8AM Booking Trouble

[ars13]

I feel like I am going a little crazy here. For the last 12 days I have been trying to book an ocean view room at Aulani at 8AM (7 months out at, late June). I get all set up, connected to ethernet getting at least 500mbs, and staring at the time.gov countdown for 8AM. But alas, I am never the lucky recipient of a reservation.

I am new to DVC and this is my first time booking. I have everything loaded up and searched to hit the "continue" button on the reservation I want at 8AM, but it says I am outside of my 7 month window. I know one theory is that I just missed it and it defaulted to the next day. Is this still the prevailing theory? Should I be searching for my room at 8AM? Has anyones strategy changed or anyone have a new strategy?

I honestly didn't think it would be this hard since it is an Ocean view room and a high point cost. Is it normally like this or is this just COVID extra points out in the DVC world?

I know this has probably been discussed time and time again so I appreciate your patience with me.

 

[Sandisw]

You can get all the way to the calendar that has your dates chosen, and then hit book right at 8 am.

If you are getting that far and still getting shut out, then it means you simply not lucky to snag it. Since this is 7 months out, we have no idea how many rooms are still there as home resort owners have been booking for 4 months already.

I have not booked the resort so don’t know if this is Covid or typical.

 

[dragonflymom]

I am not an Aulani owner but believe that the resort is hard to book during school holidays. June is likely to be very popular and if it is not your home resort, it may be extremely difficult to find availability. COVID has pretty much put a damper on international travel, so popular domestic destinations such as Hawaii are receiving a lot of interest. One thing that I've found to hit home even more during COVID is that you really need to own or be willing to rent from owners at popular DVC resorts. I own at VGC and thought I have plenty of time to book a studio next September--nope, when I checked yesterday, only 2 single non-consecutive nights were available after Labor Day weekend in all of September! Pre-pandemic I have been able to book September fairly easily just a week or two outside of the 7-month window.

 

[Dizzydizney]

That has happened a couple of times to me too.....I must be a fraction of a second too soon (when it says I’m outside my 7 month window). And first thing I do is only say 1 guest. What has worked for me sometimes, but not always, is when all of my devices hit 8 am eastern standard time (where are you located?) I count out loud 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi...then click the continue button. When that hopefully gets you to the next page make sure you know ahead of time if you need to bank/ borrow so you can get to the next page. When you get to the “ guests” page, only fill in the info for yourself or whomevers name pops up as owner. You don’t want to waste time here because you can sometimes lose your spot in line if you take too long.
I hope this makes sense. Maybe just do 1 Mississippi. I find it easy because I’ve been a member so long and have made dozens of reservations. If this is your first try it’s very nerve wracking. I can see on the availability calendar that every day in June, up to the 23rd, for most views is taken for studios and 1 bedrooms. So looks like lots of competition at the 7 month mark. Good luck.

 

[ars13]

I count out loud 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi...then click the continue button.

@Dizzydizney IT WORKED! Thank you so much for the advice. I was lucky today!!!


I do have another question about banking and borrowing. We don’t have our flights yet and the airline we are going to take, southwest, won’t come out with their flight schedule for a while. We were thinking of trying to get a couple days on the back end to give us some flexibility with flights. That would mean borrowing from 2023 which I understand is irreversible.

Here’s what I was planning on doing. We banked 2021 and are using our full 2021/2022 points for our trip… if we did borrow a couple points (about 60) from 2023 and didn’t end up needing to use them, could we modify the reservation to use our 2021 banked points, 2023 borrowed points and what we need from 2022. THEN bank the 60 unused 2022 points into 2023 essentially returning our borrowed points back.
Will this work?

 

[Sandisw]

@Dizzydizney IT WORKED! Thank you so much for the advice. I was lucky today!!!


I do have another question about banking and borrowing. We don’t have our flights yet and the airline we are going to take, southwest, won’t come out with their flight schedule for a while. We were thinking of trying to get a couple days on the back end to give us some flexibility with flights. That would mean borrowing from 2023 which I understand is irreversible.

Here’s what I was planning on doing. We banked 2021 and are using our full 2021/2022 points for our trip… if we did borrow a couple points (about 60) from 2023 and didn’t end up needing to use them, could we modify the reservation to use our 2021 banked points, 2023 borrowed points and what we need from 2022. THEN bank the 60 unused 2022 points into 2023 essentially returning our borrowed points back.
Will this work?

Yes, that will work assuming you are still in your banking window and you make the change more than 31 days before check in!

 

[Dizzydizney]

@Dizzydizney IT WORKED! Thank you so much for the advice. I was lucky today!!!


I do have another question about banking and borrowing. We don’t have our flights yet and the airline we are going to take, southwest, won’t come out with their flight schedule for a while. We were thinking of trying to get a couple days on the back end to give us some flexibility with flights. That would mean borrowing from 2023 which I understand is irreversible.

Here’s what I was planning on doing. We banked 2021 and are using our full 2021/2022 points for our trip… if we did borrow a couple points (about 60) from 2023 and didn’t end up needing to use them, could we modify the reservation to use our 2021 banked points, 2023 borrowed points and what we need from 2022. THEN bank the 60 unused 2022 points into 2023 essentially returning our borrowed points back.
Will this work?

Hooray! Glad it worked for you. It would be so frustrating to use the “go back” button, try again, only to see someone ekes had snatched up the rooms I wanted.

@Sandisw is correct about reassigning your points, and I would add that if you are uncomfortable using the “modify reservation” option on-line, call Member Services to do it. You don’t have to wait, you can add those days on now I believe. You said this was your first DVC reservation....having MS do it if your not comfortable is worth the wait time on hold.....although it isn’t as bad as it was.

Congrats! It is a lovely resort and I love that it is on the quiet side of the island.