Considering Aulani?

[megan0davis]

Hey everyone! We are heading to Disney World for our first trip in just one short month! The thing is, I'm all planned out on this trip and have started getting antsy to plan something else for our family. My husband is in a doctoral program and will be finishing next May after many years in school between the two of us. It is such a truly exciting time for us! He is looking forward to our trip to Disney, but just in that he hasn't been before. He MUCH prefers the relaxing vacations where you lay around and don't do much but soak everything in.

Aulani has struck my attention and I've been researching it some for next summer. My hesitations are mainly cost related. I want to offer him a trip of a lifetime so we can celebrate as a family us both finally having our degrees, but I want to be able to afford it too We are coming from KY, so the flights have me concerned. Just a little playing around shows me to expect anywhere from $900-1300 per person... Ouch! I've also looked into DVC rentals to help with room cost. That makes me nervous just because it is such a foreign concept to me.

Basically, do any of you have tips/suggestions for us? It's my husband, DD7 and myself. Flight tips for discounts, room tips for better offer, anything??

And if anyone is willing to share an idea on their cost for the trip, I would be so grateful. I know it will be an amazing trip, just not sure if it is for us summer 2015 or maybe 2016?

Thanks!!!

 

[MissDaisyofTexas]

Hello! We are a family of 5 going to Hawaii next year on Spring Break. I can tell you a few ways we are saving money:

Flights--my husband and I each signed up for the Citibank American Airlines Aadvantage credit card to get the sign-up bonuses and continued to charge our monthly expenses on our cards to accumulate miles. DH got 60,000 bonus miles for spending $3k in the first 3 months, and I got 100,000 bonus miles for getting a personal and business card. We pay off our balance every month. This enabled us to acquire most of the miles we needed to buy 5 round-trip tickets to Hawaii. I know not everyone is comfortable with credit cards. I also recommend signing up for a price alert on Kayak so that you can see when a lower deal on flights comes out. You might also look for good deals on flights from the west coast to Hawaii, and then combo that with a Southwest flight to the west coast.

For saving money on the rest of your trip, I recommend staying at a cheaper hotel in the Waikiki area, and then staying a few days at Aulani. There are some inexpensive hotels in Waikiki that would enable you to see some of the island, and then you could come to Aulani to relax and enjoy the resort.

There are also a lot of inexpensive things to do on the island--especially hiking!

Have fun with your planning!

 

[Anal Annie]

OK, so this is gonna get long. Go to the bathroom & get something to drink.

We are in the planning stages for our first trip to Aulani this August - but it will be our 5th trip to Hawaii. We're coming from the DC area so I know a fair amount about flights from the east coast. First of all, you should really plan to include island hopping to at least 1 other island. Second, you should plan on going for at least 10 nights. It is much too far to go and much too expensive to GET to Hawaii to not stay for more than a week and to not see more than 1 island. We are DVC members so are lucky that we can plan a full week at Aulani on points. You can check into David's Rental Service here on the DIS Rent / Trade board - if you can rent Aulani points at 11 months it would improve your odds of getting the type of unit you want and at a reasonable price point. He has a good reputation and IF I were going to rent points or rent my points out I would use his service.

Moving beyond the idea of renting points, as MissDaisy suggested there is also the idea of spending your first few jet lagged nights in Waikiki. There are lots of cheaper hotels there and you could get some of your more touristy sight seeing things done by using Waikiki as your home base to start. We have had great luck with the Outrigger hotel chain. I have stayed at the Outrigger Reef and the Outrigger Waikiki - both are fine for their price points but I would give the Outrigger Waikiki a half star or so over the Reef. Duke's Restaurant is located in that property too - it's a popular well known restaurant that people leave Aulani to go eat at - so you could throw that in as a bonus since it's right there. You would have a great view of Diamond Head etc.

Things we have done on previous trips and what we are doing on this trip to save money include using Amex. Reward Points and credit card miles for flights. On our last trip to Hawaii we had enough Amex points saved up to convert them to Delta Sky Miles and we were able to cover all of our flights to / from DC. We went to Europe a couple of summers ago and used credit card miles to cover flights for 2 out of the 3 of us for that trip. It was a huge help to only have to pay out of pocket for flights for 1 person. (Now we're in the process of saving them up all over again.) For this trip we converted Amex. Reward points to Starwood points to use to book 2 of our 3 nights on Maui at the Sheraton Ka'anapali. Then we were able to book the 3rd night at a Starwood member rate which saved us about $80. I have also booked trips thru Costco Travel to get better rates on airfare and rental cars in a package bundle. There are many tricks to consider when planning a trip like this. You need to make a list of any reward points that you get now and check to see if any of them partner with other programs and start trying to maximize accruing them NOW so you can save them up for use later. For example I think Amex. Reward points can also be used with Hilton so you might be able to plan some nights at a Hilton or something. There is a Hilton in Waikiki as well as on other islands. Do some research for partners. Sometimes Airlines offer packages with hotel chains too.

