With what we have today, I don't believe the so-called "restrictions" on resale points create any actual differentiation between direct and resale. Yes, they create a selling point for the timeshare salesmen to make. But they're timeshare salesmen and they are going to say something anyway. If people research those claims, consider the
points costs of the restricted items, and evaluate
how often they might actually use those features, I think most will conclude the restricted items don't matter much.
However, Disney
could create differences which
would matter and which would be clear benefits to direct purchasers -- most other timeshare systems have.
IMHO, the way to do that is not with restrictions on resale, but to offer
benefits to direct purchasers at certain ownership levels that are actually worthwhile. Looking at some other systems, here are some things DVD could do:
- Booking windows -- give owners of large numbers of direct points a booking advantage, possibly subject to some restrictions during peak periods. There's nothing in the POS that prevents that except the guarantee that home resort has at least a one-month advantage over non-home.
- Banking, Borrowing, and Transfer advantages -- similar to the booking windows, give preferred owners advantages in those areas of account management.
- Annual Pass Discounts -- Restrict annual pass discounts to certain levels of direct points, or offer an additional discount to those with large direct purchases. This would not only provide a benefit to direct purchasers, it would also eliminate the incentive for people to buy one 25-point membership for the purpose of the AP discount for their whole family...while staying and eating offsite.
- Reserved inventory -- set aside certain inventory for direct purchasers. I think DVD actually missed the boat on this one, because it is something that would probably have to be set up when sales opened for a new resort. The classic opening for this would have been when they first started to build the monorail resorts. They could have set up a DVC II for some of that inventory and limited it to direct purchasers and had a real selling point.
- Dues schedules -- some timeshare systems charge lower dues for owners who hold larger accounts. Why? Because larger accounts are more efficient for the management company to administer and the lower dues are an incentive to buy more points. For example, Wyndham charges a Program Fee to pay for common services like MS, admin, etc. Everyone pays the same for the costs of operating their home resort, but the Program Fee goes down as your points total goes up.
- Miscellaneous -- there are dozens of other things they could do: more FPs, earlier dining reservation windows, villa location requests, etc, etc, etc. Make your own list.