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TUG Member
Not sure whether this post should go to buy/sell/rent forum but since I'm looking at Worldmark program, I will just post the question here and please move it to appropriate forum if necessary.
We are a family of four with a toddler and a baby. We live in SF bay area so Worldmark has been recommended as a good program to buy into. I first came across TUG four years ago after a trip to Hilton Waikola village, without buying of course. In the past four years, I came to TUG once a while to read and learn. We haven't pulled the trigger to buy since Life has other priorities, eg. house #1, baby #1, house #2, baby #2, job changes etc. We are not advanced planners. Travel 60 days out is normal and 90 days out is really advanced planning in our book. We are not bound to school schedule but we still mostly travel around major holidays, even though we can take week off at other time. It's just so that when the holidays come, everyone is in a vacation mode where as normal time, is, normal time.
I'm consistently evaluating rent vs. buy. Also, I'm watching WM credits drop the price all the way from 0.8 to almost 0.4-0.5 now.
Since our first TS exposure at Hilton waikola, everytime before we went on vacation, I told my husband that I'd like to have a suite with more space and a kitchen, not a hotel room. But we've been to Cancun, Monterey, Carmel, Tahoe, and next month HHV, all in hotel rooms. They just seem to be easy and flexible. You can bid on priceline, buy from hotels.com or search and put together itenary more easily.
At the same time, I'm drooling to see many weeks are for rent very cheap, for example $399 thanksgiving week at Mayan Palace Rivera, or other nice places I'd love to stay.
I visit vrbo, redweek, TUG rental, WMowner rental board before we iron the itenary. I'm asking when I'm above to travel why I couldn't find the cheap place I like? I think the reason being most of these are rented at per week bases. We do not always travel in a week and may want to move from place to place. This makes renting from those cheap weeks more difficult. Easier way is to rent directly from retails chain hotels.com or become a Worldmark member and design itenary that way. There is just not an efficient way for me to browse and piece together. And the time spent on looking for the best possible accommodation has its cost. We had to settle for the easy route and an expensive route in the interest of time.
I see a gap here. On the one hand, as a consumer, I'd love to get into these places but got turned away every time I tried due to the inflexibility or market inefficiency. On the other hand, owners have to rent their weeks out for very very cheap, much cheaper than what you can find from those major travel retailer sites.
Anyway these are my observations. Is this also a biz opportunity to bring ends together? What are the approaches? It will be hard I can imagine.
Something for your master minds to think about so that we end user can benefit from that.
Thanks a lot!
Tiff
We are a family of four with a toddler and a baby. We live in SF bay area so Worldmark has been recommended as a good program to buy into. I first came across TUG four years ago after a trip to Hilton Waikola village, without buying of course. In the past four years, I came to TUG once a while to read and learn. We haven't pulled the trigger to buy since Life has other priorities, eg. house #1, baby #1, house #2, baby #2, job changes etc. We are not advanced planners. Travel 60 days out is normal and 90 days out is really advanced planning in our book. We are not bound to school schedule but we still mostly travel around major holidays, even though we can take week off at other time. It's just so that when the holidays come, everyone is in a vacation mode where as normal time, is, normal time.
I'm consistently evaluating rent vs. buy. Also, I'm watching WM credits drop the price all the way from 0.8 to almost 0.4-0.5 now.
Since our first TS exposure at Hilton waikola, everytime before we went on vacation, I told my husband that I'd like to have a suite with more space and a kitchen, not a hotel room. But we've been to Cancun, Monterey, Carmel, Tahoe, and next month HHV, all in hotel rooms. They just seem to be easy and flexible. You can bid on priceline, buy from hotels.com or search and put together itenary more easily.
At the same time, I'm drooling to see many weeks are for rent very cheap, for example $399 thanksgiving week at Mayan Palace Rivera, or other nice places I'd love to stay.
I visit vrbo, redweek, TUG rental, WMowner rental board before we iron the itenary. I'm asking when I'm above to travel why I couldn't find the cheap place I like? I think the reason being most of these are rented at per week bases. We do not always travel in a week and may want to move from place to place. This makes renting from those cheap weeks more difficult. Easier way is to rent directly from retails chain hotels.com or become a Worldmark member and design itenary that way. There is just not an efficient way for me to browse and piece together. And the time spent on looking for the best possible accommodation has its cost. We had to settle for the easy route and an expensive route in the interest of time.
I see a gap here. On the one hand, as a consumer, I'd love to get into these places but got turned away every time I tried due to the inflexibility or market inefficiency. On the other hand, owners have to rent their weeks out for very very cheap, much cheaper than what you can find from those major travel retailer sites.
Anyway these are my observations. Is this also a biz opportunity to bring ends together? What are the approaches? It will be hard I can imagine.
Something for your master minds to think about so that we end user can benefit from that.
Thanks a lot!
Tiff