I hope this thread is not inappropriate. I've been scouring flyertalk for information over the last week or so but I'd like to get a sanity check on my ideas and decisions as I know there are many hear who know more than I do.
I'm putting together an 8 night Hawaii trip for my wife and I for this fall and would like to make it as inexpensive as possible. Thanks to a few Citi and AMEX credit cards between my wife and I we are both hilton Gold members and have 4 free weekend night certificates plus about 270k HHonors points. I'm also working on getting a few CCs that will pay for the flights.
After reading through the various threads on the different hotel options I think we'd like to split the week between the Wikoloa Village on the Big Island and the Grand Wailea on Maui. For lack of any better reason to divide it up I'm thinking 4 nights in each hotel, so staying at Wikoloa Village from Sat night to Tues night and Grand Wailea from Wed night to Sat night. This would use up the 4 weekend certs and 240k points based on what I'm seeing on the website right now. I may be interested in paying a bit to upgrade the rooms but from what I've read I can decide on that later.
I'm thinking we want to spend half the time at Grand Wailea because we want to experience it (we do like being lazy at the pool/beach) but feel we might get bored after a few days, and also worry that the expenses for food and other things will add up quickly. Wikoloa Village is my next choice for the other half of the week because I think we'd enjoy natural experiences on the Big Island more than the urban experience we'd get at an option like Hilton Hawaiian Village. The one thing I don't love about either hotel is the difficulty with getting to reasonably priced restaurants.
Questions:
1. Is spending half the week at the Hilton Waikoloa something I'm going to regret? That fact that HHV is on a better beach and near more food options makes that tempting, but we don't really have any other interest in being in the middle of a city.
2. Any opinions on if 4 nights at each location is the best way to divide it up? For those who have been to either location how would you split your time?
3. From what I've read, the on resort food at both resorts is overpriced. Is One of them much better than the other?
4. Since I may have 30k or more HH points left over, can these be used for room upgrades or anything else? I don't expect another trip for a long time so I'm all for using them all up on something worthwhile.
Any other suggestions or comments?
Thanks in advance.
I'm putting together an 8 night Hawaii trip for my wife and I for this fall and would like to make it as inexpensive as possible. Thanks to a few Citi and AMEX credit cards between my wife and I we are both hilton Gold members and have 4 free weekend night certificates plus about 270k HHonors points. I'm also working on getting a few CCs that will pay for the flights.
After reading through the various threads on the different hotel options I think we'd like to split the week between the Wikoloa Village on the Big Island and the Grand Wailea on Maui. For lack of any better reason to divide it up I'm thinking 4 nights in each hotel, so staying at Wikoloa Village from Sat night to Tues night and Grand Wailea from Wed night to Sat night. This would use up the 4 weekend certs and 240k points based on what I'm seeing on the website right now. I may be interested in paying a bit to upgrade the rooms but from what I've read I can decide on that later.
I'm thinking we want to spend half the time at Grand Wailea because we want to experience it (we do like being lazy at the pool/beach) but feel we might get bored after a few days, and also worry that the expenses for food and other things will add up quickly. Wikoloa Village is my next choice for the other half of the week because I think we'd enjoy natural experiences on the Big Island more than the urban experience we'd get at an option like Hilton Hawaiian Village. The one thing I don't love about either hotel is the difficulty with getting to reasonably priced restaurants.
Questions:
1. Is spending half the week at the Hilton Waikoloa something I'm going to regret? That fact that HHV is on a better beach and near more food options makes that tempting, but we don't really have any other interest in being in the middle of a city.
2. Any opinions on if 4 nights at each location is the best way to divide it up? For those who have been to either location how would you split your time?
3. From what I've read, the on resort food at both resorts is overpriced. Is One of them much better than the other?
4. Since I may have 30k or more HH points left over, can these be used for room upgrades or anything else? I don't expect another trip for a long time so I'm all for using them all up on something worthwhile.
Any other suggestions or comments?
Thanks in advance.