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(I appologize for the lenghy post, but if you can spare the time for the read I'd love to hear any feedback you have!!)
While walking through a Bass Pro shops near Detroit, MI in Sept of 2008 we came across the program. It was initially pitched as a $59 2 night vacation.. but as it all un-folded (and knew so before we bought the $59 package) it was a time share pitch etc. For $59 we bought it knowing they would give back $50 in Bass Pro gift cards if we attended the presentation. What we didn't know until time of booking (last week) is that you were put up in a hotel near the resort, not the actual resort. We are from Canada but had to come to Orlando/Disney for a wedding this week. We decided to use 2 nights of our stay to check out the timeshare program. We checked in at the Fountains in Orlando and got our voucher for 2 nights at the Hampton Inn. We attended our presentation this morning and we do travel a few weeks per year so we are open minded to the possibility of this being a good program. All said and done, we ended up going with the Silver package for 20,000 pts annually, reloaded every Sept 1. The annual maint is around $1,120 and then the other $129 fee. We got this package for around $26K.. they initially were asking around $33K.
After now having the time to do some research and googling about BlueGreen we have a few concerns about the program.
1) There is a lot of bad press I'll call it on the web about availability, etc... but a lot of that was about members who bought just a 'sampler' package. I understand that we can book 11 months plus 2 bonus months with our Vip/Premier status but we don't always know where/when we want to go 13 months out. For a full week trip, we typically only book between 3-4 months in advance on average. Will this be a problem for us with BlueGreen?
2) We were given the option of loading points annually (at 20K) or every 2 years (40K). There was some discussion about how the points expire vs using points in advance for future years (with understanding you had to pre-pay the future years maint fees upfront to use that in your current year) but I didn't really understand the advantages/disadvantages of each and the sales rep said at 20K pts per year go with the annual. When we were looking at a lower priced program of only 10k or 15k points then he said it would be better to go to the 2 year point loading option. Should I try to get this switched?
3) When looking at posts on this forum there are things about chartered vs non-chartered points, etc.. but I basically don't understand. What type do we have and what is the difference? We are supposedly VIP/Premier status members at a Silver Level.
4) There is a lot of talk about getting points way cheaper ebay (sample - 20,000 Bluegreen Points ORLANDO Florida Timeshare - eBay (item 230508505556 end time Sep-07-10 18:14:16 PDT)) but what are the differences in buying re-sale vs direct from BlueGreen? If I buy a package off ebay can I still use my points at RCI? I find it hard to believe that these timeshares are going for that cheap assuming everyone paid something similar to us originally?
5) We like some of the BlueGreen resorts but of the ~50 or so resorts a ton are all in Florida and there are not any in areas where we know we will go regularly. So we plan to use the RCI resorts/connections for other travel regularly annually and will visit the BlueGreen's from time to time. The $79/$119/$179 fee's (depending on length of stay) to use RCI resorts don't bother me, but is there a better way to get into a timeshare? Should we look at cancelling the BlueGreen and buy from a timeshare that has resorts in an area we know we will want to go a little more regularly? (Ie - Whistler, BC)
6) One of the reasons we decided to go ahead with was based on the 'bonus nights' where you can stay for the $59-$79 or Presidential for $169. What I noticed now is those can only be booked within 45 days. What type of availability is around for that? We thought about doing some weekend roadtrips at the Mountain Run at Boyne, MI. Or maybe some long weekend trips to the Vegas area resort or Atlantic City etc. Are these bonus nights a load of BS as everything is almost booked already? When looking at availability now, they have aprox 50 resorts, but claim 200,000 members. That’s a lot of people trying to use 50 resorts! So what is regularly available 45 days out?
7) If some of the feedback or answers to these maybe lean me towards thinking this was a mistake, what is the cancel period? From reading this website it sounds like have to cancel in writing within 3 days? I am reviewing all the paperwork and I can only find one thing that mentions anything about cancelling. Under the main TERMS AND CONDITIONS point 9 is titled "REFUND PRIVILEGES" and it says....
In the event Purchaser cancels the Agreement during the applicable cancelation period, Facilitator, or Club Developer or Lender acting on behalf of the Facilitator, will be refund to the Purchaser the total amount of all payments made by the Purchaser under this Agreement, reduced by the proportion of any Contract Benefits the Purchaser has actually received prior o the effective date of cancellation. Such Contract Benefits shall include, but not be limited to, (a) the value of the materials delivered to Purchaser-hereby stipulated to be no more than seventy-five dollars ($75.00)-exclusive of the Multi-Site Public Offering Statement and other documents required to be provided to Purchaser under applicable Florida law, and not returned by the Purchaser to the Club Developer in satisfactory condition, reasonable wear and tear excepted and (b) if the Purchaser has used or occupied any Bluegreen Vacation Club Component Site resort for more than 12 hours prior to delivering a notice of cancellation in accordance with the provisions hereof, a reasonable occupancy charge equal to the fair market nightly rental rate-hereby stipulated to be not less than one hundred fifty dollars ($150.00) per night plus the cost of damages, if any, to the applicable Component Site resort directly attributable to the Purchaser's use or occupancy thereof. The refund shall be mad within twenty (20) days after BlueGreen's receipt and acceptance of the notice of cancellation or within five (5) days of receipt of funds from the Purchaser's cleared check, whichever is later.
