Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
Choice Privileges is offering several different timeshare presentation deals that may be intriguing: get up to 80,000 Choice Privileges points and a $25 American Express gift card (or one of several other versions of the deal) when you “explore vacation ownership” (i.e. attend a timeshare presentation). That can be a solid deal, but beware of the cancellation policy (see more in the post below).
The Deal
- Choice Privileges is currently offering several different deals for attending a 2hr Bluegreen Vacations timeshare presentation. Troy in the comments notes receiving the following offers:
- For $299, Choice Privileges is offering a 3-night Bluegreen Vacations resort stay, 40,000 Choice Privileges points, and a $100 American Express Gift Card. Plus get an extra $25 Amex Gift Card if you book within 30 days of purchasing the package. You need to call to book at (855) 240-6573.
- Pay $279, get 80,000 Choice Privileges points + $25 Amex Gift Card if you book within 30 days
Pay $279, get 30,000 Choice Privileges points + $25 Amex Gift Card if you book within 30 days - Pay $279, get a $300 American Express Gift Card+ $25 Amex Gift Card if you book within 30 days
Key Terms
- Must attend a two-hour Bluegreen Vacations timeshare sales presentation and tour
- Must have a household income of at least $50K (may be waived if one of a cohabiting couple is 62 years old or older) and creditworthy (minimum score of 600)
- Late cancellation / no-show fee of $125 if check-in date is modified less than 14 days prior to check-in date
- $200 no-show fee charged to your debit or credit card if you fail to show up for your reservation (on top of forfeiting whatever you’ve already paid)
- See full terms here
Quick Thoughts
Update 1/31/23: As noted at the top, I personally called and booked this deal last night. A few takeaways from my experience:
- The agent led with the fact that I would receive Choice points just for agreeing to be transferred to her. I assume most people must get transferred after calling customer service. I didn’t ask how many points to expect. She said it takes a few days for them to reflect in the account and I don’t see them yet, but I’ll be happy with any little bonus that appears.
- The agent led with the 40K + $100 offer. I asked whether there were any other offers (hoping to hear about the ones that Troy noted). She asked whether I was looking for a longer stay or something else. I said I’d be interested in something including more points. She immediately told me about the 80K offer, but she said that in the location where I was looking this would be a hotel stay rather than staying at the Bluegreen property (the $299 deal for 40K + $100 would have been in a 1bdrm unit at the property). I was fine with the hotel stay in part because I wanted to see if I could get booked into a Marriott property and earn double elite night credits (I don’t expect this to work, but you hit 0% of the balls at which you do not swing). She did not proactively mention the $25 bonus for booking within 30 days and I didn’t ask about it. Note that the hotel stay vs resort stay is location-dependent. Troy in the comments notes having booked the 80K offer with the stay at a Bluegreen property still rather than a hotel.
- The phone agent was able to confirm availability for the check-in dates I had in mind but couldn’t tell me which hotel — she said I would need to contact the reservation team after buying the package and they would have different options. She was able to name a bunch of the hotels, which included brands from Choice, Hilton, and Marriott.
- I would have had 12 months to book, but I already had a trip planned where I needed a few nights, so I was happy to lock in a check-in day on the call. After I paid the $279 over the phone, I received an email from Bluegreen Vacations. I had to register for an account with them to see my stay information. I was automatically booked into a Marriott property but expect that I can call and change it based on what the agent told me.
- After paying, the agent noted that because I booked within 30 days I’d get the additional $25 bonus. Good to know it’s automatic!
- The confirmation information says that I’ll still owe about $40 in taxes directly at the (hotel) property when I arrive.
By our Reasonable Redemption Values, 80,000 Choice Privileges points should be easy to redeem for $544 or more. In my experience, I rarely redeem Choice points for a value of less than 1c per point compared to the cash rate, so I expect to get quite a bit more than $544 in value by cherry-picking good redemptions. This feels like a solid trade even if you don’t value the hotel / Bluegreen stay. If you do, this is a great deal in my opinion.
All that said, keep in mind that you need to be good at saying “no” if you’re going to attend a timeshare presentation. Whatever the first offer may be, there is always a better offer or two or six. Some people love their timeshares, but don’t get cornered into buying something that isn’t a fit for you. If you are easily convinced, I’d recommend avoiding timeshare presentations. Personally, I’ll be curious to hear the pitch.
