Buy Aulani resale or direct?

[boba_balla]

I'm in a similar position as the OP here. Just came back from an Oahu trip where we stayed at Aulani for 3 nights, and then Waikiki for 4 nights. We've walked thru Aulani a very long time ago, but this was our first time staying there. My wife has always wanted to stay there, and now that we have a 5yo, we decided to treat ourselves to a short stay there. I was hesitant at first due to the price, but it's been my wife's dream to stay there so I caved. I do really like the resort, especially with a kid. It's just hard for me to justify paying full regular price to stay there, and that was just in one of their regular rooms. Wife and son absolutely loves the resort and can't wait to go back, myself included lol.

Prior to our trip, I had found out my cousin's bf's family are DVC members, with Aulani as their home site. They gave us some information about how DVC works so we did some preliminary research on it. Checked out the grand villa just for fun, and then checked out the model studio/1bdr as well. Now I am highly considering buying an Aulani DVC contract off the resale market, since we would also like to have more family members go with us in the future as well. We would like to use the membership to go to Disney World and Aulani, and we're ok with not being able to book at all of the resorts at Disneyworld. At Disneyland, our stays there are usually pretty short so most likely wouldn't get a DVC room for our Disneyland trips, so resale does seem to make more sense for us.

 

[AstroBlasters]

I'm in a similar position as the OP here. Just came back from an Oahu trip where we stayed at Aulani for 3 nights, and then Waikiki for 4 nights. We've walked thru Aulani a very long time ago, but this was our first time staying there. My wife has always wanted to stay there, and now that we have a 5yo, we decided to treat ourselves to a short stay there. I was hesitant at first due to the price, but it's been my wife's dream to stay there so I caved. I do really like the resort, especially with a kid. It's just hard for me to justify paying full regular price to stay there, and that was just in one of their regular rooms. Wife and son absolutely loves the resort and can't wait to go back, myself included lol.

Prior to our trip, I had found out my cousin's bf's family are DVC members, with Aulani as their home site. They gave us some information about how DVC works so we did some preliminary research on it. Checked out the grand villa just for fun, and then checked out the model studio/1bdr as well. Now I am highly considering buying an Aulani DVC contract off the resale market, since we would also like to have more family members go with us in the future as well. We would like to use the membership to go to Disney World and Aulani, and we're ok with not being able to book at all of the resorts at Disneyworld. At Disneyland, our stays there are usually pretty short so most likely wouldn't get a DVC room for our Disneyland trips, so resale does seem to make more sense for us.

It seems like you have a great handle on things and that Aulani resale is a great option!

 

[cruisehopeful]

Piggybacking the thread because when I was going to post a thread, this popped up.

If we were to buy Aulani, it would be about 100 points. Resale is about half the price of direct which would be a no brainer, but I live in Southern California and if I had to use my points for a more local stay, I would most likely be out of luck.

I already have:
150 VDH direct
50 Poly resale

Ideally, we would stay in a one bedroom ocean view room at Aulani. My current use year is June, but I almost feel like I would want a different use year for Aulani because we'd prefer to visit in the lowest season in order to get more nights.

I'm just curious what others would do in a similar situation. I've looked at just renting points from other people, but due to the cost of rental points, it seems like buying would be better for how often we'd like to go. At what point would spending an extra $10k+ worth it to be able to use the points at VDH, when that's just a fall back plan?

 

[VGCgroupie]

Piggybacking the thread because when I was going to post a thread, this popped up.

If we were to buy Aulani, it would be about 100 points. Resale is about half the price of direct which would be a no brainer, but I live in Southern California and if I had to use my points for a more local stay, I would most likely be out of luck.

I already have:
150 VDH direct
50 Poly resale

Ideally, we would stay in a one bedroom ocean view room at Aulani. My current use year is June, but I almost feel like I would want a different use year for Aulani because we'd prefer to visit in the lowest season in order to get more nights.

I'm just curious what others would do in a similar situation. I've looked at just renting points from other people, but due to the cost of rental points, it seems like buying would be better for how often we'd like to go. At what point would spending an extra $10k+ worth it to be able to use the points at VDH, when that's just a fall back plan?

If you don’t think you would need more than 150 points VDH I would buy Aulani resale.