My First Booking

[Noodlez]

In a couple of months I'll be making my first booking and I want to make sure I'm fully prepared! (I know, it's a bit early to start panicking)
I will be booking at Aulani, which isn't my home resort, and due to changing rooms I will actually have to do 3 separate bookings, two of which are room views that are popular. I'm hoping you might be able to give me some help to maximise my chances!

Firstly, can anyone explain exactly which page I should be on at booking time in order to get in first? Should I have already selected the room and be ready to hit the continue button or will this throw me back to the search page?
Secondly, are there any special tricks? I heard it mentioned on the other forum that there may be but no one was telling! Is it worth being logged in on multiple devices?

If I have to book a higher room category is there any point waitlisting a lower point one? I have no idea if these are likely to reappear later. I also have no idea when waitlists are likely to come through so I'm not sure if I'd want to suddenly get points back that would be hard to book anything with at last minute.

Thanks everyone!

[YorkshireT]

You don’t need to worry about the dual browser trick now, that was so you could switch at 7 months online at 8am Eastern time (1pm here) before member services open at 9.
Best thing to do is make some dummy bookings, and try and then amend them. Just make sure you don’t:

A) Book where you are borrowing points, so just book a night. Once you borrow (you get plenty of warning) you cannot put them back and;
B) Don’t make a booking at the end of your use year as when you cancel your points go into holding.

So basically just book away, amend etc until you get used to the system. When you cancel your points will go straight back to the year you booked in. This is what I did when the new system came online recently so I was used to it.

Re waitlisting you have an option to replace one booking automatically for another. It should use any banked or borrowed points first, but technically you could end up with leftover points if you waitlist a room that is worth less. You can also set it to waitlist only up to a month from travel (so you can bank released points etc) or a week.

[skstorm]

I have just made my first booking and to be honest it was really user friendly. for my second stay I had to borrow some points so YT is correct it gives you plenty of warning and even at the end you have a chance to cancel everything you have just done. Good luck with the reservation we will be looking at Aluani in the not too distant future I think so it would be good to know how you go on.

[Noodlez]

Thanks very much both of you! I haven’t tried a dummy booking yet. I might have to give it a go! It’s a bit worrying though. :-)
All of the points will be banked 2018 points so I wouldn’t be able to bank them again. I should be able to rent them but I might not get as much at that point. I hadn’t realised you could pick a waitlist length!

Did you get what you wanted skstorm? I’ll let you know how I get on.

[YorkshireT]

Originally Posted by Noodlez

Thanks very much both of you! I haven’t tried a dummy booking yet. I might have to give it a go! It’s a bit worrying though. :-)
All of the points will be banked 2018 points so I wouldn’t be able to bank them again. I should be able to rent them but I might not get as much at that point. I hadn’t realised you could pick a waitlist length!

Did you get what you wanted skstorm? I’ll let you know how I get on.

See more...

Just go ahead and book. Then amend it. My points history shows tons of bookings I cancelled whilst I was messing around.
With the waitlist you just have 2 choices, I think its up to a week before until it is abandoned or a month (from memory).

[skstorm]

Originally Posted by Noodlez

Thanks very much both of you! I haven’t tried a dummy booking yet. I might have to give it a go! It’s a bit worrying though. :-)
All of the points will be banked 2018 points so I wouldn’t be able to bank them again. I should be able to rent them but I might not get as much at that point. I hadn’t realised you could pick a waitlist length!

Did you get what you wanted skstorm? I’ll let you know how I get on.

See more...

To be honest Saratoga was available and even at the end we were dithering about whether we just stay at SSR for the full 2 weeks because we like it, so I was happy anyway. At first I didn't think there was anything left and I would have to try and book things one day at a time.

Once Bev actually enlightened me on how it works there was actually a really good choice for the second week. Originally would have preferred to end up at Saratoga however after some great advice we had a bit of a vote and booked 9 days studio at SSR & 5 days 1 bed at beach club. purely trying it because we could and we would not have necessarily paid the price to go there if we were paying cash. So yes really happy and so glad I purchased right now. Good Luck with the booking