Vacationing with friends and / or family

What do you think is appropriate when inviting friends and / or family on a time share vacation? When you book out extra space or an additional unit, do you ask your friends and family to chip in? If so, how much? If I had a second home, I wouldn't ask for a contribution, but with time share, it will be making a dent in how much space I can personally use for that given year. Do you mostly just take it on the chin, if you invited them, so that everyone could have a better time? Some guests insist on buying us dinner and drinks on at least one night as a good will gesture, since they are getting a bargain vacation accommodation. I am a member of the Marriott Destinations program and I figure, fairly unscientifically that a point is costing us at least 50 cents each, to use. So, if booking a second unit for a few days is depleting my account by 1500 points (or roughly $750.00), How do you think the best way is to handle it, particularly if your friends ask how they can contribute? Treating us to a dinner, certainly wouldn't approach $750.00.

It's really a personal decision .... it depends on your own circumstances. Did you ask them to be your guests (outright) in the first place? That usually means that you'll pay for all the accomodations.

Are you financially well off and can afford the extra expense or are you struggling financially? Would you feel cheated if they didn't pitch in monetarily to help with expenses? Perhaps you need to discuss this situation with your guests beforehand.

I've read that some people ask their guests to pay some of the maintenance fees (maybe half) if they will be guests in your owned unit. If I were using Marriott points to book an extra unit then that is a whole different ballgame as depleting your Marriott account of 1500 points (or $750) is a lot of points and money. Marriott is a very nice brand and they would be getting a top quality vacation.

It all depends on how you feel about the situation.

dans383 wrote:

What do you think is appropriate when inviting friends and / or family on a time share vacation? When you book out extra space or an additional unit, do you ask your friends and family to chip in? If so, how much? If I had a second home, I wouldn't ask for a contribution, but with time share, it will be making a dent in how much space I can personally use for that given year. Do you mostly just take it on the chin, if you invited them, so that everyone could have a better time? Some guests insist on buying us dinner and drinks on at least one night as a good will gesture, since they are getting a bargain vacation accommodation. I am a member of the Marriott Destinations program and I figure, fairly unscientifically that a point is costing us at least 50 cents each, to use. So, if booking a second unit for a few days is depleting my account by 1500 points (or roughly $750.00), How do you think the best way is to handle it, particularly if your friends ask how they can contribute? Treating us to a dinner, certainly wouldn't approach $750.00.

Thanks for your reply. I pretty much see it the same way. We are in a position to be generous and we only ask friends and family that we want to spend this kind of quality time with. So, we generally accept a good will gesture such as treating us to a dinner. This is good for our guests as well as for us. We are not interested in penny pinching and would like to treat it more like a vacation home that our friends and family can truly benefit from as well. They also usually step up financially in other ways, like covering some if not all of the food shopping. It is helpful to have a general idea of what the unit is worth, so that they don't over compensate.

Well travelling with family or friends is really an expensive stuff but if you plan it well for sure you and with your friend or family will surely enjoy having vacation in other place.

That would surely add more fun to your trip. You must plan a long vacation when going with friends along with your family members!!

Hot Tub

#1 try to avoid this situation, if you can. #l your schedule becomes a group schedule, someone always feels either cheated or leftout. It's your vacation, go and enjoy it. If you have extra vacation time, offer it to them to go on their own.

I think it's important to have a good planning before you have vacations with your friends and family. For example, we own a membership at Raintree Vacation Club, and we like to visit different destinations in Mexico. This year we went to Club Regina Cancun because it's a good choice for families with children to have a peaceful holiday. Our accomodation was very nice, the the rooms were always clean and comfortable and breakfast was excellent. We were treated very well! And the most important thing is that we created new memories with our kids.