Purchased Sampler Pkg

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

Hi,

My husband, 5 yr old daughter & I went to Myrtle Beach, SC this past week. While at breakfast we were approached about a free $75 gift card & free 2 night/3 day stay if we attended a 90 minute presentation for Bluegreen Resorts. We could use the extra money & we knew we were coming back to the beach in Sept. so staying for free caught our attention. Everyone was very nice from the presenter to the salesman, no high pressure tactics. Due to our tight finances we couldn't sign up immediately for any of the points packages so as a last resort they offered us the "sampler" $300 down $75 per month, no bonus option, no booking for June, July or August, no obligation to continue after the year is up. I was VERY happy until I got back home & started doing research and read the horror stories not from just Bluegreen owners but others as well.

Realizing how everything goes up I felt timesharing would be a good option for us, but now I am not so sure of what I need to do when the year is up. It's tough for us to come up with the money for two vacations a year(we had two yardsales to cover the cost of this trip), so paying every month & having even more vacations with no worries of hotel bills sounded great. Even being locked in for 10 years of monthly payments, then maintanence fees after that doesn't bother me, that's to be expected. What does bother me is if we sign on to something more permanent only to experience some of the horrors I have read, like never being able to get the week/weekend you want, rooms not up to par, maintanence fees rising rapidly, points don't go as far etc.

I am seriously considering not re-newing when the year is up but I know how hotel rates keep going up each year, I know we want to take my daughter to Disney one day or the Disney cruise. It's difficult enough for us now to try to get two beach trips in per year due to the cost, I can't imagine trying to get enough money for a week at Disney just the hotel bill alone I am sure would be staggering, hence the timeshare seems the way to go.

Can anyone who is an experienced Bluegreen owner give me some feedback? The Pros & Cons of it all. If we do re-new we will be on the 7000 points every other year program, that is all we could afford ($137 per month $598 maintanence fees). I have read on here about buying from individuals I guess that could be an option for us depending on the feedback I get.

Thanks, Jib

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

I have read on here about buying from individuals I guess that could be an option for us depending on the feedback I get.

With your financial situation I would strongly recommend going resale. Do a lot of homework and use a trustworthy realtor (BocaBum, who posts here, is highly recommended) and give yourself a goodly number of months for the sale to clear. And I would try to find a deal you could afford up front - I would recommend you don't put yourself in debt for vactions. You'd be paying yearly maintenance fees and dues along with the monthly charges, and it can really add up that way.

I have kind of a rundown on the various Bluegreen offerings at the Bluegreen yahoo site in the Files section called "Bluegreen Basics" that might be helpful getting it all clear in your mind. If you are happy planning well ahead, you might be happier with "unauthorized" points, which are cheaper than the "authorized" points you were being offered, even on the resale market. Many of the perks of the authorized points are "short term planning" kind of perks, although bonus time is a huge advantage if you want to make reservations on weekends (which often cost many more points). With unauthorized points you still have access to RCI, which means you can make use of the "Last Call" vacations for serious bargains sometimes.

From my perspective, the horror stories pretty much boil down to people who hate the sales department (I hate the sales department myself), people who really don't want what timesharing offers, and people who don't understand what they have or how to use it. The Sampler is nice because if you can get reservations you can use through the sampler, odds are good you'll be able to get reservations you can use as a full owner. If you want a reservation in the prime times Sampler owners don't have access to, you're going to have to work a little harder at it - reserve earlier, possibly be flexible about where you want to go, etc. - but it's doable.

The Sampler essentially gives you a list of the resorts that are easiest to get into - the larger fully owned resorts. If you're happy with the resorts the Sampler offers, you're probably going to be happy with Bluegreen, because your odds are pretty good at getting reservations at those resorts if you call in early. Maybe with the exception of Odyssy Dells; don't have any grasp of how hard that is to get into but I do know there are only a few units there.

A lot of the people who complain about availability want to go to THIS resort at THIS time, and are not interested in accepting alternates. In their minds they're supposed to be able to call anytime and get the resort they want, but, unfortunately for them, Bluegreen is on a "first call, first served" system, plus the Premeire people can get on the wait list before regular members, so if you go into Bluegreen with your heart set on getting into an associate resort in a prime season, you're going to be disappointed more often than not. If you just want to go to a nice resort in that prime season, and you know when you'll be there early enough to make reservations months ahead, you'll probably be able to find something that makes you happy.

