kids are out of school or DH is off work. Pretty good problem to have
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