If the rumored change happens that Riviera resale owners will be restricted to only booking at Riviera, then within 10 years, only Riviera owners will ever be able to book there. (DVC did not officially announce that although there are reports of CM saying that.)
If that restriction comes to pass, all current owners will all defacto have the current restrictions apply to our contracts; Riviera direct owners will not. That being the case, the new restrictions are not worth your consideration when buying resale.
Let me explain:
Let’s imagine 6 million points are sold at 100 points per contract: 60,000 Riviera owners at sellout. If the average owner holds for 10 years before selling, then it’s not unreasonable to estimate that there will be 30,000 Riviera resale buyers (half of all owners) by year 10, or roughly in 2030.
30,000 resale buyers must book before the 7 month window or they’ll have no guarantee of the ability to book at all. 7 months is no longer a “window”, it’s a deadline.
If it’s a defacto deadline for resale buyers, it will also become a deadline for all Riviera owners wanting to book at their home - or risk not having access to any decent dates/lengths of stay. Anything leftover at 7 months is just a minor cleanup operation with resale buyers scrambling to pick up whatever pieces are left.
The practical effect is that none of us will have a realistic shot at using outside points at Riviera. But 30,000 owners at Riviera will have the right to book our resorts at 7 months.
If you think the pressure to book before the 7 month window is a problem now, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
But that works both ways, right? If someone from Riviera can book out, then we can book in? Not in an overwhelmingly unbalanced system. Say 40% of Riviera owners book outside their resort in a given year; that’s not 40% of the total, that’s 20% of the total (40% of the remaining direct owners).
So Riviera is 80% booked at the 7 month window with 12,000 owners looking elsewhere to book, with a choice of 14 resorts. And 14 resorts having a choice of the leftovers that creates.
There are about 3 million current DVC owners, if my memory serves.
Let’s say Riviera has 300 rooms and at the 7 month window, 80% of them are booked: 60 rooms available - (and if the same 40% of other resort owners are looking at 7 months elsewhere as we credited to Riviera) that would means 1,200,000 potential DVC owners looking to book those 60 rooms. Even if we assume that half of all currently grandfathered owners will be resale owners in 10 years as well - that’s still 600,000 owners seeking those 60 rooms: Odds of booking a Riviera room? 0.0001or 1/100th of 1 percent chance of success.
Practically non-existent and that’s without considering that even those dates that were available would be heavily skewed to non-popular DVC weeks. And this will just get worse as time goes on.
Conversely, 12,000 Riviera owners will have their pick across 15 resorts at 7 months.
As each new resort comes online, the problem repeats: practically non-existent to book into the resort with a not small number of their owners picking over the entire 15, 16, 17 etc resort inventory.
If this is the policy as implemented, then DVC has already gamed out that all current owners will be essentially iced out of booking into Riviera anyway. Since that will be the practical effect of the new policy at Riviera, why not make it a selling point now and make that an express restriction for resale buyers?
I’m not sure these restriction will mean much. Sure, new resale buyers can’t book into Riviera, but they’ll be in good company; none of us will either.
What’s it worth to have a 1/100th of 1 percent chance of booking a Riviera room in 10 years? That’s what you have to ask yourself when considering if the 2019 restrictions matter to you.
If that restriction comes to pass, all current owners will all defacto have the current restrictions apply to our contracts; Riviera direct owners will not. That being the case, the new restrictions are not worth your consideration when buying resale.
Let me explain:
Let’s imagine 6 million points are sold at 100 points per contract: 60,000 Riviera owners at sellout. If the average owner holds for 10 years before selling, then it’s not unreasonable to estimate that there will be 30,000 Riviera resale buyers (half of all owners) by year 10, or roughly in 2030.
30,000 resale buyers must book before the 7 month window or they’ll have no guarantee of the ability to book at all. 7 months is no longer a “window”, it’s a deadline.
If it’s a defacto deadline for resale buyers, it will also become a deadline for all Riviera owners wanting to book at their home - or risk not having access to any decent dates/lengths of stay. Anything leftover at 7 months is just a minor cleanup operation with resale buyers scrambling to pick up whatever pieces are left.
The practical effect is that none of us will have a realistic shot at using outside points at Riviera. But 30,000 owners at Riviera will have the right to book our resorts at 7 months.
If you think the pressure to book before the 7 month window is a problem now, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
But that works both ways, right? If someone from Riviera can book out, then we can book in? Not in an overwhelmingly unbalanced system. Say 40% of Riviera owners book outside their resort in a given year; that’s not 40% of the total, that’s 20% of the total (40% of the remaining direct owners).
So Riviera is 80% booked at the 7 month window with 12,000 owners looking elsewhere to book, with a choice of 14 resorts. And 14 resorts having a choice of the leftovers that creates.
There are about 3 million current DVC owners, if my memory serves.
Let’s say Riviera has 300 rooms and at the 7 month window, 80% of them are booked: 60 rooms available - (and if the same 40% of other resort owners are looking at 7 months elsewhere as we credited to Riviera) that would means 1,200,000 potential DVC owners looking to book those 60 rooms. Even if we assume that half of all currently grandfathered owners will be resale owners in 10 years as well - that’s still 600,000 owners seeking those 60 rooms: Odds of booking a Riviera room? 0.0001or 1/100th of 1 percent chance of success.
Practically non-existent and that’s without considering that even those dates that were available would be heavily skewed to non-popular DVC weeks. And this will just get worse as time goes on.
Conversely, 12,000 Riviera owners will have their pick across 15 resorts at 7 months.
As each new resort comes online, the problem repeats: practically non-existent to book into the resort with a not small number of their owners picking over the entire 15, 16, 17 etc resort inventory.
If this is the policy as implemented, then DVC has already gamed out that all current owners will be essentially iced out of booking into Riviera anyway. Since that will be the practical effect of the new policy at Riviera, why not make it a selling point now and make that an express restriction for resale buyers?
I’m not sure these restriction will mean much. Sure, new resale buyers can’t book into Riviera, but they’ll be in good company; none of us will either.
What’s it worth to have a 1/100th of 1 percent chance of booking a Riviera room in 10 years? That’s what you have to ask yourself when considering if the 2019 restrictions matter to you.
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