So far I've always been able to get where I wanted to go when I wanted to go; the only real adjustment I've ever had to make was type of unit (I didn't get the view I'd wanted but I got a unit I liked better so that balanced out nicely). There have been a couple times where people posted here or to the Bluegreen Yahoo group saying, "I can't get a reservation ANYWHERE for this time period," and other people have found a number of possibilities in the owned resorts. I suspect what the original posters meant was, "When I call in May for an August reservation I can't get anything beachfront," which is probably true (aside from the freak last minute cancellation).

If you're wanting something with points on fairly short notice, you'll probably have the option of three or four from the following list: Harbour Lights, World Golf Village, Falls Village, Mountain Run, maybe CMV, one of the Tennessee options, or Orlando's Sunshine II. The beachfont units fill up fast in prime time, as does Big Cedar. The ones close to the beach (within a few miles) but not right on it are easier to get into, as a rule. They also tend to be larger units on a larger resort.

Bluegreen may be a good fit for you, but only you can figure that out. You're on the right track by researching it first.

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

Thank You

Thank you so much for your reply, my mind is at ease. The resort we had looked at possibly booking is one of Bluegreen's called Carolina Grande which is across from the beach, Seaglass is too close to all of the noise from the pavilion cruisers. I don't have to have beachfront of even a beachview from my room. We also like the thoughts of taking a vacation in Pigeon Forge or Gatlinburg and about 3 years down the road Disney for a week.

My thoughts were as you suggested using the sampler & then at a later point purchasing from a reseller & paying for it at the time of purchase instead of financing through Bluegreen at a higher price with a high interest rate.

We have 2 freebies from them plus our sampler. Due to our limited vacations unfortunately we will have to use weekends. If you have kids you will understand I have to save some of my vacation in case she is sick & I have to stay home. We are flexible on when we can go as far as the month, of course, we would like at least 1 of our beach trips to be when it is warm enough for her to use the pool & it sounds like that is doable.

Since weekends will come into play & we will eventually purchase from a reseller (I'm assuming bonus time is out) how many points would you recommend? Typically we take two trips per year to the beach & 1 to the mountains total amount of days for all trips 8 days total maybe. The mountain trip is always a weekend trip & usually our Sept beach trip is for a weekend.

You mentioned giving myself a few months when purchasing a resale so if I want to purchase it after my sampler is up in June, I can look for the transaction to be completed maybe by September right? I have visited BocaBum's site & liked what I saw so that is definitely a possibility.

Btw, I have signed up for the Yahoo Bluegreen message group but I haven't been approved yet, hopefully it will be soon. It sounds like it has a lot of good info.

Thank you for your help!
Jib

[Bill4728 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Bill4728]

Bluegreen is a company which has a pretty good reputation But buying from the developer ( even a sampler package) is almost never a good deal.

Rescind (cancel) your contract for the sampler if you can. Follow the directions in the contract exactly, If it says certified US mail don't fax or send via FEDEX.

Next look into buying resale. You can save more than 70%!! Contact BocaBum ( a member here on TS4Ms) who can tell you more than you could possibly want to know about Bluegreen and how to buy there resale.

Good Luck

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

Rescind (cancel) your contract for the sampler if you can.

I don't think that's necessary, myself. At least in terms of the purchases we were looking at, back when I did the comparison getting points through a Sampler cost about the same per point as the yearly fees in a lot of other Bluegreen accounts. Sampler point use has peculiar limitations, yes, but if you go in knowing that it's a fair deal. It's when people don't realize that they can't use it for summer months or holidays that a Sampler purchase is a bad idea.

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

My thoughts were as you suggested using the sampler & then at a later point purchasing from a reseller & paying for it at the time of purchase instead of financing through Bluegreen at a higher price with a high interest rate.

That's probably the best way to go. And I would guess you'd be happier with authorized points, so you could use bonus time on the weekends, but of course that means you can't plan as far out/might have to keep flexible in terms of the weekends.

of course, we would like at least 1 of our beach trips to be when it is warm enough for her to use the pool & it sounds like that is doable.

The Bluegreen site is down right now, but when it comes back up you should check it out. It has everything from floor plans for a lot of the units to a rundown of average high and low temperatures for that resort every month. Most resorts have at least one heated pool, but be aware if you want to go to The Fountains in Orlando that the big Wakoola Springs pool is NOT heated, so any month that doesn't have an average high in the eighties it'd probably be colder than littles ones would like. There is another, heated, pool, but Wakoola Springs is the big draw for kids.