So.. after all that.. what is the 'cancelation period'? I don't see it mentioned anywhere else in these documents, but its late, I could be missing something! lol. I've read some points on here about it being 3 days??? We were given our binders today but I assume we could return them tomorrow if we should decide to cancel. What is an acceptable form of cancellation? Written notice delivered to the same people/address we just purchased from? Also what I should mention is after we decided to buy I asked if we could be brought on resort instead of the Hamptons Inn hotel for the 2nd night instead of being at the Hamptons. I already have pre-paid at a Disney resort for 5 other days so only need 1 night. They said all stays are a 2 night minimum but the sales manager went to the front reception and worked some type of magic and we are in the Fountains now. I asked for only 1 night they said all reservations are a 2 night minimum, etc. I thought I may be responsible for the 2nd night at the bonus night $69 fee but the check in agent said it was booked under some type of management/marketing code and it doesn't show as anything being owed. f we do cancel I assume that being here longer than 12 hours will activate the $150 minimum deduction from the refund? We paid $8K on credit card today and the rest is setup to finance on the card for 120 month. (Although our plan was to pay it off interest free within 30 days once we got home and made arrangements there)
If anyone has any feedback on any point that I've mentioned please do so! To clarify anything, or let me know anything good or bad you have to share about the program. I'd love to hear anything anyone has to say on this it as it seems time is of the essence right now if we want to cancel. I will say this though, my spouse and I do like to travel, we have no kids and can get time away from work for this. I guess my biggest of all the concerns is availability. Will resorts at BG or RCI be available for a week in my regular 2-4 month vacation planning time frame. I guess my 2nd biggest is did I just pay $26K for something I could of got off ebay for much mush less if all things being equal?
Thank you to anyone who has any comments at all on this.
Your feedback is appreciated!
Cheers.
While walking through a Bass Pro shops near Detroit, MI in Sept of 2008 we came across the program. It was initially pitched as a $59 2 night vacation.. but as it all un-folded (and knew so before we bought the $59 package) it was a time share pitch etc. For $59 we bought it knowing they would give back $50 in Bass Pro gift cards if we attended the presentation. What we didn't know until time of booking (last week) is that you were put up in a hotel near the resort, not the actual resort. We are from Canada but had to come to Orlando/Disney for a wedding this week. We decided to use 2 nights of our stay to check out the timeshare program. We checked in at the Fountains in Orlando and got our voucher for 2 nights at the Hampton Inn. We attended our presentation this morning and we do travel a few weeks per year so we are open minded to the possibility of this being a good program. All said and done, we ended up going with the Silver package for 20,000 pts annually, reloaded every Sept 1. The annual maint is around $1,120 and then the other $129 fee. We got this package for around $26K.. they initially were asking around $33K.
After now having the time to do some research and googling about BlueGreen we have a few concerns about the program.
1) There is a lot of bad press I'll call it on the web about availability, etc... but a lot of that was about members who bought just a 'sampler' package. I understand that we can book 11 months plus 2 bonus months with our Vip/Premier status but we don't always know where/when we want to go 13 months out. For a full week trip, we typically only book between 3-4 months in advance on average. Will this be a problem for us with BlueGreen?
2) We were given the option of loading points annually (at 20K) or every 2 years (40K). There was some discussion about how the points expire vs using points in advance for future years (with understanding you had to pre-pay the future years maint fees upfront to use that in your current year) but I didn't really understand the advantages/disadvantages of each and the sales rep said at 20K pts per year go with the annual. When we were looking at a lower priced program of only 10k or 15k points then he said it would be better to go to the 2 year point loading option. Should I try to get this switched?
3) When looking at posts on this forum there are things about chartered vs non-chartered points, etc.. but I basically don't understand. What type do we have and what is the difference? We are supposedly VIP/Premier status members at a Silver Level.
4) There is a lot of talk about getting points way cheaper ebay (sample - 20,000 Bluegreen Points ORLANDO Florida Timeshare - eBay (item 230508505556 end time Sep-07-10 18:14:16 PDT)) but what are the differences in buying re-sale vs direct from BlueGreen? If I buy a package off ebay can I still use my points at RCI? I find it hard to believe that these timeshares are going for that cheap assuming everyone paid something similar to us originally?
