Thanks! The extra 5 years and lower dues definitely makes it a better deal for us. We're in our early 30s, so the 5 years actually does make a difference. Aulani at $115 a point and AKL at $115 a point, for 2018, this brings a cost per point of $8.33 for Aulani and $9.79 ($1.45) for AKL when you take in the total # of points over the life of the contract and add this years dues. Since we all know MF are the more indicative of the true cost of ownership, the subsidized dues are awesome, and yes I did see the DVC Resale maket information 2 days after we put the offer in and I felt great about the decision. Three 100 point august subsidized Aulani contracts came up 2 weeks ago, it looks like one fell through as it is re-listed...someone here should grab it!
We generally were using the 100 AKL points at AKL at 11 months (only necessary over NYE really) and for Aulani at 7 months. While it would be nice to have a bucket of 200 at AKL and a bucket of 140 at GFV, it just made sense financially for Aulani. We now get 11 months there so if we ever do want to go over a holiday, we can. Since we're in Philly, Hawaii is still at best an every 2-3 year trip. The points we do not use there, we can combine with AKL at 7 months for larger rooms at WDW for family trips since there are now nieces and nephews. OKW or AKL 2-bedrooms would be fine and I know they
typically don't go at the 11-month window anyways. We'll still keep using GFV for studios for us.
Worst case even if we could never use at 7-months, we'd be covered for Aulani every 2-3 years, AKL for larger rooms (use 2-3 years of points at once) and use GFV for shorter 3-6 night studio trips. For us, I think that's a great spot to be in since you never know how things will shake out at 7-months 10 years from now.