what are everyones' strategies for stretching points during holiday stays?

[igitur]

We're still toying with the idea of spending Christmas 2008 at WDW and I've been doing all kinds of calculations with my points to see which/how many days we should plan for.

What does everyone do to get the most out of their points? Do a lot of you book studios on the weekends and then switch to one BRs during the week? Do you use cash ressies on weekends? Do you stay in off-site hotels?

Just curious...

thanks all!

Deb

 

[LIFERBABE]

Because we had our big 42 people at SSR family reunion this year and still wanted to make our annual holiday trip, I tried to conserve points by booking the middle weekend in a studio.

Now that we are a week out, I am dreading that decision and would much rather have stayed in 1 unit the entire time.

I called MS yesterday and for grins, I checked availability and there is none, but we could have booked a 1 bedroom at SSR from Dec 22-Jan 5 for 517 points or 37 points a night, no moves! Which in the grand scheme of what we are doing is not that bad.

We are AKV 1bed Concierge for 6 nights, BCV Studio for 2 nights, SSR 1 bed for 6 nights and that totals 520 points with 2 moves! I know the Concierge kicks it up, but I think the no moving is more important than that too.

So in the future, not moving is priority for us, not saving points. I will still try this last week to get us into SSR because DH is going to be the Grinch that stole Christmas after the first move .
So what looks good on paper is not always the best in practice.

I know others dont mind, but know your tolerance level won't change just because you are saving points.

 

[Granny]

We don't like to move once we get there, so the strategies of moving into other units doesn't appeal to us at all. If we wanted to stretch points that badly we'd be in an OKW studio for every trip.

We do, however, spend our first night in Orlando off-site. Since we arrive late at night, it doesn't make sense to us to use points especially since it is invariably a Friday or Saturday night. We just pack a one-night bag that everyone can use so we don't have to unpack the entire car. Works out great!

 

[dgaston]

We don't have a lot of points, so I *gasp* rented a pool house at Windsor Hills and we move onsite 1/1 when the points drop. I am so excited because my CA brother, his wife and the 2 teen nephews are joining us. They were evacuated for 2 weeks from the Santiago fire in Orange County and really need a break. Only 6 days now.

 

[castleri]

We changed resorts twice last year during the holiday week. The first five nights were in a 2 BR at OKW with 4 or us. The two weekend nights were in an offsite hotel and the last four from 12/31-1/4 were in a studio at SSR with 3 of us. My granddaughter and I did some shopping on the Friday evening and then spent Saturday at TL and checked back into SSR early Sunday morning before going off to the parks. We packed up the bags for the two night off site stay so we could leave the rest of the luggage in the car. It saved enough points for a short trip in March. If I was not planning on any offsite activities it might make me think twice about moving but since holiday points are so high I like having a second trip over the not moving option. If I had large numbers of points I would probably also feel differently. We did have a GV for 5 days one Christmas week with only five people in it which was out most extravagant