AAA Member Benefit for Aulani Bookings?

gregf71

Mouseketeer
Joined
Jun 4, 2012
Hi -

Just curious if anyone knows if there is any AAA member benefit for Aulani bookings through AAA Travel. We will be booking our August 2018 stay very soon. We enjoyed member benefits for previous trips booked through AAA Travel for WDW and DCL, but I think that ended. Not sure if it was ever reinstated.

Thanks!
 
We booked through AAA for this September. We were going to go with Costco, but AAA price-matched it, and gave us a $100 credit for Pleasant Activities, which we are going to use towards the Paradise Cove Luau.
 
$100! Wow! I booked this morning and was told by AAA that we got a $50 credit for Pleasant Activities.
 
It was supposed to be $50, but my wife was pushy and kept telling them we were going to go with Costco anyway, so they sweetened the pot.
 


Pleasant Activities as in Pleasant Holidays? There's a tour company AAA books a lot of their Hawaii travel through called Pleasant Holidays. It may be a promotion the tour operator offers, which can change, that would be out of AAA's hands. To my knowledge, there's no AAA benefit directly from AAA (such as showing your card, or like the WDW benefits there used to be), but they can provide the same promotions tour operators would offer, which is what any other travel agency can do as well. Worth looking into if you're a member though!
 
Pleasant Activities as in Pleasant Holidays? There's a tour company AAA books a lot of their Hawaii travel through called Pleasant Holidays. It may be a promotion the tour operator offers, which can change, that would be out of AAA's hands. To my knowledge, there's no AAA benefit directly from AAA (such as showing your card, or like the WDW benefits there used to be), but they can provide the same promotions tour operators would offer, which is what any other travel agency can do as well. Worth looking into if you're a member though!

Yes, Pleasant Activities is the activities site for Pleasant Holidays vacations, which is the tour company that AAA books a lot of their Hawaii trips through. We went ahead and booked 5 nights in Aulani through AAA...and Pleasant Holidays. As soon as I mentioned Hawaii and Aulani, the AAA agent immediately grabbed the Pleasant brochure. I assumed that it was because she knew that they offered the best prices and packages, but that turned out not to be the case. By a complete error on my part (I did the math wrong), the Aulani quote she gave me through Pleasant appeared lower than the price I was getting off of the Aulani website. She booked us a DVC Deluxe Studio, but when I checked the Aulani site later that evening for our dates and that room type I saw my mistake and realized that Pleasant was charging almost $250 more! Thankfully, they have a price matching policy, so come Monday morning I contacted our agent, provided her with a screen shot pdf of the Aulani pricing and she got them to match it! She was also able to switch us over to a standard room with the same view (same price) because we preferred having two actual beds versus one being a pullout. We didn't see the need (for us) for the kitchenette.

I will add that I was shocked at the Pleasant prices for the airport shuttles. She quoted me just under $30 per person per ride, thus for the three of us it would be roughly $180 round trip! Having already looked at posts here on the DIS Boards and doing some online research myself, I was seeing prices more in the realm of $110 to $120 range. Ridiculous!

I have heard that one of the main benefits of Pleasant is their access to good prices on flights, but we will see. So far, I am not a fan of the higher charges!
 


Yes, Pleasant Activities is the activities site for Pleasant Holidays vacations, which is the tour company that AAA books a lot of their Hawaii trips through. We went ahead and booked 5 nights in Aulani through AAA...and Pleasant Holidays. As soon as I mentioned Hawaii and Aulani, the AAA agent immediately grabbed the Pleasant brochure. I assumed that it was because she knew that they offered the best prices and packages, but that turned out not to be the case. By a complete error on my part (I did the math wrong), the Aulani quote she gave me through Pleasant appeared lower than the price I was getting off of the Aulani website. She booked us a DVC Deluxe Studio, but when I checked the Aulani site later that evening for our dates and that room type I saw my mistake and realized that Pleasant was charging almost $250 more! Thankfully, they have a price matching policy, so come Monday morning I contacted our agent, provided her with a screen shot pdf of the Aulani pricing and she got them to match it! She was also able to switch us over to a standard room with the same view (same price) because we preferred having two actual beds versus one being a pullout. We didn't see the need (for us) for the kitchenette.

I will add that I was shocked at the Pleasant prices for the airport shuttles. She quoted me just under $30 per person per ride, thus for the three of us it would be roughly $180 round trip! Having already looked at posts here on the DIS Boards and doing some online research myself, I was seeing prices more in the realm of $110 to $120 range. Ridiculous!

I have heard that one of the main benefits of Pleasant is their access to good prices on flights, but we will see. So far, I am not a fan of the higher charges!

I used to work at AAA. They use many different tour operators, and they all have variations. Pleasant Holidays is their main one for Hawaii, and I recall from working there that they had the most options for Hawaii and were easiest to book with when it came to Hawaii. Especially for inter-island travel. So they might not have the best prices, but they offered the most options and flexibility which is why the agents gravitate towards it. They may also offer larger commissions which wouldn't surprise me, but I was never privy to that information.
 

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