5) We like some of the BlueGreen resorts but of the ~50 or so resorts a ton are all in Florida and there are not any in areas where we know we will go regularly. So we plan to use the RCI resorts/connections for other travel regularly annually and will visit the BlueGreen's from time to time. The $79/$119/$179 fee's (depending on length of stay) to use RCI resorts don't bother me, but is there a better way to get into a timeshare? Should we look at cancelling the BlueGreen and buy from a timeshare that has resorts in an area we know we will want to go a little more regularly? (Ie - Whistler, BC)
6) One of the reasons we decided to go ahead with was based on the 'bonus nights' where you can stay for the $59-$79 or Presidential for $169. What I noticed now is those can only be booked within 45 days. What type of availability is around for that? We thought about doing some weekend roadtrips at the Mountain Run at Boyne, MI. Or maybe some long weekend trips to the Vegas area resort or Atlantic City etc. Are these bonus nights a load of BS as everything is almost booked already? When looking at availability now, they have aprox 50 resorts, but claim 200,000 members. That’s a lot of people trying to use 50 resorts! So what is regularly available 45 days out?
7) If some of the feedback or answers to these maybe lean me towards thinking this was a mistake, what is the cancel period? From reading this website it sounds like have to cancel in writing within 3 days? I am reviewing all the paperwork and I can only find one thing that mentions anything about cancelling. Under the main TERMS AND CONDITIONS point 9 is titled "REFUND PRIVILEGES" and it says....
In the event Purchaser cancels the Agreement during the applicable cancelation period, Facilitator, or Club Developer or Lender acting on behalf of the Facilitator, will be refund to the Purchaser the total amount of all payments made by the Purchaser under this Agreement, reduced by the proportion of any Contract Benefits the Purchaser has actually received prior o the effective date of cancellation. Such Contract Benefits shall include, but not be limited to, (a) the value of the materials delivered to Purchaser-hereby stipulated to be no more than seventy-five dollars ($75.00)-exclusive of the Multi-Site Public Offering Statement and other documents required to be provided to Purchaser under applicable Florida law, and not returned by the Purchaser to the Club Developer in satisfactory condition, reasonable wear and tear excepted and (b) if the Purchaser has used or occupied any Bluegreen Vacation Club Component Site resort for more than 12 hours prior to delivering a notice of cancellation in accordance with the provisions hereof, a reasonable occupancy charge equal to the fair market nightly rental rate-hereby stipulated to be not less than one hundred fifty dollars ($150.00) per night plus the cost of damages, if any, to the applicable Component Site resort directly attributable to the Purchaser's use or occupancy thereof. The refund shall be mad within twenty (20) days after BlueGreen's receipt and acceptance of the notice of cancellation or within five (5) days of receipt of funds from the Purchaser's cleared check, whichever is later.
So.. after all that.. what is the 'cancelation period'? I don't see it mentioned anywhere else in these documents, but its late, I could be missing something! lol. I've read some points on here about it being 3 days??? We were given our binders today but I assume we could return them tomorrow if we should decide to cancel. What is an acceptable form of cancellation? Written notice delivered to the same people/address we just purchased from? Also what I should mention is after we decided to buy I asked if we could be brought on resort instead of the Hamptons Inn hotel for the 2nd night instead of being at the Hamptons. I already have pre-paid at a Disney resort for 5 other days so only need 1 night. They said all stays are a 2 night minimum but the sales manager went to the front reception and worked some type of magic and we are in the Fountains now. I asked for only 1 night they said all reservations are a 2 night minimum, etc. I thought I may be responsible for the 2nd night at the bonus night $69 fee but the check in agent said it was booked under some type of management/marketing code and it doesn't show as anything being owed. f we do cancel I assume that being here longer than 12 hours will activate the $150 minimum deduction from the refund? We paid $8K on credit card today and the rest is setup to finance on the card for 120 month. (Although our plan was to pay it off interest free within 30 days once we got home and made arrangements there)
If anyone has any feedback on any point that I've mentioned please do so! To clarify anything, or let me know anything good or bad you have to share about the program. I'd love to hear anything anyone has to say on this it as it seems time is of the essence right now if we want to cancel. I will say this though, my spouse and I do like to travel, we have no kids and can get time away from work for this. I guess my biggest of all the concerns is availability. Will resorts at BG or RCI be available for a week in my regular 2-4 month vacation planning time frame. I guess my 2nd biggest is did I just pay $26K for something I could of got off ebay for much mush less if all things being equal?
Thank you to anyone who has any comments at all on this.
Your feedback is appreciated!
Cheers.
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