I have noted some discomfort with the cancellation policy that is buried in the offer terms in the past and I’ll include it here again:
Late Cancellation/No-Show Policy: Because Bluegreen Vacations subsidizes the cost of this vacation package in order to offer it to you at a discounted price, Bluegreen Vacations has instituted this Late Cancellation/No-Show Policy. Your scheduled check-in day may be modified at no charge only if the request is made AT LEAST FOURTEEN (14) DAYS PRIOR TO THE SCHEDULED CHECK-IN DATE. If your check-in date is modified less than fourteen (14) days prior to this check-in date, a $125.00 Late Cancellation Fee will be required. Participants with reservations who fail to show up on their scheduled check-in date, will have a $200.00 No-Show Fee charged to their debit card or credit card (dependent upon the method of payment used to purchase the vacation package), and will forfeit any prepaid fees or deposits. By making a reservation in response to this promotion, you are agreeing to this policy.
I find that cancellation policy pretty ridiculous in the current environment. On the one hand, many hotels have cancellation deadlines and with the nature of vacation rentals maybe they face reduced prospects of selling the room if you can’t make it. However, it would cost you $125 to cancel within 14 days, so keep that in mind.
Note also that I highlighted in the post about the previous promotion that there is a requirement to have a minimum FICO score of 600 to qualify and the phone agent did reiterate that twice. As I noted last time, I don’t know how they verify that as the terms go on to state that they only verify your precise credit score through a hard inquiry upon “consent and decision to purchase a timeshare interest or Sampler product from Bluegreen Vacations”. Be careful to closely read any paperwork you fill out to be sure that you don’t consent to a pull that you don’t want. I assume the hard pull is not required to attend the presentation or receive the promised award, but I am always vigilant about what I sign at these types of things.
If interested, it looks like you’ll have to call to book. You might try your hand at negotiating an even better deal over the phone. While I don’t know for sure that Choice negotiates these (and I think the 80K offer is a pretty hot deal on its own), I know that timeshare offers are often negotiable, so it might be worth a shot.
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Just did my presentation today. Some takeaways:
1) They tell you to arrive 20 minutes ahead of the presentation to get registered. No biggie. Right at registration, they give you the $25 gift card (if you qualified for that) and they tell you that the points should have already been deposited (but they tell you that it could take up to 72hrs). I checked right away and sure enough I already had the 80K points before the sales presentation even started. I think that’s a really smart strategy for them — I didn’t spend the whole presentation wondering whether I’m going to get what I was promised — I had it right at the beginning, so I didn’t even think about that during the presentation. Good start!
2) The initial presentation was pretty well done. They did a pretty good job of pitching the reasons to be interested in “vacation ownership” as they call it and playing up the advantages. The problem is that it took too long — the initial presentation was done by one person in a theater-like room and *then* you get handed off to a salesperson. It was an hour and 40 minutes in that initial presentation. They need to trim that back because of course the salesperson wants to make small talk and figure out what their angle is going to be, but there’s not enough time left to do all that, give you a tour of the property, and talk numbers in the advertised 2hr block. Finally, after 2.5hrs I said that we needed to move it along. At 3hrs when the manager came in to talk numbers and ask what I’d want to pay, I explained that I didn’t know but the time to figure that out was an hour and a half ago as we had already been in the presentation for 3hrs. Both the salesperson and manager remained perfectly polite throughout and they respected that we were done with it and moved things along.
In total, we were there for 3hrs and 13 minutes of presentation time + 20 minutes for needing to arrive early = 3hrs and 33 minutes. That’s annoying too long, but at the same time it didn’t kill me.
3) The property in Orlando is quite nice. I’ll be very much open to looking at stays at Bluegreen properties in the future based on the Orlando property. The Big Cedar somethingorother that they showed in the presentation looks amazing.
4) I received on-property benefits at the Marriott I booked through the offer, so I think there’s a good shot that I’ll get Marriott elite credit, which sweetens the deal a bit further for me.
