Input on buying Aulani direct/resale vs resale purchase of Grand Californian

[Woody and Buzz]

Living in Northern California I have come to the conclusion, that if I want to buy DVC I need to buy ether Aulani direct/resale or resale purchase of Grand Californian. I am looking to buy 200-250 points. That would allow my family and I to take a trip every other year. We already take 1-2 trips a year to DL but if I bought DVC, we could use the points for Aulani, WDW, HH, or VB.

I know resale would be cheaper but GC points don't come up that often. A good thing is that I am looking to buy in 2014. I want to save up at least $20,000 if not more for a down payment. I guess if it takes me till 2015 to save all the money, that is not a bad idea too. Worst case would be that I would buy Aulani in 2015 or longer. I think they will still be selling Aulani for the next couple of years. Also since Disney just built Aulani, I don't see them building a new resort for DL anytime soon.

 

[e46m3]

I bought Aulani resale and I'm from so cal. I'm literally 15 mins away from DL so it didn't make any sense for us to stay at gc. We hope to visit Aulani on an annual basis. Also, we didn't visit Aulani before deciding to buy. You are making a great decision on saving cash to buy dvc.

 

[Minniesgal]

Grand Californian points do come up fairly regularly. I decided to buy there at Christmas time and have my resale points now in my account. I could have bought them at least 4 times with the number of points that came up. If you want to stay at VCG buy there. It just takes a little patience.

 

[Breyean]

When we decided we needed more points, and having move out west so DLR was now our main park destination, we bought Aulani on a cruise.

Then we thought about how we wanted to use the points, mainly at VGC most of the time, and got rid of Aulani and have now bought 3 VGC contracts (2 direct and resale).

If you are planning on going to VGC, buy there. It makes things a whole lot easier.

 

[PCMama]

If you need to go to dl, or go there more often go for the vgc points its the smallest resort vice aulani which is the third largest. Aulani resale will be interesting as maintenance fees rise. I wonder if it'll hold its value or if prices will drop as mfs go up.

 

[JWG]

To buy at Aulani, I think you really need to want to visit Hawaii regularly. Especially if you want triple digit points.

The nice thing about points is you could do both. Buy a bulk of VGC points and enough Aulani points to visit every 3 years through banking and borrowing.

I was able to piece together a 12 night stay at Aulani this Christmas and New Year's (12/21 - 1/2) in a dedicated 2BR at 7 months. It wasn't immediate, had to put some effort into it, but we got all but 2 nights on points in the same view. 12/30 and 12/31 are still waitlisted (not surprised, 12/31 is a popular night as they do fireworks and some other things at the resort), but we have those nights on cash if the waitlists don't come through.

So, with a little work, we got 10 of our desired 12 nights at Aulani and could still get the other 2. I don't think we'd have had that luck at VGC.