Evaluating Bluegreen resale points

[TimeshareTraveller]

Hi All,
We're evaluating several timeshare systems and have ruled out

• Disney - won't travel there enough to make it feasible at their high prices, and the system is now rapidly changing so we may not be able to resell when we need to divest. For Disney, it's probably better to just rent the points for the days we'd want them.
• Marriott - while the resorts are beautiful, the system chops the seasons/views up so much with so many booking rules that it is impossible to flexibly gain what we'd want
• Hilton - the resorts, while beautiful, are not always where we'd want to go and there aren't as many choices in that system

We're down to evaluating:

• Bluegreen - the top favorite so far because we love several of the Bluegreen resorts. I'd love to try them all. The points system has a flexibility that may work well for us.
• Wyndham - there are just so many resorts in so many places. But I'm on the verge of ruling it out because the cost for a week stay in high season dovetails or is higher than the maintenance fees and that makes it unappealing.
• RCI points - This has been attractive several times because we own a resort that could be traded as points if we purchased something in RCI points to pull it in.

We own a 4BR Summit at Massanutten that we dearly love and visit every year around 4th of July with the entire extended family. If we buy into a system with points, it's likely going to be in one resort we visit often and we'll tend to use the points to stay there at least a week or so every year. Right now, we end up with about 3 stays at Massanutten outside of our summer week and a stay in Florida every other year at one of the sister resorts, Vacation Village at Parkway.

I need comfortable beds. Disney, Marriott, and Hilton all offer really comfortable beds. Massanutten actually did refurbish with decent mattresses. Vacation Village at Parkway, while the furnishings are lovely and updated, that mattress is hard as a rock and the pillows aren't great either (The pool is absolutely lovely though. I can forgive a lot of sins with a decent pool on vacation).

The places in Bluegreen that I'd probably go are:

• Shenandoah Crossing - haven't stayed there yet, but it looks fascinating
• Mountain Loft
• Laurel Crest
• Any of the Myrtle Beach resorts (ShoreCrest, Carolina Grande, Seaglass, Harbor Lights, etc)
• Parkside Williamsburg
• Patrick Henry Square
• Suites at Hershey
• Wilderness Lodge at Big Cedar
• Cliffs at Long Creek Ranch
• Charleston, SC resorts (Lodge Alley Inn, the other one too)
• some of the Florida beach resorts (Solara Surfside, can't remember any of the others at the moment)
• The Fountains

Basically, we are looking for something flexible that will offer us a lot of flexibility. We nearly bought at one of the Bluegreen resorts over 20 years ago, and I wish that we had. Right after that, they went into a points system. Points systems tend to be problematic, but the Bluegreen version still seems reasonable.

I think at the end of the day, we'd be happier with Bluegreen as a points system. We love Massanutten and after 23 years, we broke even on the purchase (around year 15) and actually have made back some on that initial cost. That's not a typical timeshare experience, but we're more of a 'go to our home resort' than trade into the system (though we have traded it in years where we did large planned vacations).

So I have some questions about the Bluegreen system to make an informed decision:

1. Are the beds comfortable in the Bluegreen resorts? I love Hilton and Marriott hotels because the beds are consistent. If sleep is disrupted, my vacation tends to be awful. I'm looking for a hotel plush firm sort of feel like the Hilton and Marriotts. Or basically, not incredibly squishy with dents in the mattress or not so hard that I wake up feeling like I slept on a foam covered board.

2. If the deed on the points resale states a particular unit and week, you have the right to use that week as long as you inform them before the 11 month mark. If you want to get a different unit/season than your deed at your home resort, how does that work for the resale points? Do you put in a reservation and compete with everyone else in Bluegreen or is there some slight home resort advantage?

3. Are the "metal" (Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze) status perks available to resale points? If I purchase something with 60,000 points, would I be in the platinum status group? Or are these only for Bluegreen-purchased points? And I did see something where 60,000 points biennial is really counted as 30,000 points annually.

4. Does 'charter membership' perks just refer to the bonus time available at the resorts? If you don't have charter membership, you can get bonus time at your home resort but not at other resorts in Bluegreen. But are there other perks for Charter Members that make this attractive enough to go pay Pinnacle or Bluegreen large dollars for small points?

5. It looks like when Bluegreen glues several deeds together into a package that it can't be unglued. The benefit of gluing is not paying the $360 base fee for each deed, but just one base fee for all. Is this correct?

6. If you have a glued deed package of a larger number of points and they are deeded in a couple of different resorts, does each of these count as a home resort advantage? Could I use points from another resort in that package to reserve time in a resort where I may only have a small number of points in the package from that resort? Or am I limited by the resort points in the package for usage. (This is confusing, so let me provide an example: If I have a 30,000 point package that is composed of a 15,000 pt deed at Mountain Loft, a 10,000 pt deed at Patrick Henry Square, and a 5,000 pt deed at ShoreCrest, could I use the 30,000 pts to book two high red summer weeks in ShoreCrest in the home resort advantage timeframe or would I be limited to only the 5,000 pt portion of the package with the home resort advantage and the rest would have to be snagged from the release to the general Bluegreen population?)

7. Any other gotchas that potential resale purchasers should know?

 

[superman_32877]

I would add a big one to remember is that unless you are buying resale through Pinnacle (BG's preferred partner) or an actual family member, BG has the Right of First Refusal (ROFR) to match your purchase price and reclaim the resale deed if these were purchased from eBay or from a private sale. We have lost four this way already in 2021. Too often I read many people say buy resale but at least in my experience, it's been more difficult than just winning an auction or finding someone willing to sell theirs.