Overall, I’m glad I did it. I lightly regret not staying on-property, even for fewer points, because it really did look pretty nice. But at the end of the day, I ended up at a perfectly nice Marriott property for a very reasonable price (for my dates), 80K points, and a $25 Amex gift card. I’m plenty happy with that deal. I honestly got such a short look at the prices that I couldn’t speak to the value of actually buying with a lot of authority, but the lowest-end package was “originally” $40K and then they dropped to $35K right away — if financed through them at 20% APR (LOL) with no prepayment penalty. Then you’d still be on the hook for maintenance and taxes and you’d not get a terribly useful quantity of points to use each year. After we were a hard no and not willing to offer them a price point at which we would want to buy,, their final offer was 24,000 of their points (not Choice Privileges points, but points you use at Bluegreen properties, so it’s a totally different world) that would be valid for 2 years for $3K. Based on the examples they ran during the presentation, that actually sounds like it probably would have been a good deal and I might have bought that, but I’d have wanted to have asked a lot more questions about which places are available for how many points and at 3hrs and 13min my kids were beyond done with it (the advertised kids club was closed, so they were with us the whole time), so I didn’t want to ask any questions.
I’d do it again, but you might want to be up front when you hit the time with your salesperson that you’re timing it and they have 20 minutes left or you’re done either way.
I recently finished my presentation in Savannah, I stayed at a Hilton property, which I called and gave Hilton check in date and name etc to link to my Diamond status. Got diamond benefits and earned points (BG paid $104/nt rate which was far below market). The initial group presentation was half the time of yours, and I was up front about being a points and miles enthusiast, explained my current bankroll of points and travel style, and was out in under 2 hours (including arriving early). I was first person out, and they didn’t even bother naming a price (they asked if they should and I said not to bother). Property there looked outstanding and great location, but pleased with my option nearby plus points. Would strongly recommend this process for friends. Not pushy sales people there, honestly impressed with their process. Points and gift card only activated after presentation for me.
https://www.bluegreenvacations.com/resorts/#gref
44 properties in ~34 cities in 19 states – do not know which deals apply to which.
**80K appears strictly with hotels, as when I called back they stated I was indeed put in a hotel (Hampton Inn & Suites) not the BG property.
Just did the Bluegreen presentation in Tampa. Lovely timeshare property, but the presentation was three hours. The first two hours was a group presentation that was very well done. The last hour was with a representative who was new and unhelpful. When I mentioned a desire to go to Panama, she didn’t know where the country was located. We got a total of $175 in MCGCs and 40K points. Overall, it was not a hard-sell experience.
Does anyone know what are the (9?) locations that are available to choose from?
The phone agent started to say nine but then stopped herself and said she didn’t know why she was going to say that because they actually have 20. She mentioned Orlando, Myrtle Beach, and Las Vegas, but I know they also have Smoky Mountains and something in Virginia and some stuff in Texas and a bunch of other places.
If anyone knows what all the locations are, please post.
Not sure if all their locations are available, but here’s a list.
https://www.bluegreenvacations.com/destinations
so where did you end up booking Nick?
Nothing exciting. I have a cruise booked from Tampa and flights back afterwards are ridiculous and being stuck inside a lot in the winter we could use a change of scenery anyway, so we were going to stay a couple of nights somewhere in either Tampa or Orlando. Sure enough, Bluegreen has a property there. We were most likely going to book a rental with Vacasa via Wyndham points. Now, instead of paying 13,500 points per night x 3 (just over 40K Wyndham points) for a 1bdrm Vacasa rental, we’ll pay $279 + $40 in tax and get 80,000 Choice points and a $25 gift card. I wanted the hotel stay to see if I could get a Marriott property and try to stack with the double elite night credit promo. Seemed like a no-brainer. I still need to call to inquire about what other hotel options I have — they said they partner with Residents Inn and SpringHill suites among others. They put me in a Residence Inn (and that’s fine), but I’m going to call and see what other options I have, just haven’t had a chance yet today.
Was offered 4 choices when inquiring on the 4day/3night offer:
1) Pay $299, get 40k choice points + $100 amex + $25 additional if book within 30days
2) Pay $279, get 80k choice points + $25 additional if book within 30days
3) Pay $279, get 30k points & $150 + $25 additional if book within 30days
4) Pay $279, get $300 back + $25 additional if book within 30days
I chose option 2, as the points are worth about $480 in my book
Awesome! I just called looking specifically for option 2 and had no difficulty getting it. That worked out well because I needed an upcoming stay anyway — getting 80K points on $279 for 3 nights is awesome.
One note though — the agent said that offer would be for a hotel stay rather than staying at the Bluegreen property. That’s actually an advantage IMO because I can try staying at another brand and see if I also get points from that program :-).
