Just bought Aulani!!

[ChiSoxKeith]

Ok. I just got off the phone with Jim and we bought 165 points. (7 nights in a 1 BR Ocean View is 322 points in September, so I wanted enough to bank / borrow to do that)

You need to be one of the first 600 people to purchase 160 points or more.

Sales don't officially start until July 1st, but the guides are taking presales now and putting all the paperwork in to Florida so the process begins first thing Thursday.

Founding members will receive instructions on how to personalize their plaque / tile and then will receive it sometime in April.

Aulani here we come!

 

[ChiSoxKeith]

Congratulations!!!!

Congrats to you too, SoCalDCLFan!

Welcome home Neighbor!!!!

 

[lilpooh108]

Ok. I just got off the phone with Jim and we bought 165 points. (7 nights in a 1 BR Ocean View is 322 points in September, so I wanted enough to bank / borrow to do that)

You need to be one of the first 600 people to purchase 160 points or more.

Sales don't officially start until July 1st, but the guides are taking presales now and putting all the paperwork in to Florida so the process begins first thing Thursday.

Founding members will receive instructions on how to personalize their plaque / tile and then will receive it sometime in April.

Aulani here we come!

Congrats! What was your price per point?

 

[ChiSoxKeith]

To be clear I did NOT ask my guide about fixed week pricing.

As I stated in a previous thread, I had gone to see him at the Woodfield outlet on Sunday and he knew I had seen the leaked points chart, the cost, etc. Since he couldn't talk about it on Sunday, he told me he would call as soon as he could talk about it. He didn't have to sell me on it, he was just an order taker at that point.

He said he had just received the email from corporate that he could start taking orders this morning and he called me as soon as he got it.

 

[oct2014]

Hopefully someone will get more information on the fixed week. (I can't bring myself to bother my guide about it because I can't purchase right now anyway.)

I think it is important to confirm whether it is select weeks and/or separate inventory because of the potential impact on availability for those not opting for a fixed week. Particularly if I were buying points, I would want to take that into consideration in determining how many points I would need to be flexible enough in my planning.

Caroline

 

[ChiSoxKeith]

Congrats! What was your price per point?

The normal price is $114/point.

There is a $10 / point discount on 160 point contracts.

So my price per point was $104.

 

[LouisianaDisneyFan]

I did not interpret the OP to be saying that it took 250 points to be a founding member. Just that it was the amount of points they wanted to purchase.

Okay, I must have misinterpreted where he wrote this:

My guide called me tonight as she got the go ahead to release Aulani information and to sell before the July 1-7 event.

Details:
- 600 Founding Members will get name on a tile on-site and one sent to them at home
...

- $114 per point, less $12 discount for 250 point founding member purchase

I thought that meant you had to purchase 250 to be a founding member... Oops! I just need to give our guide a call.

 

[lilpooh108]

The normal price is $114/point.

There is a $10 / point discount on 160 point contracts.

So my price per point was $104.

Thanks! I am now madly calculating

 

[tjkraz]

I think it's pretty simple. If you choose a specific week it is in a season with points attached to that season, villa size and view. Therefore the points would be based on the combination of these figures plus 10 percent.

Ah, that makes sense.

Like many others, I'm very concerned about the fixed week option.
I can't think of a single thing Jim Lewis has done right.

MG

IF this is true about the fixed weeks, I really don't see how it negatively impacts members. The fixed week villas would have to be a separate block of rooms. There will still be a representative number of points rooms to points owners.

There would probably be additional restricitons placed on "weeks" owners to limit their ability to trade into other properties. That could help reduce the number of people buying into Aulani and using points at a theme park resort.

With the Aulani room numbers being so large, I just don't see a negative for the current program and its owners. If they were building 200 villas at the Poly and making 100+ "weeks" purchases, that would be disappointing. But 150 or so out of nearly 500 doesn't strike me as anything that will harm existing members. Meanwhile it presents an additional purchase option for those who want to pay a premium to lock in certain dates.

Why are different guides presenting different choices?

Because some members are burning up the phone lines wanting answers before the Guides have even had time to fully educate themselves. DVC will be circulating dozens of pages of information to Guides to get them up to speed on the new resort. And it sounds like there may be some aspects of this resort sale which are quite unique.

If your company introduced a new product/service and sent you a 50 page guidebook at 9am, do you think each of your coworkers would be consistently answering all questions accurately by noon?

Shouldn't be long before we start seeing comments like "I need a new Guide--my current one knows that I want to buy and I've left him 3 messages in the last hour but he hasn't called me back yet!!" They're either getting criticized for not being fully educated on Day One (or Week One, for that matter) or for not placing phone calls the moment a new product goes on sale.

 

[Maistre Gracey]

I shared what my guide told me. Don't know why I'm the only one to report a purchase so far, but I assure you they took my money!

I just knew my post was going to come out wrong..
Just to be clear, In NO WAY did I doubt what you are saying.
At the time it just seemed like a hair brain idea by DVC.

