"Points" of Interest in Sedona
Of course, nobody needs a reason to visit Sedona: it's beautiful and reinvigorating, and that's reason enough. However ... this time, we went because the timeshare people said they'd put us up for two nights and treat us to dinner at a nice restaurant if we'd listen to a two-hour pitch. And because one of the restaurants on their list is one of our favorites anywhere, we said, sure, why not?
Of course it turned out that the restaurant isn't on their list any longer (we went there anyhow: it's The Heartline Café and it's fabulous), and the presentation took a little more than two hours, but ... as South Park's Kyle might say, we learned something that day.
See, we thought that "timeshare" meant you signed up for the same time at the same place every year. We were more than ready to say "No, thanks" to that. But we learned that there's a whole 'nother timeshare deal out there now: the points system. You still buy a deeded interest in a particular property, but you never have to go there if you don't want to. Instead, your share is points, which you can use at any of that company's other resorts. Anywhere in the world.
Yes, sure, there are complexities and restrictions. We ended up saying "No, not right now," and coming home and spending the next couple of days on the Internet doing a lot of research about it. We think we understand it pretty well now (except for some details we're still looking up). We've pretty well decided that we will buy ourselves some points, too -- but on the resale market. That's a world unto itself, I can tell you.
(If you are interested in such a thing, I recommend signing up with the Timeshare Users Group on line -- just google that and you'll get there. These people are experienced and very, very helpful.)
Why aren't we buying into the wonderful world of point-systems timeshare now? Well, it's because we're planning a huge trip to Scotland next summer, and we don't want to incur the extra expense of timeshare just yet. We figure that in January, we'll go for it, as a sort of belated Yule present to each other. (Our financial adviser, by the way, is very enthusiastic about it, even though it's not an investment in the portfolio sense.)
Anyhow, we had a nice couple of days in Sedona, and took a few photos to share, including one of us about to enjoy dinner on the Heartline's patio, where we were protected from an infinitesimal sprinkle by a lovely umbrella over the table.