I have booked a BlueGreen property with the offer in Savannah and it’s showing the 80K points on the reservation screen, so your agent may be wrong (or it may be location-dependent).
I bet it’s location dependent then. Now that you mention it, I think she said something about that. That’s fine – I’m hoping to see if it stacks with a Marriott a double elite night promo, so I was going to see if I could get booked into a Marriott property and I see it automatically put me at one 🙂
EDIT – After your comment I called back, and sure enough they didn’t actually book me at a BlueGreen property…I won’t know which property I’m at for up to 72 hours. They did inform me I can get a full refund within 30 days of purchase if I’m not happy with the choice.
Gotta love booking a timeshare to stay at a Marriott to earn Choice points. We are weird people, always remember that!
Hi Nick. In your article, you mentioned the agent will deposit the 80K points in your account, just by you calling and making a reservation for a future stay? Can you confirm that? Thank you!
Also thank you for your post, I did get the 80K package !
No no no. She said I would get some bonus points for listening to her spiel to sell me the 3-night package. I’m sure that will be something like 500 points or 1,000 points or something small. To get the 80K points, you need to attend a 2hr timeshare presentation at the property you choose.
Thanks for the clarification!
Some of the direct deals can be superior to this deal YMMV.
https://www.bluegreenvacations.com/deals/global#
We did 7D/6N in February 2020 (arrived home three days before the first COVID deaths in US (WA/OR) and the great Toilet paper shortage) it was $1,299 but included Disney Park tickets for 4 days/4 Adults one day at Disney waterpark plus $125 MCGC.
2 bedroom condo (sleeps 10) Kitchen, with dishwasher, full sized fridge, microwave, pots/pans/dishes/silver/utilensils, coffee maker, W&D – unlimted coffee and Microwave popcorn. 2 Bedrooms/2Baths 1,200 SF. A Publix was a mile or two down the street. We flew my MIL in from Vah Beach, SIL/BIL and Niece drove in from Va Beach for part of our stay. My parents drove down from Atlanta for a few days opposite my in-laws.
It was a great deal for the 2-2.5 hour TS presentation – .
They aren’t offering Disney at the moment on the website only Universal tickets for $1697 ( but thats part of a SUB – not sure how much Universal tickets are but we could have done the same priced deal but it was 7 days of tickets to Universal parks vs 4 days for Disney.
The main BlueGreen location (Orlando) has three pools and things to do on site.
If you have a Bass Pro shop near you – stop in sometime they have even better deals than the website (but they will match on the phone – the Bass pro deals) IIRC that is what we did to get Disney tix’s.
I feel like these timeshare offers shouldn’t be [promoted? mentioned?] on the FM blog. Stories abound with people saddled with timeshare debt they can’t get out of. True, most readers here are adroit enough to escape the sales pitches. But for every 10 that do, maybe 2 or 3 don’t. And at least one of those is making a big mistake.
[…] Update 4/26/22: You now get 40,000 points (previously 30,000 points) and a $100 gift card (previously $25) for $229 (previously $199). Hat tip to FM […]
I called to see the destinations and they ended up giving me a $199 for 3 nights + 60k Choice points + $25 gift card offer.
Not so great a deal. At least you should be able to get your money back without worrying about converting Choice points into value–considering you have to sit through a sales presentation.
I thought Greg determined Choice points were worth about 0.68 cents each? That would make the 40k points worth about $272, instead of $324. For reference: https://frequentmiler.com/what-are-choice-points-worth-and-should-we-buy-points/
You’re absolutely right. That’s what I get for going by memory instead of checking. Updated, thanks.
Just paid for the package! I was also informed that I’ll get an extra $25 mastercard gift card if I book the stay within the next 30 days after the $229 package purchase. So 40k choice points + $125 in gift cards.
I sat on the offer, and just got an email letting me know that if I book in the next three days for travel by August 31, I’ll receive a bonus $250 Amex gift card. Looks like this is in addition to the 40k points and the $100 Amex gc.
Nice offer! Did you end up biting?
Nick, Do you have a link for the offer? I’m curious what the 9 locations are. Does anyone have experience with booking one of these for those outside of the listed properties?
No, there was no link in the email, just the phone number to call. That would lead me to bet that if you have a specific Bluegreen property you want, you can probably push for that.