I think LC-MS would be more suitable for these compounds, but if you want to analyze them by GC-MS you should first hydrolyze (by acidic, alkaline or enzymatic hydrolysis) your material in order to obtain the corresponding saponigens. After that, go for silylation to enhance volatility of your compounds: add Pyridine-BSTFA-TMSCl (ratio 1:4:1) to a sample of your material in a test tube, add cap, put the silylated sample in an oven at 70 degrees Celsius for 30-45 min (shake the test tube after 10 minutes) for sufficient silylation, transfer into a vial and then run your analysis. The oven temperature could be 150 to 270 C at a rate of 10 C/min and then holding it at 270 C for 10 min. This is just a rough estimation, though. Several things can affect this (e.g., column length, column health, flow rate of carrier gas and so on). Good luck.
I forgot to reply to the question in the title. In my opinion, GC-MS alone isn't enough for characterization. NMR on pure, isolated&individual saponins accompanied with LC/GC-MS would be the best characterization "tool".
Yes, HCl would be fine. BF3 in MeOH I haven't used since we mainly use trimethylsilyl groups as derivatization, but I know it is widely used for methylation of fatty acids (even if there is a risk of cis-trans isomerization of double bonds in conjugated fatty acids!). But if you have carboxylic functions in your molecules, why not.