Thanks for the responses. The Worldmark education book is great and I learned a lot. The most important being that I'll have to reserve a week in Red time, unless you're less than three months from check-in. This is especially bad since many of the Cali resorts are considered red all-year round. Since I'm usually restricted to summer because of school holidays, I'm guessing that a 3 or 4 day trip will be pretty impossible at the Cali resorts I'm interested in. Could a seasoned Worldmark vet give me an approximation of how far ahead I'd need to reserve at the following resorts, or even how hard it is to reserve at 13 months out?
1) San Francisco
2) Pismo Beach
3) San Diego - Mission Valley
Also, what is the likelihood that there is availaibility at less than 3 months (last minute cancellations??) so I could make a partial week reservation? I'm guessing slim to none during summer time.
San Francisco and Mission Valley are wide open at this time for this summer. That might change hugely in the next 3 months, but I think at the 90-day mark there will likely still be availability, especially in the economic climate of this year. In any case, as has been mentioned, you could check on line frequently for only-space-availables, and submit waitlist requests. The earlier you check/waitlist, the higher your chance. You would have to waitlist for 7 days more than 90 days out in red season, but specify that you would take a minimum of any one day during that timeframe. The days that come up are often less than 7.
Pismo is always hard to get into and needs to be booked 13 months out, because there are only 20 units. Again, stand-alone days may be picked up if you check often, especially early, in the 10-to-13-month time frame.
A high % of reservations are cancelled because of WM's liberal cancellation policy (reservations made from 90 days to 13 months out have a cancellation deadline of 30 days before check-in). The average WM stay is 3 days. You just have to know how to look for partial weeks. You need to book early then cancel when plans change.
Note that both San Francisco and Pismo have only one bedroom units; they are smaller than the typical WM unit, and may not be well-suited for families (you mentioned school holidays - either you are a teacher or have school age children).
Exhibit 2 of the Owner Education Handbook is a unit breakdown chart. The fewer the number of units, the harder it would be to get into that resort. Also, the higher the number of credits needed, the easier. Resort credit values may be found on the Worldmark site under "Resort Gallery".
For a point system like WM, the key to maximizing your ownership is in learning how to use it, both from Club documents and from others' experience. Much of the experience is shared on
www.wmowners.com.