Just get gift cards.

Most bang for the buck is outside of the country.

I prefer to do the pay for 4, get 5 nights deal. I’m platinum and tend to earn 250,000 every few months.

We just spent a fraction of that at the Westin Cape Coral - bonus is that many units have kitchens and onsite laundry.

Los Suenos in Costa Rica and a few other Costa Rican properties have been on my list. You can do a few trips to Panama if you plan it well. As pp said there are a few Ritz that tend to work well, but you can forget about places like the JW Marco Island.

The Ritz Naples Tiburon or Ritz Amelia Island are often 65k points a night, buy or earn 10k more points and you can get 5 nights (5th night free) if you are flexible with dates. Same with Ritz Dove Mountain in Tucson.

Anonymous wrote:Waldorf

That’s Hilton (and how I recently used 90,000 points)

Anonymous wrote:Two ways to use points:

Plan the trips you want to take and see if the points work for the hotels you want to stay at.

Find aspirational properties where you want to travel to experience the resort/hotel (Hawaii, Cayman, Maldives, Tahiti, etc). 250,000 points sadly won't get you very far at these kinds of places anymore.

Agreed on both. OP should figure out where they want to go, and then shape the trip around availability in the time of year they are aiming for.

Two ways to use points:

Plan the trips you want to take and see if the points work for the hotels you want to stay at.

Find aspirational properties where you want to travel to experience the resort/hotel (Hawaii, Cayman, Maldives, Tahiti, etc). 250,000 points sadly won't get you very far at these kinds of places anymore.

The best way to use Marriott points is just to see which properties are having deals in a particular city you want to go. Cities like New, York, London, and Paris have several high-end Marriott properties, so you can often find something that's a pretty good deal.

I took an impromptu weekend in London, and got a great deal on a hotel on Hyde Park.

Hi thanks all. A couple in their 50s who’ve done a lot of domestic vacations (national,parks, beaches, west coast) but could do more, but also very interested in international travel. Beaches or cities are fine. We don’t drink so no Napa or wine country focus.

We have teens/ college aged kids who could do a summer trip with us as well.

Knowing we would have to pay for the flights is one thing. Also probably Asia is out, just because would want 2+ weeks for that kind of trip.

We need some parameters here. Who’s traveling? A recommendation for a solo couple in their 50s is going to be different from a family of four with two elementary age kids.

Do you want a beach vibe? A city vibe? Are there any parts of the world that are off-limits because they’re too far a flight or “unsafe” or etc.

I like the JW Marco island.

THe "price" varies based on if it's high season, so pick a location where it's not in high demand at the time you plan to travel. For example, a lot of Caribbean destinations, and also the Middle East (Dubai, etc) are not busy in summer because it's too hot.

Disney!

Waldorf

Where do you want to go?

I know it’s not that many, but how would you use those points if you had them?

I’m not platinum status or likely to get there soon, but I can’t seem to figure out the best nbang for my buck in using them.

Thank you.