Since weekends will come into play & we will eventually purchase from a reseller (I'm assuming bonus time is out) how many points would you recommend?

You can get authorized points from an authorized reseller - Boca Bum is one (anyone working with Pinnacle should be able to get you authorized points) - and then you have all the benefits you can get from Bluegreen direct, including bonus time.

It is hard for anyone else to guess how many points you need because there are so many variables. I have five kids, so most of my figuring is on units that sleep eight - I have a fair idea how many points we need to get what we want on that front, but I would assume you could get by with a lot fewer points because you could use smaller units.

OTOH, you want to be able to reserve weekends, while we really don't care much about being able to reserve weekends. We either set it up so we're driving on the weekend, or on longer trips we'd do the resort Mon-Thursday nights, go somewhere else for the points-pricey Friday and Saturday, and then settle in a resort for Sun-Thur. Often there's somewhere within a three-hour drive of the resort we want to check out, but we're not much for going that far in one day, so we're planning to check into a hotel there anyhow. Like running up to New York for the weekend from the Hershey one, or Washington D.C. from Shenandoah.

There are some points charts at the Yahoo site that might help give you an idea on how many points you need, although I'm not sure what's available because our needs are kind of peculiar and I've set up an Excell chart on units sleeping eight on my own. You might sit down and figure out how many points it would cost you to go to the various places you'd like to visit the days you'd want for the next three or four years and see what your yearly average is and whether you can rearrange your options so it balances out better.

For instance, going to The Fountains is kind of a splurge, so if you go there the other one you picked that year should be one of the cheapest. Or you could go to two cheaper ones the year before and save your points from there (assuming you can go to The Fountains in red time - you can save your points for a year but the saved points are only good for red or lower weeks). Of you can pay ahead a year (or borrow on the next years' points without paying, I haven't figured out quite when you have to pay on that), and have full-strength points for that trip but be a bit short on points the next year.

And of course the more you can use bonus time, the fewer points you need. OTOH, bonus time costs cash, but it's Motel-8 prices for a condo, so not a lot of cash. If you're going on weekends and you don't need your vacation set in stone months earlier, bonus time is definitely the way to go, from what I can tell.

You mentioned giving myself a few months when purchasing a resale so if I want to purchase it after my sampler is up in June, I can look for the transaction to be completed maybe by September right?

No idea. Too many variables. Our purchase is taking longer than predicted because the sellers have been considerably less than prompt getting the paperwork back, so you just never know.

Btw, I have signed up for the Yahoo Bluegreen message group but I haven't been approved yet, hopefully it will be soon. It sounds like it has a lot of good info.

It does. Resort reviews, pictures of a lot of the resorts, all kinda stuff. And, as is true of this board, you can search by the name or location of the resort or whatever, and dig through the archives that way. It's keen.

[marshalldillon Member Find all posts View Profile Close marshalldillon]

Since you bought the sampler package, I say use those points and check the points charts for each resort. You can save a lot of points just by choosing the right resort based on points. This will give you time to find out about how many points you will want to purchase. I also recommend buying resale and BocaBum is the right direction. Any question you may have, he can answer. I am a very happy BG owner and started with 8,000 EOY points and got a lot of miles out of those points, however, you need to purchase resale and purchase an annual package with Bonus TIme included. I hope you enjoy your points. When possible, book with points Monday through Thursday nights and use bonus time Fri through Sunday. You will save a ton of points this way when you dont have very many to use to begin with.

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

I purchased a sampler package 2 summers ago and never regretted it. It allowed me to familiarize myself with the Bluegreen system and make an informed decision about buying into it. My sister introduced me to this website and Boca Bum. I purchased a silver point package from him and recently upgraded to gold with Boca as well.

I love bluegreen and Boca is very professional and well informed about the ins and outs of utilizing the system efficiently.

I love my ownership and it was all due to the sampler package. I felt more comfortable with my decision to eventually purchase because of it.

Take your time and enjoy your "sampler" vacations. Then sit back and see it this works with your life and your budget. If you have questions in the meantime, Boca Bum is a great resource. He knows more than any of the Bluegreen salespeople AND has integrity