I have done a lot of traveling and have been to many wonderful places, some of which I get to write journals about. I have had okay trips, really good trips, and "I can’t wait to do it again" trips. However, if there is one thing I have learned in my travels, it is that you make your own experiences and vacation what it is.
You can make an okay experience one to remember by proper planning. We have found that the best two way to plan a memorable vacation are to spend hours researching and trying to find the lowest fares when booking on the Internet or giving all of your vacation likes and dislikes to a travel planner and letting them do the work for you. RCI has their own travel department, but I have to say that we have found their fees and prices less competitive than members would think.
WOMAN’S DAY magazine said,
"Save on air travel this summer by expanding your online search… look for the cheapest fares at 12:01 A.M. ET on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings."
In the past, we have stayed up late and spent several hours searching through different sites to book the lowest airline fare and car rental that we possibly could, searching the Internet for hours looking for the best days, dates, and flight times. We have found great deals with Delta, Jet Blue, and Spirit Airlines. We live in Connecticut and usually find it cheaper to fly out of John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) or LaGuardia Airport (LGA) in New York City rather than Bradley International Airport (BDL) in Hartford, Connecticut.
However, for this particular vacation, we exchanged our timeshare from Vacation Village in the Berkshires (#6057) to Royal Sunset-All Inclusive (#4363) in Cancun, Mexico. This was a last-minute exchange due to Hurricane Francis; we were originally booked to go to Nassau. We were able to book the last-minute exchange through RCI and booked the rest of the travel arrangements through CnC Travel.
We have booked through them before, and this time, they found us airfare from JFK into Cancun with Delta Airlines at a rate much cheaper than what we found on the Delta website. They offered to book accommodations for us, but since we already exchanged through RCI, we didn’t need to.
When we travel, we still find that we research both options, but since this trip, we have used a travel planner to help us with our vacations when we exchange, and even when we take vacations without utilizing our timeshare, as we found the rates to be more affordable.