RE: flights from the east coast. YES, very expensive. And YES, you should budget for $1,100-1,200ish pp. You MAY be able to find them for less but in case you DON'T you won't freak out if you've over-budgeted. Then it will be a YAY moment if you can actually snag them for $850! This trip for us is actually postponed from LAST August as we had to cancel 8 days out due to a medical emergency with our DS. We had some credits coming to us from where we booked it last year - and the flights definitely went UP between last year and this year. We are stopping at DL for 3 nights before we head to Aulani so I booked our flights in separate legs and I think it ultimately ended up costing more for our LAX to HNL leg to do it this way - but it was less for our other flights. Anyway, we're using Alaska Air from DC to LA - booked that flight for about $221 pp using credit from last year to book this one. Then we're booked on Hawaiian Air from LAX to HNL. When I booked it in January that flight was running $484 and LAST YEAR we paid $272 on Delta. I then paid $60 pp for an upgrade on the seats to ones with more legroom. The flight that I booked this time is currently up to $511 (+ the $60). (Our credit from Delta had to be USED BY this past January so we had to pay out of pocket this year for this flight.) I booked our inter-island flight on Hawaiian Air also. Last year we paid $68 and this year it was like $89. Thankfully we still had credit on that hop to use on Hawaiian. Then we booked Alaska Air home from Maui with 1 stop for $493 pp (also using credit from last years flights which were $509). That same flight is now up to $610. Alaska Air treated us fairly I thought in that they gave us a year from our first date of travel to re-use our credits but they DID charge us a $100 pp penalty. So our credits weren't entirely a wash. (My experience is that it is better to book your air as soon as your reservation is secured for your hotels.) So anyway, to sum up our airfare, last year we paid $1,070 pp for all flights. This year they would come to $1,337 ($267 more). The leg that got really crazy expensive was the one from LAX to HNL. It just never came down this year.

Another thing I would caution you about is the TOTAL TRIP DURATION time. Be sure to double check that you're not getting into excessively long layovers anywhere. You may save a couple hundred or so but instead of it being a 10 or 12 hour trip it may turn into 16-20 hours. We would rather pay a little more for the flights than have a 4 or 5 hour layover somewhere. There are some crazy flight combos out there - just watch for that. Also, try to not have to transfer more than 1 time between home & the islands. Less total time, less chance of delays, less chance of lost luggage. It is already a long trip, you don't want to ask for trouble with extra transfers. ALSO, if you switch airlines coming & going your luggage (unless it's a partner airline) may not get checked all the way through - so you MAY need to claim it and re-check it so you'll want to be sure to allow plenty of time on a layover if you do book something like that. I don't have a problem booking separate legs on diff. airlines provided they occur on different days like what we're doing on this trip. But for example when we return from Maui I wanted to be sure to stay on the same airline so that our luggage would get checked all the way thru to home. If we had for example flown back into LAX on Alaska Air and then switched to Virgin America to fly the rest of the way home we would have had to get our luggage and re-check it. Instead, we booked Alaska Air the whole way (they go thru either Portland or Seattle) and that way I don't have to worry about the luggage.

We don't travel as much as SOME folks but we HAVE had a fair amount of long distanceand international travel sprinkled in here & there and I definitely feel more comfortable planning these kinds of trips now. I have done this trip in 1 week (wouldn't do it again unless I won it) and I have flown on United, American & Delta to get there. I've used Hawaiian before only on inter-island but they get great reviews as does Alaska Air. They're both ranked at the top of the most recent airline surveys so I am comfortable with what we've booked. I've also transfered thru Dallas, LAX, San Fran and Salt Lake City and have done it direct from Atlanta and from Chicago (not huge fans of either of those airports - they're just too big and too busy).

HAVE FUN PLANNING and congrats on your degrees!!

 

[Mrmouse4me]

Sign up with "beatofhawaii.com"

In early January they announced that Delta was running a special from Dallas to HNL for about $500 round trip on Orbitz. We knew approximately when we wanted to go (early summer) and so we pounced on it and locked into our dates. I have been watching prices since then and haven't seen anything as good come up.

My advice is to "be prepared".... when you see a really good deal - don't wait.

Good Luck!

 

[SevenWonkas]

Is DVC the only option you are considering? Besides other hotels, as others have mentioned, there are also other timeshare/vacation club options on the island. Check out redweek.com, my husband has had a lot of luck with this site. Marriott has a vacation club property just a couple lagoons away from the DVC property. We've been there twice. the first time was with aulani was under construction (we got to do a tour), and most recently last year. We walked down there several times, just for a stroll.

We live in Ohio. The flights aren't fun, but are doable!

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

 

[mic_KY_mouses]

We also live in KY. You might consider checking the Cincinnati/Northern KY airport (CVG). We found the best rates and schedule there, better than Louisville or Lexington.......worth the 2 hour drive. $919.00 RT PP for June. I've been watching airfare for months and haven't found one cheaper anywhere in KY.

Can't wait for Aulani......11 more days!