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Re: New to Bluegreen...Any insight?? (by Mary D.):

georget81 wrote:

adahiscout wrote:

We have been (retail) Bluegreen owners for several years and have been generally very happy with our purchase. We did run into the problem with Tennessee you mentioned, but I do understand that the time is gone early because other owners reserved it early with the intention of making a profit on rentals. (If you read this site, you have seen all the complaints against the exchange companies because they do NOT allow this! You can't have it both ways, folks!)

There is one genuine problem and George may not even be aware of it. It was news to other BG sales people we've spoken to and the BG directory is not clearly written on this point.

If you try to reserve early to secure an especially busy vacation time, you will often (usually) be reserving BEYOND your current Use Year and therefore are using points which, technically, you do not yet have. Most timeshare companies will allow this.

Some companies will require you to pay the maintenance fee early for the following year in order to make a reservation using the following year's points. This does not seem unreasonable and we sometimes did it with Bluegreen. (Our Use Year starts Feb. 1) Last fall, however, we paid the next year's fees when billed and thought we were OK to then make reservations for the following June only to be told that since the fees we paid were "due" in the fall for the up-coming Use Year, we had to pay for a year BEYOND the "Due" fees for the next year to reserve into the coming year. (Confused yet?) In other words, I can make a reservation for my next Use year by paying only that year's fees IF I do this BEFORE being billed . If I wait till I have been billed, I must pay MFs for the year AFTER next to use next year's points. ( Please understand, this has nothing to do with trying to use next year's points in the current year. ) This is not a matter of paying fees for the points you want to use to make an early reservation. You are paying a YEAR BEYOND what is due for the right to do this.

At a "review" I asked about this and the salesman could not believe it was true. After kicking the question a few levels up, however, it was confirmed. They said some owners double pay intentionally at some point to "get ahead", and after that they are always OK.

The other alternative is to make your far future reservations before being billed for the next year. I believe Bluegreen does all it's billing at the same time in the fall, regardless of when your Use Year starts.

Note also that full weeks can be reserved earlier than partial weeks. This leaves fewer "shredded" weeks in inventory, so I understand the logic, although it sometimes complicates life!

MD

MD you can always change your Anniversary Date which may help you with booking those dates in the fall. All you would have to do is call tell them you wanted to change your use date. I believe that you are required to pay is the next years maintence fees upfront to do this.

Also you are correct. The reservation window for basic owners is as follows Full weeks 1months in advance; partial weeks 5months in advance.

Silver members Full weeks 12months; Partial weeks 6months.

Gold members Full weeks 13months; Partial Weeks 7Months.

Bonus Time $49-$79 a night 45days in advance for all owners...

GT

As for changing our Use Year, I'm not sure it would help, since we are not trying to reserve the same time periods every year. Fairfield/Wyndham, which we also own, does not require any advance payments to reserve ahead using points from the proper year. (If we don't pay our mantenance fees when due, they can always cancel us.) Another place we own requires that the fees for the year we want to use be paid before making the reservation but never a year BEYOND what is being used. I just don't see that it "costs" Bluegreen anything one way or the other, so why confuse and infuriate owners?

Anyhow, I hope my warning will be of help to the new owner. I don't want to scare her away from BG which is otherwise a fine company. MD