Father Knows Best…? Tips for Resorts and Condos!

Bedroom we rented in Point Arena, Mendocino County, CA

Here is the first of (hopefully) many guest posts on my blog. Ladies and gentlemen, drumroll please... My dad! 

I’m proud to say Samantha gets her frugal habits from me, her father.  I wanted to share my favorite cheap travel option.  We have purchased a number of Resort Certificates through Skyauction.com (search for Resort Vacation Certificate at their site.)  We have never paid more than $315 for a certificate including the fees. These are certificates for a 7 day stay in resorts and condos around the world.  We have only used them in California and Utah but the list of possible destinations is endless.  One great feature that takes some of the unknown out of buying a vacation this way, is that you can check availability before you buy.  Go to http://www.resortcerts.com/preview_resorts and you can see all the availability before you put down your hard earned cash for a certificate.  Random example: If you were to buy a certificate via Skyauction.com today, you could redeem it for a choice of studio, 1 bedroom, and 2 bedroom condos at 5 properties in Park City, UT during May 2014. Want to go further afield?  A quick search revealed  over a dozen properties in Egypt with availability in July 2014.  I recommend checking availability first but these certificates are usually valid for 8-12 months so you have plenty of time to figure out a week you can get away.  Our experience is that these properties are timeshares with unsold weeks.  They are not prime luxury resorts but we have not been disappointed once.  I would say they are 3 star resorts with good accommodations, swimming pool, weekly maid service, etc.  Service from  skyauction.com has been great and booking has been easy.  When researching this option for the first time, I found a lot of negative comments about hard sell tactics at these resorts to try and get you to buy a week or more timeshare for yourself.  We have never had this experience.  We got one phone call from the front desk in Park City asking if we wanted to meet with a salesperson which we politely declined.  It never came up again and has never come up at the other places we have stayed. For around $300 this is not the absolute cheapest way to go but it’s a nice way to go a little upmarket for a very reasonable price!