 

[mwwich]

We're new BG owners so not an expert, but two points per your questions I would make is 1) points are points...you can book anywhere there is availability and 2) the resale points do NOT get you the Platinum, Gold, etc perks of early booking and 3) yes if you only have resale points you can only do bonus time at the resort you own. We generally avoid prime seasons for any vacation so were comfortable not having the early booking perks. We purchased a small starter points package from BG to get the charter benefit we wanted most....bonus time. Just stayed at the Cliffs in Branson last week for 3 nights for something like $250 total (2 bedroom). Then added to that w/Pinnacle purchase. I found the Pinnacle folks good at answering all the questions I had but it did take them a couple days to call me back originally.

We also own Marriott and Hyatt and have enjoyed those. BG seems to be more flexible. Your question about the beds....haven't had a problem but we've only had 3 stays, one each at the Big Cedar properties. The rooms were all nice, good furniture, kitchens, etc.

One thing to think about is can you drive to a resort you like? We're 4 hours from Branson, I love to play the Big Cedar golf courses, my wife loves the lake and the Big Cedar amenities, nice place to take friends/family...we will travel there a lot in April-May and Oct-Dec when it's easier to get availability. That made the purchase decision pretty easy for us. You obviously have the whole system of resorts to use but it helps to have one that's somewhat close, use the bonus time, etc. Everyone has their own ways of using timesharing so that's just how we do it.

 

[MrockStar]

I cant speak for Wyndham or RCI, I am a platinum Bluegreen owner and we are very pleased with the points system flexibility and resorts overall. It would help to know if your retired, when owning only resale Bluegreen points. You should consider picking one or two resorts that you would primarily like to stay at and try to purchase the underlying deed/Week you want to use with a strictly resale purchase. I would use only pinnacle for this type of purchase. You could also buy a smaller Charter deed from pinnacle, this will give you bonus time at all Bluegreen resorts. Good luck with your decision. If you need any further help with Bluegreen questions ask here on this thread. AL

 

[TimeshareTraveller]

While not retired, we are entering the end of the rat race. I've been examining every ownership club that operates in a favorite destination. We own Massanutten, and we've had lovely vacations there and have definitely earned out our purchase price (bought from the developer about 23 years ago now). We stay there a lot. It's restful, but I do miss the other destination a lot and we haven't been there in several years until this year due to the child's fascination with the Mouse. (I am so tired of Disney)

I'm looking for a specific deed time and unit in the Bluegreen resort I love. I know I threw up a lot of questions in that first post, but I do have two outstanding questions:

• If you're a points owner that chooses not to use the specific week and unit on the deed, but try for another unit week in the resort, do the resort owners have a slight edge or preference versus all the other Bluegreen owners? Like, if you don't take your deeded week because you want a different week that you have the points for at that resort, is there any head start for the resort owners on a week at that resort? (you want a red week not the high red week that you own, for example)

• If you buy through Pinnacle and the listing says "Bluegreen Points", does that mean they count as if you bought them from Bluegreen directly? Or is it only the listings that say 'Charter Points'? (I have that question into our salesperson too, but I may have given her too much to answer.)

 

[tschwa2]

• If you're a points owner that chooses not to use the specific week and unit on the deed, but try for another unit week in the resort, do the resort owners have a slight edge or preference versus all the other Bluegreen owners? Like, if you don't take your deeded week because you want a different week that you have the points for at that resort, is there any head start for the resort owners on a week at that resort? (you want a red week not the high red week that you own, for example)

• If you buy through Pinnacle and the listing says "Bluegreen Points", does that mean they count as if you bought them from Bluegreen directly? Or is it only the listings that say 'Charter Points'? (I have that question into our salesperson too, but I may have given her too much to answer.)

You have no edge on anything but the specific week or days and unit type in your contract when booked before it opens to other owners. The only ones that have any edge on other inventory is elites that can waitlist.

Only Charter points count the same as direct bluegreen points. The only other benefit, I believe, is that you don't have to worry about ROFR when buying through pinnacle even non charter points.

 

[TimeshareTraveller]

Thank you so much for that. It verified what I had suspected for both counts.

I do still wonder if you can bargain for the Charter points as well. I don't know that you can. There's probably a lower threshhold, though I haven't found the exact formula for calculating the listing price on Pinnacle. Some of the point packages with the same points have very different prices.

 

[cbyrne1174]

When I was comparing maintenance fees for Blue Green Trust fund E vs owning Wyndham Grand Desert Points, Wyndham was the cheaper option and their resorts are nicer.

 

[tschwa2]

Thank you so much for that. It verified what I had suspected for both counts.

I do still wonder if you can bargain for the Charter points as well. I don't know that you can. There's probably a lower threshhold, though I haven't found the exact formula for calculating the listing price on Pinnacle. Some of the point packages with the same points have very different prices.

The absolute lowest that pinnacle is allowed to sell charter points is $1.25 per point and that was more than 5 years ago, it is probably higher now. They used to allow pinnacle to sell even their small packages for that so you could buy 3000 points for just under $4000 plus closing costs. Then a few years back they went to a sliding scale dependent on the size of the points package. Now a days even for 50,000+ size packages, it looks like the lowest you can get with Pinnacle is $1.50 per points and closer to $3 per point for anything less than 10,000. I hear if you are ready to plop down cash for 20,000+ points, you actually can negotiate a lower price at a regular sales update than by buying through Pinnacle.

 

[TimeshareTraveller]

So how difficult is it to request a popular week in a resort at that 11 month open season date? Can you request a unit or view also?

 

[MrockStar]

It depends on the resort, Daytona beach lots of resorts so pretty good odds at 11 months.