MG

 

[Maistre Gracey]

IF this is true about the fixed weeks, I really don't see how it negatively impacts members. The fixed week villas would have to be a separate block of rooms. There will still be a representative number of points rooms to points owners.

Well it won't eliminate inventory since it will be a separate block, but it certainly will reduce availability. If 35% of the rooms are for weekly inventory, than we only have 65% of the rooms to reserve. Granted, in theory there will be less people trying to book that 65% since some of the owners will be using their week.

As an aside, I wonder if you call to reserve a week using regular points if they will put you in the weekly inventory?

MG

 

[Greysword]

This almost sounds like how Starwood (Sheraton) does their point system. I think those with a week at a specific reosrt are assigned a point value, which they can trade in their week for the points to use at other resorts. This would make it complicated, for sure.

I'm curious to see how this will play out mechanically (fees to trade, values, avaialability, restrictions, etc)

I hope they don't think this is a good idea for WDW.

 

[MissScarlet]

I hope my question makes sense... Does any one know what use year the initial points will be available? For example will a September use year get 2010 points? Or will a June use year have to wait until 2011 for points?

 

[ChiSoxKeith]

My guide said I could pick any use year I wanted. All contracts start in 2011, so you don't get any 2009/2010 points when you buy in at Aulani.

 

[SoCalDCLfan]

DVCnews.com has posted details on the fixed week

http://dvcnews.com/index.php/hawaii--ko-olina-resorts-175/1289-dvc-entering-fixed-week-marketplace

 

[SoCalDCLfan]

I just knew my post was going to come out wrong..
Just to be clear, In NO WAY did I doubt what you are saying.
At the time it just seemed like a hair brain idea by DVC.

MG

All's good. no worries.

 

[CrazyDuck]

Well it won't eliminate inventory since it will be a separate block, but it certainly will reduce availability. If 35% of the rooms are for weekly inventory, than we only have 65% of the rooms to reserve. Granted, in theory there will be less people trying to book that 65% since some of the owners will be using their week.

As an aside, I wonder if you call to reserve a week using regular points if they will put you in the weekly inventory?

MG

Who's to say they are only going to sell 35% at "Fixed Week"? If someone if willing to pay a premium I'm sure they will gladly sell up to 100% of the rooms any given week! Although if they are really targeting Japan, the only week we would really have to worry about selling out is around Memorial Day.

 

[lilpooh108]

DVCnews.com has posted details on the fixed week

http://dvcnews.com/index.php/hawaii--ko-olina-resorts-175/1289-dvc-entering-fixed-week-marketplace

Thanks for the link! If this news is right, then fixed week owners cannot trade for other DVC properties....that is so interesting..it would personally dissuade me from purchasing a fixed week. I love the point flexibility and being able to go to any resort. . . .

 

[BeccaG]

Well it's all very interesting with the fixed week thing. If 35% of the resort is reserved for fixed weeks that could be counted multiple ways. ie 35% of all weeks meaning they could sell all Christmas week and new years as fixed and not be close to 35% or for any given week sell 35% of the villas as fixed. However I can't imagine them charging a premium for a random fixed week in September, who would pay a premium for that? Which makes me think it's the first way. ...

 

[disneynutz]

Ah, that makes sense.



IF this is true about the fixed weeks, I really don't see how it negatively impacts members. The fixed week villas would have to be a separate block of rooms. There will still be a representative number of points rooms to points owners.

There would probably be additional restricitons placed on "weeks" owners to limit their ability to trade into other properties. That could help reduce the number of people buying into Aulani and using points at a theme park resort.

With the Aulani room numbers being so large, I just don't see a negative for the current program and its owners. If they were building 200 villas at the Poly and making 100+ "weeks" purchases, that would be disappointing. But 150 or so out of nearly 500 doesn't strike me as anything that will harm existing members. Meanwhile it presents an additional purchase option for those who want to pay a premium to lock in certain dates.



Because some members are burning up the phone lines wanting answers before the Guides have even had time to fully educate themselves. DVC will be circulating dozens of pages of information to Guides to get them up to speed on the new resort. And it sounds like there may be some aspects of this resort sale which are quite unique.

If your company introduced a new product/service and sent you a 50 page guidebook at 9am, do you think each of your coworkers would be consistently answering all questions accurately by noon?

Shouldn't be long before we start seeing comments like "I need a new Guide--my current one knows that I want to buy and I've left him 3 messages in the last hour but he hasn't called me back yet!!" They're either getting criticized for not being fully educated on Day One (or Week One, for that matter) or for not placing phone calls the moment a new product goes on sale.

All we can do is wait and see. Based upon the current direction of the DVC as I see it, you can bet that any changes to the existing system will benefit Disney and not the DVC Members.

DVCNews.com, a most trusted and up to date source of DVC information is reporting that 35% of the rooms won't even be available to members using points, and to me that is just wrong.

Bill