Carol,
Yes we are very happy with our points. And no, I don't work for APVC - as someone once asked me. Word of mouth is the best advertisement!
Not sure about the flights because one of our family works in the travel industry but Jetstar & Virgin usually have specials that are only a couple of months out from your stay. Only trouble is that the best deals are outside school holidays (if you have older children this may be a problem).
All of our exchanges have been during flexchange (60 days or less out) and the US ones during our summer school holidays - January. You just have to be flexible and maybe ring a couple of times to get where or near where you want. One trip we had 3 weeks booked - all back to back - in timeshare and it cost us around $600 in exchange fees. Excellent value for 4 -5 star accommodation for 4 people.
We've got Phuket 2 3 weeks out and Fiji 1 week out. We rarely ever plan very far ahead due to staff travel restrictions.
You can always ring up II, put an exchange on hold then spend a day looking for the best airfares before confirming it.
We don't pay for bookings with APVC (any APVC property that has timeshare has no booking fee)
APVC is opening a timeshare in Nusa Dua, Bali this month. I've heard they are expanding to Asia but don't know where else.
You still have the II inventory that you can trade into if you want that part of the world. Some places like Bangkok, need you to request first - possibly months ahead.
Both RCI and II have large exchange inventories.I believe that RCI's is bigger.
However, APVC has the advantage of being with II which also has all the Marriotts and some of the better large hotel timeshares. This gives us peace of mind when booking as we know the standard of accommodation will be great.
Interval has Getaways and Getaway Savers. The first is where you can purchase timeshare accommodation for a week for a set price. Usually several hundred dollars. The Getaway savers are 45 days or less before you travel and are fairly cheap - under $600 for most.
APVC has discounts for its members. I think I was told 45% on the rack rate of their hotels; quite cheap bonus time 14 days or less before you travel. We booked a couple of days for ourselves up the coast and it cost about $65 per night for a 1 BR. This compared to roughly $199 per night for the same room through lastminute.com and the Accor website.
Gillian
