We all want to travel, some of us may not admit it to others but I find that’s more because they don’t want to admit it to themselves. They feel they can’t travel for whatever reason, so they tell themselves they don’t want to so they don’t feel they are missing out. I’m letting everyone know they can.
Whether it’s finances holding them back, or not knowing how to go about setting up a great vacation, or just fear of going on their first trip outside of their comfort zone. And I’m going to explain it through talking about lifestyle vacation clubs. I’ll be talking about this from the experience I have in travel that I have done and the lifestyle vacation club I have knowledge about.
First pro of a lifestyle vacation club.
The first, and probably biggest, pro for a lot of people is the value. A lot of people want to get as much value as they can out of the money they spend. It makes sense, we work hard for our money so we want to get as much out of it as we can. The lifestyle vacation club that I have knowledge of does just that. They give a lot of bang for your buck. All the vacation packages available are located at 4 and 5 star resorts or hotels at 2 and 3 star prices.
They guarantee the lowest price or they will refund you the cost of the trip and send you on the vacation anyway. Pretty powerful statement. There is always inclusions in the trip which adds so much value to the money you are spending as well. If your trip is to Disneyland, they include tickets to the park. A skiing trip, they include the lift pass during your stay. A day at a car race, great seats that include pit passes. A lifestyle vacation club has value.
Pro #2 of a lifestyle vacation club.
Worry free. Let’s face it, our lives are busy. Setting up a great vacation is time consuming. You have to find a resort in the area you’re wanting to go. You need to confirm vacancy during the time you want to go. Then you need to set up things to do in the area you want to go. You can avoid this buy doing it while your on your vacation, but who wants to do that? I’ve done it and it was added stress… while on vacation trying to get away from stress!!
Then you have to pay for it, ahead of time or while on vacation like I did on one of my trips. Either method is a hassle and time consuming. With a lifestyle vacation club the hassle is taken away. You can set filters for the type of trip your looking for making it extremely easy to find the trip you want with the inclusions you’re wanting to experience, book the trip and you’re done.
The 3rd pro of a lifestyle vacation club.
As being part of a membership, the same trip is going to be available to other people. This allows you to have a common ground with the people on the outings with you, the membership. Whether it be whale watching off the coast of Mexico, or a wine tasting tour in France, some or many of the people on those excursions with you have a common ground with you to break the ice and make the initial interaction less awkward, you all are members of the same lifestyle vacation club. Knowing that there’s going to be other people on the trip that you share a membership with may make it easier to take that first trip to get over your fear of travelling.
Pro four of a lifestyle vacation club
As I’ve stated, there’s a certain lifestyle vacation club that I have knowledge of. There’s certain perks that this lifestyle vacation club has that make it truly amazing. One of these perks is an online mall. There are over one thousand shops in this online mall to choose from. When you make purchases online for things your going to buy anyway, you get a percentage back in the form of “travel dollars”. These can be applied to the trip you chose, flights for the trip, or just your own personal hotels, etc. Essentially, if you shop online enough, and accumulate enough “travel dollars”, you could go on a trip for free. Absolutely amazing.
Next are some supposed cons. A lot of things though are from points of view, and I’m going to offer different points of view to look at these cons in a positive light.
Con #1 of a lifestyle vacation club
I hear it all the time, “but I don’t like groups of people so I wouldn’t want to go on a trip where there’s a bunch of other people doing the same thing”. First, you don’t have to take part in the group activities, but it could end up being a pretty boring trip. So look at it in a different light. Trust me, whether you’re on a trip on your own or part of a lifestyle vacation club, there’s going to be other people around. You’ll have to pay a pretty hefty fee to have the scuba instructor take just you and your companion out for the dive, pretty pricey booking the whale watching boat for just your family exclusively. Unless you pay huge money there’s going to be other people doing the same things as you. So why not change your point of view and look at it as a pro like stated in pro #3. You have a commonality with the people on the outings with you.
Second con of a lifestyle vacation club.
They don’t include flights in the cost of the trip. OK so you got me there. It would be impossible for them to do this. There would be people flying from just a few hours away and people flying from across an ocean. There would be no way to make one price for these when people are coming from all over. But let me ask you this. A family in British Columbia Canada is booking a vacation to Cancun Mexico through some booking agent that “includes” the flight. Now, the same size family happens to be booking the exact same trip, at the exact same time, through the same booking agent, but this family is in the state of Texas in the United States.
Do you think that the price of the vacation is going to be the same for each family? The answer is no. The family in Texas is way closer to Cancun than the family in Canada. Though they say the flight is included, it’s really just bundled in with the cost of the stay. As for the con… I’ve looked up the cost of flights to a trip in the lifestyle vacation club and totalled it up. I then looked up vacations to the same place at the same time that included flights.
I then had to find the cost it would be to get the same things that the lifestyle vacation club includes in the cost, and add it to the cost of the “flight included” vacation package. Guess what, the lifestyle vacation club end price was hundreds of dollars cheaper every time. That takes us back to pro 1, bang for our buck. I’d rather book a separate flight and save hundreds of dollars then book a vacation that includes a flight. In addition, there’s many of us that have methods of collecting points to apply towards flights when we choose to travel.
When booking a vacation where the flight is bundled with the vacation package, you can’t use your points to make the flight portion cheaper. When the flight is separate from the vacation package, you’re free to pay for the flight how you wish, so you can do this using your points, seat sales, etc. In my opinion this turns trips where the flight is “included”, into a con. And the fact that the flight is not “included” in the lifestyle vacation club, into a pro.
Con 3 of a lifestyle vacation club.
The vacations of the lifestyle vacation club are pre-set with the dates. Another thing I hear all the time. “It’s my vacation and I want to go on my time, not a time chosen for me by the livestyle vacation club.” OK, yes, the vacations in a lifestyle vacation club have pre-set dates. They can offer great prices because they buy vacations like Costco buys groceries. They book a huge amount of rooms from a resort at a specific time getting them huge discounts on the cost and they pass those savings on to the club member. I’ve seen ski trips for example, just a couple months apart, to the same place. Trips to Universal Studios in Florida at various times throughout the year. They offer as much options as they can for flexibility. So I offer a different way to look at it to lessen the negativity of it. Wouldn’t you be open to the idea of adjusting your vacation date’s a little, if it means saving hundreds of dollars on your trip? I know I would.
Fourth con of a lifestyle vacation club.
The lifestyle vacation club that I have knowledge of has a membership fee. There is an initial set up fee and a monthly fee after that. It’s a con in a way I guess but this company does something to make it a pro. Costco has a yearly fee. You pay that fee to have access to the great deals within their store. The deals are worth it so you pay the fee. Same idea with the membership fee of a lifestyle vacation club. You pay a fee to get access to the great deals on vacations. But what this company does to turn it into a pro is quite unique. Every dollar you spend, that includes the initial set up fee as well as the monthly fees, gets turned in to “DreamTrip” points, dollar for dollar, one dollar equals one point. The vacations have a point value that can be subtracted from the dollar value you have to pay to book the already deeply discounted trip. So really the membership fee acts like a vacation savings account. So again, looking at it a different way turns this negative into a positive as well.
