Grand Californian Direct sales promotion

[Disney.dad]

After all the rumors received a call today from someone who has not been one of the guides we have worked with trying to sell us Grand Californian points. It was $330 per point, no prior use year points. Was only offered February at this time but we would be able to buy 50 points vs the 100 minimum due to us having a February use year on our Poly contracts. The whole February only thing is because they allegedly have no prior use year points to give (interesting enough we have purchased one time use points in several memberships over the last year and 2/3 of the time they have been Grand Cali points they have stripped. Told them we would not be interested without matching our June use year. For someone wanting just 50-100 points if they will match the use year it might be an okay deal, not matching is a hard no. They are keeping us on the list for a June use year only. About a year ago we were offered a Feb use year and declined. They offered to delay close to June 1 so as to not award points and we decided to decline at that time. I think it was on 150 points and we wanted 50-100. They can change the use years if they want but are trying to milk every last dollar out. I doubt they are very successful on the 4000-6000 points without loosening up some.

 

[VGCgroupie]

So the promotion is we have no promotion. Buy it “as is”. With the refurb debacle and this inflexibility I think they won’t sell as fast as they think they will.

 

[Disney.dad]

So the promotion is we have no promotion. Buy it “as is”. With the refurb debacle and this inflexibility I think they won’t sell as fast as they think they will.

I bet within 60 days you will be able to delay closing June 1st for the tons of people with June use years. Otherwise they are going to have a hard time selling without banked in points and messing use years up. Really only attractive for small add ons to existing Grand Californian owners like us. We have 200 resale and want another 50-100 more.

 

[CWTC]

With the refurb debacle and this inflexibility I think they won’t sell as fast as they think they will.

I will be very interested in hearing how fast the 6000 points went. Our UY is February so the only Feb UY thing worked well for us.

Our guide is on vacation so he handed us over to a fellow guide - called us at 804am PST, confirmed our point request, entered into system to match us, and told us it would be 30-45 minutes and he’d call us back. Fast forward to 1037am and he emailed us saying we had just been matched. He called about 20 minutes later, apologized for delay, and said the matching system/department has been slammed. If that’s accurate the points might go quickly.

 

[VGCgroupie]

I bet within 60 days you will be able to delay closing June 1st for the tons of people with June use years. Otherwise they are going to have a hard time selling without banked in points and messing use years up. Really only attractive for small add ons to existing Grand Californian owners like us. We have 200 resale and want another 50-100 more.

Buying a different UY at the same home resort is highly inconvenient and should only be done in rare circumstances. Them finally having point to sell isnt one of them.

 

[byurick]

My prediction is since most of the existing VGC owners are not on Disboards they will jump at the chance to buy more when their guide calls them and says its a once in a lifetime deal.

 

[Disney.dad]

I will be very interested in hearing how fast the 6000 points went. Our UY is February so the only Feb UY thing worked well for us.

Our guide is on vacation so he handed us over to a fellow guide - called us at 804am PST, confirmed our point request, entered into system to match us, and told us it would be 30-45 minutes and he’d call us back. Fast forward to 1037am and he emailed us saying we had just been matched. He called about 20 minutes later, apologized for delay, and said the matching system/department has been slammed. If that’s accurate the points might go quickly.

They will surely get some takers from people who do not already own Grand Cali who with want to buy 150 to get direct benefits and are not worried about matching a Grand Cali contract. Since points cost too much there to use elsewhere the use year for most people will not matter as much. Also people who do not own who want 100 points at Grand Cali to be able to do a stay every few year or who want Disney’s 9% member finance rates. 100 point contracts are hard to find at Grand Cali on the used timeshare market. But I think they may have a hard time finishing those points up before having offered to at least a few more use years.

 

[VGCgroupie]

I will be very interested in hearing how fast the 6000 points went. Our UY is February so the only Feb UY thing worked well for us.

Our guide is on vacation so he handed us over to a fellow guide - called us at 804am PST, confirmed our point request, entered into system to match us, and told us it would be 30-45 minutes and he’d call us back. Fast forward to 1037am and he emailed us saying we had just been matched. He called about 20 minutes later, apologized for delay, and said the matching system/department has been slammed. If that’s accurate the points might go quickly.

As an owner I would love for them to sell quick. They just keep doing tings that aren't beneficial to the owners. Maybe there is enough FEB UY members to sell the points.

 

[AstroBlasters]

I’d buy 53 if they would match my Dec UY. I’m not getting my hopes up.

Ending unlimited transfers between your own UYs really should be a death kneel for splitting UYs at the same resort for most people.

The guides will try to convince you otherwise.

 

[Disney.dad]

I’d buy 53 if they would match my Dec UY. I’m not getting my hopes up.

Ending unlimited transfers between your own UYs really should be a death kneel for splitting UYs at the same resort for most people.

The guides will try to convince you otherwise.

We are going thru Selling 150 Sept grand Flo we transferred the 26 points out of (that found out last week Disney is exercising ROFR on) and buying 200 Dec grand Flo resale that was max loaded and waiting on points to load, and buying 100 Poly Feb direct to match our 275 resale poly we bought for 110 per point and will be selling our 150 Dec poly when we get closer to our April reservation. They had and extra 1000 off on site at Aulani and 100 points got us the points we need for 6 nights every other spring break in a theme park view 2 bedroom. We had 3 resorts with 2 use years all having a leg in December which killed us with the rule change. We will not have just Aulani with 2 use years being June and December which will work out okay as split reservations are fine there. Just did it over New Years with 3 reservations when we swapped some points in from another resort we needed to use up. Not falling for the mistake again of compounding any problems with use years at same resort.

