I know there are a myriad of posts on here asking for suggestions about honeymoon trips, so I beg forgiveness for posting another one. However, I am so new to this game that I don't really know the best way to take advantage of all the points I have, as far as transferring to programs. Now, I am getting married next July, so I have a little less than a year to plan this, and I know reward space can fill up quickly. I will put a summary of my point balances below, and I hope someone can advise me of how I should use them to get the most bang for my buck. With the exception of the Marriott points, which I have built up from traveling the last 2 years for work, I will have the rest of the points in about a month, after fulfilling all minimum spends. We live in Florida, and probably don't want to spend part of our honeymoon with 10+ hours in flights, so I am considering Hawaii, the Caribbean, or Central America primarily. Suggestions are greatly appreciated.

TOTALS
370,000 Marriott
117,000 Hilton
100,000 AA
55,000 United
50,000 US Air
40,000 AMEX

Tell us what you like to do on vacation? Maybe city tours,beaches, hiking. How about night life. Do you like resorts or renting private villas? What is your home airport?

Sure, sorry, I should have thought to include that.

We are young, and thus are relatively adventurous. We enjoy seeing new sights, and I am into photography, so we enjoy unique locations. I am SCUBA certified, but my fiance is not (yet), so we would like somewhere with decent snorkeling potentially, with the option of SCUBA. We would love a place with a decent night-life scene, but this is not a requirement. Honestly, we don't have a lot of requirements. We are young and have a good time anywhere we go. As long as it is a beautiful location that is welcoming to Americans, we will have a great time. Our home airport is MCO (Orlando). As far as resorts or villas, once again it doesn't matter a whole lot. We don't need to be waited on hand and foot, but that would be nice if feasible. Basically whatever is going to get us the most bang for our buck, points-wise, with the least out-of-pocket expenses.

I don't know if me not being picky makes it easier or harder for you guys to make suggestions. I would think it would make it easier, b/c basically if you have a favorite place in Hawaii, the Caribbean, or Central America where we can use our points for travel and stay, I am open to the suggestion!

w/o taking points into consideration, I highly suggest Costa Rica. It's close, cheap, and a lot of fun

You have a lot of marriott points, so let start with those. Check out Marriotts vacation packages, they include air and hotel and our a value. Check out the Marriott on Waikiki, it puts you in the middle of the beach and all the action. You would then only have to rent a car for the day trips you may want to take.
In the Caribbean Marriott has St. Kitts,Aruba and Curacao. Spend some time in the Marriott forum, you will get the real experts.

I have some friends (young married couple) who go at least once, sometimes twice a year to St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands. They love it so much, they even named their dog Croix. Never been there myself. I have no idea what point redemptions are available there, unfortunately.

Belize is one of our favorite places in the world. Cheapest Caribbean country or most expensive Central American one - depending on how you view it. No chain properties, but your $$ goes very far and you could easily score award flights there during the summer. Beautiful scenery (and excitement) on the interior near Guatemala, and some of the world's best diving on the islands. Great food, nice people, it's a winner.

If you want to use miles and points, consider St. Martin. Two countries in one and one of the coolest airports (this is FT after all). Plus they have some of the best restaurants in the Caribbean (at least in the winter when French chefs escape to there).

Hawaii is 10 hours from you. Great place, but far from MCO.

Do you have any recommendations on where to stay in Belize? I certainly would like to use some of my points, but would consider paying cash if we could find a good value. Where do you usually stay, if you don't mind me asking.

Hawaii is the farthest we would probably be willing to travel

here is the link for Marriott travel package
http://www.marriott.com/rewards/usepoints/morepack.mi


I also love St Martin

Ambergris Caye and Caye Caulker are nice islands.

http://wikitravel.org/en/Belize

Thanks. Yeah, I am aware of the Marriott travel packages. I just what I want to make sure is that I get the most value out of my points. I.e. is it smarter to try to use all (or most) of my Marriott points for a travel package, or to use a combination of my other points to pay for the flight and then pay for the hotel with Marriott/Hilton points?

Belize is a small country so it's easy to spend some time inland and some time on the coast. Great hiking and ruins inland. We always stay in San Ignacio - a sleepy little town near the Guatemala border.

As for the coast, don't spend any time in Belize city. Head straight to the islands. Ambergris Caye is great but isn't the really sleepy little place it was 15 years ago. But it's still a sleepy little place, with mostly golf carts for transportation. I recommend staying here - http://ambergriscaye.com/tides/. Low rates (although that's always subjective), it's right on the water, and one of the best dive shops is on the dock out front (run by the same people who run the hotel). Just check that they have A/C if you go in the summer. We landed at the airstrip (fly from the local airport in Belize City to get a lower price and one of the coolest takeoffs you'll ever have (hint - sit in the co-pilot seat)), walked to a bar across the street, rented a golf cart, and went around to check out some hotels. Settled on the Tides and got a very good rate when we agreed to stay for a few nights and do some diving through them too. And that was in March - high season.

There are lots of fun places to see in the world.

If you are willing to drop $200+ a night then Victoria House in Belize is REALLY nice.
It is on Ambergris Caye. Really nice place and totally worth the money.

If you are going inland then I will highly suggest Table Rock Lodge. Small outfit that is affordable. Super GREAT people run the place and their food is REALLY good.

Belize was awesome. Really enjoyed my week down there.

Belize was phenomenal. Save the MR points for another day.

Ambergris Caye for a week...we stayed at a place called Captain Morgan's. (No relation to the rum of the same name...other than you can probably get it at the bar.)

Decent nightlife and restaurants walking distance away in the little town of San Pedro.

Best diving in the northern hemisphere, also tons of snorkel options and lots of inland daytrips you can do from there.

Easy to get to from southeast US...

2 Flights in a bracket as follows:

Flight MIA - CUN
drive to Playa Del Carmen, dive Playacar Reef. drink tequila, dance on bars (in that order).

Also - get some CENOTE diving in!

Repeat for 2-3 days.
drive back to CUN
Flight CUN - HAV (Havana Cuba)
Do Cuban things for 3-4 nights
Flight HAV- CUN
Flight CUN- MIA.

Can use points for flights to CUN and hotels in Mexico.