another newbie
hi all, i have been reading this site over the past week and i very impressed with the information available and the willingness for users to help.
i wanted an opinion as to what might be the best option. We arre 4 person family and i like to book things relatively short term in the winter or maybe in the summer and like to experience different places. i am thinking points are the best option for me but after all the reading I am still trying to get a handle on things.
any suggestions would be really apreciated. thanks
Hi. I'm a little ahead of you (not far though) in that I've been here a little over a month regularly - ok, daily (and off and on for about 8 months before that). There is a LOT to learn to be sure, and this board is full of very helpful people who are patient with us newbies.
So, keep reading, & ask lots of questions. I've pretty much settled on the Hilton point system. They seem quite flexible, the quality is great, you can trade through RCI to expand your horizons and experience different places. We seem to do a couple different vacation types - every other xmas travel (and would like to be near west coast - so most likely Hawaii will be our home resort area as we need the home resort advantage to get our dates.) Our other travel is every June (another popular time to travel) - and that vacation is usually a bit different (different location; different experience - maybe sailing), which sounds like an RCI trade.
I think what helped us figure out how many points (and we have not settled on this yet) is we spent one evening with pretend points and plotting out typical vacations for several years in advance to see if we would have enough to do what we normally do. Too many? Too few? And, we want to make sure we have enough money to still do our little obscure, out of the way places that I find to travel to! I've been quite good at finding "deals" on hotels, etc. so we want to make sure we can still take advantage of those great deals. It was a very fun evening to be sure!
Not sure if any of this has helped... but, welcome & good luck!