 

[Disney.dad]

I’d buy 53 if they would match my Dec UY. I’m not getting my hopes up.

Ending unlimited transfers between your own UYs really should be a death kneel for splitting UYs at the same resort for most people.

The guides will try to convince you otherwise.

Debating 50 here or 104 if given the chance.

 

[AstroBlasters]

Debating 50 here or 104 if given the chance.

Is there a specific reason you are going direct?

 

[Disney.dad]

50-100 pt resales are hard to pickup and match use years. We have plenty of points and don’t really want any more additional total points than that to be paying dues on than that or would go resale and buy more. Grand Cali points only make sense if you plan to use them at grand cali. With 200 points now at GC, 50-104 more works perfectly for our plans.

 

[VGCgroupie]

After all the rumors received a call today from someone who has not been one of the guides we have worked with trying to sell us Grand Californian points. It was $330 per point, no prior use year points. Was only offered February at this time but we would be able to buy 50 points vs the 100 minimum due to us having a February use year on our Poly contracts. The whole February only thing is because they allegedly have no prior use year points to give (interesting enough we have purchased one time use points in several memberships over the last year and 2/3 of the time they have been Grand Cali points they have stripped. Told them we would not be interested without matching our June use year. For someone wanting just 50-100 points if they will match the use year it might be an okay deal, not matching is a hard no. They are keeping us on the list for a June use year only. About a year ago we were offered a Feb use year and declined. They offered to delay close to June 1 so as to not award points and we decided to decline at that time. I think it was on 150 points and we wanted 50-100. They can change the use years if they want but are trying to milk every last dollar out. I doubt they are very successful on the 4000-6000 points without loosening up some.

Curious if they said anything about base price increase come Feb 10? I assume if it was going to increase they would’ve said something.

 

[Sandisw]

My guess as to why they aren’t giving 2025 points is because they don’t have enough in every UY to do it…so, better to just exclude all of them from the start, especially since this is a sold out resort.

They can change UY, but they still have to have them avialable in a unit to make that switch.

Sounds like this is more of a VGC inventory sale vs a incentive based sale.

For those who want them, might be a good opportunity to get if it works.

 

[TinkAgainU]

$330 per point and no prior year points. Yikes. And I keep a close watch on availability, which even with the 11 month advantage is not great. Safe to assume if they sell 4,000 to 6,000 points at $330, people would be foolish to pay that unless they planned to use most or all of those points at VGC, reducing availability even more. And OCT/NOV/DEC for this year looks pretty scarce. Humm, just talked myself out of That purchase lol. YMMV // On a positive note, my Candy Cane Inn reservation for Christmastime dropped in price so I rebooked it - Now I'm MAKING Money (Disney Math at work here)...

 

[Disney.dad]

$330 per point and no prior year points. Yikes. And I keep a close watch on availability, which even with the 11 month advantage is not great. Safe to assume if they sell 4,000 to 6,000 points at $330, people would be foolish to pay that unless they planned to use most or all of those points at VGC, reducing availability even more. Humm, just talked myself out of That purchase lol. YMMV // On a positive note, my Candy Cane Inn reservation for Christmastime dropped in price so I rebooked it - Now I'm MAKING Money (Disney Math at work here)...

We did 7 nights in a 1 bedroom at Christmas before checking out on the 26th and going to Aulani. Both were wonderful and we want to do a few less days in a 2 bedroom every 3rd year and then every 3rd summer do grand Cali on the way to Aulani. Other summers we will normally just do DLH as our summer trip so normally 2/3 years. I know first world problems but 200 grand Cali points are not enough for that use case. 250 on the bottom and and 104 is perfect.

 

[TinkAgainU]

We did 7 nights in a 1 bedroom at Christmas before checking out on the 26th and going to Aulani. Both were wonderful and we want to do a few less days in a 2 bedroom every 3rd year and then every 3rd summer do grand Cali on the way to Aulani. Other summers we will normally just do DLH as our summer trip so normally 2/3 years. I know first world problems but 200 grand Cali points are not enough for that use case. 250 on the bottom and and 104 is perfect.

I should mention, I do the VGC Studios, and they have really bad availability sometimes. I just checked and there are ZERO nites available in a VGC Studio for FEB/MAR/APR/MAY/JUNE/JULY AUG (2 Nites) SEPT (6 Nites) OCT (7 Nites) NOV (2 Nites), DEC (8 Nites, none between 12-1 and 12/19) --- most of these are singles or two nites together.

So, sadly, for Studios, I stand by my low availability. The 11 month priority definitely helps, but for these big $$$, not everyone wants to plan 11 months out and fight the walkers lol.

 

[Disney.dad]

I should mention, I do the VGC Studios, and they have really bad availability sometimes. I just checked and there are ZERO nites available in a VGC Studio for FEB/MAR/APR/MAY/JUNE/JULY AUG (2 Nites) SEPT (6 Nites) OCT (7 Nites) NOV (2 Nites), DEC (8 Nites, none between 12-1 and 12/19) --- most of these are singles or two nites together.

So, sadly, for Studios, I stand by my low availability. The 11 month priority definitely helps, but for these big $$$, not everyone wants to plan 11 months out and fight the walkers lol.

We always try to plan and book at the full 11 months out at whatever we do and try and have an idea of the next year what or plans are past that. We have enough points and use years it requires a spreadsheet to make sure we don’t waste points by expiring and try to avoid having to stay at 2 or more resorts at world in one trip when we can due to points needing used.

 

[tx911]

I have a Feb UY, so I'm tempted to buy 50 (for some unknown reason).