It's true, i love this thread.!!
SAP bungalow points
I loved the idea of buying SAP for bungalows as well...but my husband says if we are paying more than $1000 night in dues we're going to a bungalow over a body of water we can actually swim in. I'm hoping he'll change his tune when our kids are teens and we can hangout in a bungalow while they go on rides at MK.
And all this time, based on your mathematical analysis, I thought you were a CPA or actuary. Do you practice consumer protection law?
Haha, thank you (I think?). I am an in house lawyer but I worked for an investment bank in an analytical role before law school and I am a finance nerd at heart. I don’t practice consumer protection law directly but I do tell our marketing/advertising teams what we can’t say without opening ourselves up to false advertising claims.
Genie+ and Standby Skipper!Haha, thank you (I think?). I am an in house lawyer but I worked for an investment bank in an analytical role before law school and I am a finance nerd at heart. I don’t practice consumer protection law directly but I do tell our marketing/advertising teams what we can’t say without opening ourselves up to false advertising claims.
I think the majority of us here would agree with you that “a little bit of extra money is well spent not to hear complaining”— in fact it may as well be the unofficial tagline of Genie+.
As much as I would love a week at the Four Seasons in Bora Bora, my husband would be bored to tears and I might go bonkers on the flight! We did a week in a bungalow last year and the plunge pool was clutch for cooling off after the parks! Plus the view of fireworks and light parade was fun and low stress.
Makes me even happier about my Aul-S in ROFR I bought for SAP. Our trip is in a couple weeks and I know these SAP will become SAP+
Definitely no regrets about using them as such. Used the points for a week in a hotel room this past May, now I have this week booked for next year. I don't know how often we'll frequent Aulani in the future but given that we have 3 trips (the second booked at the 7 month window with AKV) planned there in a little over a year's time it's looking like I made the right decision even though I didn't think we'd be going there this frequently. I'm not going to lie I did second guess myself and thought maybe I should've bought something in Florida just to avoid Hawaii timeshare law and etc. but I'm glad I went forward with paying a little bit more and getting that 11 month booking window even though we will be using a fair amount of these points at WDW as well.
What are Aulani subsidized points?
For any contracts sold for Aulani before July 6th 2011, they are subsidized meaning Disney pays for 25% of the dues for that contract compared to a regular Aulani contract. When resold, these contracts maintain their subsidized status and the new owner only pays 75% of the standard dues.
Excellent and simple explanation.
Isn’t the general consensus that the extra money you pay for Aulani dues somewhat undermines their value as SAP? Have never run the numbers myself so, to be fair, have not taken into account whatever variables you might have considered. And I guess it also depends upon how long you plan on keeping the points. But it seems like the longer you use Aulani points primarily as SAP, the less of a good deal they are.
Imma leave this here, subsidized dues Aulani is one of the best values on a per point basis when taking into account time value of money. If anything using them primarily at Aulani probably makes their math a little worse but that has more to do with how high Aulani's point charts are than the cost of the points themselves.
Someone did the math a while back, but in the short term a good deal on regular Aulani points is a better deal as it takes a long time to get the value back but over the life of the contract subsidized was the better deal. I personally like the idea of a subsidized contract because it makes it more useable as SAP+ for years you want to use the points elsewhere as dues inevitably keep going up higher than WDW resorts (since it is a beach resort) and hedges against any crazy increases in dues for the future (again since it is a beach resort)
They’re subsidized dues, so they make great SAP+.
