Twice a week is the honest answer. Here is what once and three times look like, so you can decide before you buy anything.
Enough to keep what you have and to stay familiar with the machine. Slow to build anything new, because a week is long enough to forget a movement you only half had.
The point at which most people stop having to think about the exercise and start feeling it in the rest of their week — carrying, sitting, sleeping. Give it six weeks before you judge it.
Fine, and normal, once the movements are yours. Before that, more classes mostly means repeating a habit before anybody has corrected it.
Credits do not expire, so there is no clock forcing you to use them by a date. Buy the pack that matches how you train and not the one that matches how you intend to train.
A place is held for you from the moment you book it. That is why a cancellation inside the window costs the credit: the place could not be offered to anybody else in time.