alibi-cutouts
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- Oct 14, 2024
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- Bluegreen Vacation
Hi all, today my wife an I signed up for a 5,000 points/year contract with Bluegreen. Later in the day I found this site.
I'm on the fence about keeping it, my wife wants to keep it but ultimately trusts if I think we should rescind.
So I'm wondering what your experiences are with it and ultimately if you've found it not worth it? It started feeling more like it was just on us to actually use it for it to be worth it more than anything.
When we went in, I was dead set on not taking any offers especially because I thought it was for a single location only. I didn't take most of the presentation part seriously either, but eventually after my wife and I talked decided to go with it for a couple reasons.
Sorry this is a long one, I just want to explain what's going through our heads because it does seem good to us in some ways but I've also read a lot of people not liking it for things we specifically do like about it (like #3).
1. We barely go on vacations and both really want to go on more, especially while we are young and don't have kids. We want to travel more, and stay in more varied locations. We aren't set on any specific places or times of year, we just want to get out more because we're both workaholics and need to take more vacations. This seemed like a good way to get us to do that because we're already paying for it no matter what.
2. When we do travel on vacations together just the two of us, it's usually 1-2 nights at ~$100/night hotels a couple times a year, roughly half of those stays are just traveling to somewhere. We only do Choice hotels so we've gotten some benefits through that, but we want to try nicer places in nicer locations and paying out of pocket we only do cheap options or just don't take vacations at all. So again - already paying for it so we will have to take nicer vacations.
3. We don't care about specific times of year and are fine just booking places during their cheapest seasons/weeks, we just want to have more+better trips overall every year and try different places but are flexible on dates and locations.
4. My wife's family does a group vacation once or twice a year that ends up costing everyone quite a lot of money to rent multiple separate rooms for multiple nights, when we could do somewhere nicer with our points or even just use bonus time and everyone chip in less but to us to help with our payments.
5. The bonus time deals sound great, though I know it's not factoring in how much we have to pay to have access to them. Still, it would allow us to take more large family trips where we normally need multiple individual rooms and instead get one unit with multiple rooms for a fraction of the price at a much nicer location, with our family still chipping in to us directly to go towards our contract+membership cost.
6. When we do stay at places currently, we only do Choice hotels, so being able to redeem points between the two is nice.
7. We don't want to have to plan trips. We just want to pick a location and let it be planned and taken care of. Flights, car rental, etc. and our membership benefits does that for us.
8. They dropped us down to 5,000/year because of me not wanting to pay more than $250/mo for it, but gave us an additional 5,000 for year one and 4,000 for year two, plus 3 x 8-day/7-night trips - one a year for the next three years. We also didn't want to pay the deposit up front, so with their card gave us 9 months with 0 interest which is fine for us.
This sounds like an awesome first couple of years of exactly what we want, but we will still be paying for it for a couple years after that, and I don't know if at that point we'll regret this or if it's just on us year 4 on to make sure we're getting our money's worth out of it.
So all this is to say I feel torn at the moment. We want to travel more, we want to try new places, and we are both workaholics and need something to really push us to take nice vacations. We aren't particular on any of the specifics of our vacations, just somewhere different and somewhere nicer than a $100/night Choice hotel, so this seems like a good deal for us...right now.
But looking into it, I've read both a lot of negative stories and a lot of positive ones. Negative ones mostly being about the cost and getting out of it, positive ones mostly saying you just need to actually use it and get the full value out of it every year. And some in between - it was great for a couple years but they decided to get out of it after a few years of paying on it.
So, alllll that said, I'm wondering what your personal experiences are.
For those of you that it has worked out for/like it and have kept it, why?
And those that had it a few years and got out of it, why?
Also, did you find it worth getting a loan from somewhere else instead of through them directly? Their interest rate is pretty high, and we have one month to pay it fully with no interest if we want to take out a loan somewhere else with a lower interest rate.
If you read this far, wow! Thank you, please let me know your experiences with this.
I'm on the fence about keeping it, my wife wants to keep it but ultimately trusts if I think we should rescind.
So I'm wondering what your experiences are with it and ultimately if you've found it not worth it? It started feeling more like it was just on us to actually use it for it to be worth it more than anything.
When we went in, I was dead set on not taking any offers especially because I thought it was for a single location only. I didn't take most of the presentation part seriously either, but eventually after my wife and I talked decided to go with it for a couple reasons.
Sorry this is a long one, I just want to explain what's going through our heads because it does seem good to us in some ways but I've also read a lot of people not liking it for things we specifically do like about it (like #3).
1. We barely go on vacations and both really want to go on more, especially while we are young and don't have kids. We want to travel more, and stay in more varied locations. We aren't set on any specific places or times of year, we just want to get out more because we're both workaholics and need to take more vacations. This seemed like a good way to get us to do that because we're already paying for it no matter what.
2. When we do travel on vacations together just the two of us, it's usually 1-2 nights at ~$100/night hotels a couple times a year, roughly half of those stays are just traveling to somewhere. We only do Choice hotels so we've gotten some benefits through that, but we want to try nicer places in nicer locations and paying out of pocket we only do cheap options or just don't take vacations at all. So again - already paying for it so we will have to take nicer vacations.
3. We don't care about specific times of year and are fine just booking places during their cheapest seasons/weeks, we just want to have more+better trips overall every year and try different places but are flexible on dates and locations.
4. My wife's family does a group vacation once or twice a year that ends up costing everyone quite a lot of money to rent multiple separate rooms for multiple nights, when we could do somewhere nicer with our points or even just use bonus time and everyone chip in less but to us to help with our payments.
5. The bonus time deals sound great, though I know it's not factoring in how much we have to pay to have access to them. Still, it would allow us to take more large family trips where we normally need multiple individual rooms and instead get one unit with multiple rooms for a fraction of the price at a much nicer location, with our family still chipping in to us directly to go towards our contract+membership cost.
6. When we do stay at places currently, we only do Choice hotels, so being able to redeem points between the two is nice.
7. We don't want to have to plan trips. We just want to pick a location and let it be planned and taken care of. Flights, car rental, etc. and our membership benefits does that for us.
8. They dropped us down to 5,000/year because of me not wanting to pay more than $250/mo for it, but gave us an additional 5,000 for year one and 4,000 for year two, plus 3 x 8-day/7-night trips - one a year for the next three years. We also didn't want to pay the deposit up front, so with their card gave us 9 months with 0 interest which is fine for us.
This sounds like an awesome first couple of years of exactly what we want, but we will still be paying for it for a couple years after that, and I don't know if at that point we'll regret this or if it's just on us year 4 on to make sure we're getting our money's worth out of it.
So all this is to say I feel torn at the moment. We want to travel more, we want to try new places, and we are both workaholics and need something to really push us to take nice vacations. We aren't particular on any of the specifics of our vacations, just somewhere different and somewhere nicer than a $100/night Choice hotel, so this seems like a good deal for us...right now.
But looking into it, I've read both a lot of negative stories and a lot of positive ones. Negative ones mostly being about the cost and getting out of it, positive ones mostly saying you just need to actually use it and get the full value out of it every year. And some in between - it was great for a couple years but they decided to get out of it after a few years of paying on it.
So, alllll that said, I'm wondering what your personal experiences are.
For those of you that it has worked out for/like it and have kept it, why?
And those that had it a few years and got out of it, why?
Also, did you find it worth getting a loan from somewhere else instead of through them directly? Their interest rate is pretty high, and we have one month to pay it fully with no interest if we want to take out a loan somewhere else with a lower interest rate.
If you read this far, wow! Thank you, please let me know your experiences with this.
