Hawaii trades

[NoMatter]

Has anyone had success in depositing points with II and staying in Maui during the summer. Will they tell you all dates available and which resorts before you comit the $75. Or is there somewhere online you can view thie availability. Trying to plan this around cashing in all of our Delta points since it is almost impossible to get any flights from our home town Orlando to anywhere. Any suggestions on how to stay in Hawaii will be appreciated.

 

[Connor' Dad]

Also interested.

 

[garydeb]

Hi,

We put our deposit for a Maui trade in Aug for anything in Apr, May or Jun of this year. We still have not got no dates for a transfer yet. I have been calling every week since Jan 1st to check and they said they don't see anything for Hawaii for the next 8 months. So it doesn't look promising for us to go to Hawaii for our 25th Anniv......

-Debbie

 

[disneydenisel]

There have been a couple of other threads about exchanges to Hawaii.

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1307088&referrerid=&highlight=hawaii
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1297226&referrerid=&highlight=hawaii

Availability is difficult during the high seasons, and most people need to put requests in at least a year in advance and sometimes two years in advance.

My advice if you have certain dates you need is to rent a place where you want to stay. Instead of dealing with the uncertainty of a trade and varying dates, you can get the resort and dates you want, and book your flights accordingly. Exchanging into Maui during off-season is do-able, but you still need to be flexible with your dates.

There are timeshare owners in Hawaii who might like to trade a week for a week at DVC, so that might be a possibility. Or, you can rent your DVC points out to pay cash for a Hawaii reservation. One thing to keep in mind is that if II requires 160 DVC points for a 1 bedroom unit in Maui/Hawaii, you can't always expect to only pay your computed DVC "rental value" (160 x $10-$13) for such a unit, especially during high season. Prices vary by island, but Maui is often more expensive than Kauai or the Big Island. Studios are easier to exchange into and find.

We own on Maui because it is a difficult trade. We own DVC points for the same reason. It is hard to plan a vacation for four with airfare and school holidays and play the exchange waiting game. Too nerve-wracking for my sanity.

There are lots of Hawaii rentals on craigslist, redweek, TUG and myresortnetwork, for example. Good luck! Feel free to pm me if you have any questions about Maui.

 

[Dean]

As a rule II will not have what you want sitting there, you have to put in an ongoing request. This is difficult for FF miles which normally much be done exactly 330 days out for most times of the year for HI. The $75 is refundable if you have to cancel later or it doesn't match. It may be non refundable in other situations. I'd put in the request then as you get closer to when you must book air, try to get what you need there. Then change your request and make a cancelable hotel or condo reservation as a back up. Unfortunately getting them both arranged without making a commitment to either is next to impossible. In general I view the air as a larger issue than the accommodations for 2 or more people.

 

[NoMatter]

thanks for all the great advice, I have to plan around school holidays and this will be the first year we don't get fall break which was always a great time to travel. The prices have gone up so much since I last went to Hawaii which was about 10 years ago and I remember staying at the Maui Marriott and loved it. I would like to stay at Westin so I will look into my Starwood points and also look to trade or sell my DVC points.

 

[disneydenisel]

I would like to stay at Westin so I will look into my Starwood points and also look to trade or sell my DVC points.

If you have a good number of Starwood hotel points, you can book either the Sheraton Maui or Westin Maui with no black out dates. The hotel rooms at the Sheraton are a bit larger than the Westin. If you are needing a timeshare, then you can't go wrong with renting at the Maui Marriott or Westin Ka'anapali. There are also a lot of great condo rentals all over Maui if you don't need the resort atmosphere.