Direct Pricing- Riviera brilliance

[sethschroeder]

Are you trying to get everyone to love only Riviera to make it more difficult for yourself to book it?

Every resort has avid fans who stay at them more than other places. I'm good with any of those three you list and one is right at the top of the heap although my heap is more an upside down pyramid with lots at the top.

RIV will be no harder or easier to book based on my interaction here likely as this is such a small subset of owners. As of 12 months ago I wouldn't have really thought about buying at RIV which 100% has its flaws for ownership.

Also based on availability at 7 months and what goes first the resorts closer to parks are already going first I am just pointing it out. Same with resale the prices are already higher I am just calling it out (even direct prices map that way).

I just think not enough people have saw the math on how 2042 O14 resale will change for booking opportunities. People also keep getting fed the "average resale owner owns for 8 years" which is also incorrect from both a historical analysis on this board as well as one I did earlier this year which shows roughly 1% turnover annually or 20% every 20 years. So they expect a much harder time booking rooms at RIV as they expect 50% or more of the resort to be turnover in 2042 which is highly unlikely. Also there is an argument to be made that RIV resale buyers will actually be more likely to travel during "slow times" and more flexible since there is a risk with the points possibly helping spread out demand through the year.

Part of what made it easier to decide to jump in with RIV (own BWV as well) is that I was able to get direct points at $155/point at the time which basically wasn't far off from BLT/CCV/VGF which had longer contracts that I was looking for.

 

[KAngela]

So they expect a much harder time booking rooms at RIV as they expect 50% or more of the resort to be turnover in 2042 which is highly unlikely. Also there is an argument to be made that RIV resale buyers will actually be more likely to travel during "slow times" and more flexible since there is a risk with the points possibly helping spread out demand through the year.

I think what will be most interesting is to see, in maybe 4 or 5 years, how RIV availability is seeing as how only two sets of owners will be able to book it: all direct purchasers and RIV resale. That pool should be overweighted compared to the number of rooms RIV has when you compare it to the pool that can book the OG14 (which is direct plus OG14 resale owners). You would anticipate, if that's true, that RIV will become comparatively harder to book. This would eventually ease as more resorts are added to the system, smoothing out the number of rooms, and the number of direct owners in the OG14 pool reduces, but as you point out, a lot of owners today are still OG14 direct purchasers.

Out of curiosity, why would you think that RIV resale buyers will be different than the typical DVC resale buyer?

 

[sethschroeder]

Out of curiosity, why would you think that RIV resale buyers will be different than the typical DVC resale buyer?

We will have to wait and see but just a thought. You can already see the posts regarding how hard it will be to book RIV. This will possibly drive some resale buyers to pick O14 over RIV if they are more restricted to when they can travel and want to visit during the busiest times.

Here is two examples of people who already like RIV and a couple other resorts but deciding where to buy resale:

• Buyer A: Only wants to visit for Jersey Week every year
  • Do they buy RIV during a busy time with only a chance to stay at RIV?
  • Do they buy O14 instead for likely an easier time booking with back-ups just in case their home resort is full?
• Buyer B: Travels over the summer and can go anytime between June and August
  • With so much flexibility do they think they would strike out getting a week at RIV?

Again just a thought but there is a chance the perceived difficulty that will eventually happen booking will push buyers of busier seasons to cross off RIV from their list since they are so restricted with when they can travel.

I think some of this will have to do with pricing as well. As RIV decreases towards SSR pricing people will look past a possible difficulty booking and as pricing goes up towards CCV/BLT/POLY people will start seeing they can buy those resorts with more perceived flexibility during the busiest times of the year.

 

[brazzledazzler]

As of 12 months ago I wouldn't have really thought about buying at RIV which 100% has its flaws for ownership.

Also based on availability at 7 months and what goes first the resorts closer to parks are already going first I am just pointing it out. Same with resale the prices are already higher I am just calling it out (even direct prices map that way).

I just think not enough people have saw the math on how 2042 O14 resale will change for booking opportunities.

Yes! We weren’t even considering RIV when I started researching DVC. I wasn’t even considering Direct, until I looked at some of the future math for 2042. (And looked at the high resale prices.)

My husband and I have young children (2 & 2 months), so 20 years isn’t that far away,

I suspect there will be more DVC resorts built in the next 20 years…look at how many were built in the last 20.

 

[SFlaDisneyfans]

That's like Poly, if they didn't waste so much space in the bathroom they would feel very roomy

We love the ginormous bathrooms at Poly.

 

[dvc lover 1970]

Part of what made it easier to decide to jump in with RIV (own BWV as well) is that I was able to get direct points at $155/point at the time which basically wasn't far off from BLT/CCV/VGF which had longer contracts that I was looking for.

You purchased at the right price point for RIV, at that price, you could not go wrong. At over 200.00 per point direct currently, I think it loses some of its value. I think it is a gorgeous resort, almost purchased when they opened for presales, then again during covid with the incentives. The ship has sailed and at the current price its not worth it to me. Resale is completely out for me because I like the option of using my points elsewhere.

 

[klcts]

I don't want to be "that math guy," but the reality is that I am, so let's talk about Riviera's problem of Points Devaluation.

Riviera Resort has between 341 and 440 rooms for DVC, depending on how many of them are used as 2 BR vs lockoffs. It has a total value of between 6.75 and 7.2 million points. Compare this to AKV, which sits between 458 and 753 rooms (again depending on LO) and a total points value of 7.3 to 7.8 million points. So your average room at RIV holds 16 to 19,000 points, whereas your average AKV room holds 10 to 15,000 points (always depending on whether it's two rooms or one). That's a 25 to 50% gap in points of the room itself, which is reflected in points charts but not in points purchase cost either resale or direct.

And so on and so forth compared to the others as well. Across every category of room, Riviera is almost always the most expensive on a per-night basis, because the rooms hold so many points, usually by a lot. A standard-view DS at Riviera costs 19.1 per night average, higher than any other standard DS except Aulani (and higher than a DS ocean view in Vero Beach or Savannah View in AKV). It gets worse as you pile on rooms and views; for example RIV 1 BR with a park view is higher per-night than AKV 2-BR Savannah view; its 3-BR standard view is comparable to the BLT 3-BR theme park view.

So what I'm saying is, for the same room in RIV, anticipate paying more points, so you should expect to have to buy more points. So they should offer great deals, because you're buying points with a lower "exchange rate" compared to other resorts. In some ways, that makes the Riviera resale restrictions protective for previous resale owners, as contracts will probably tend be larger on average to account for higher points need when purchasing RIV. If you could use those RIV resale points on the OG 14 resorts then legacy resale owners would get crowded out by higher-point RIV resale owners. (I confess this is a highly charitable reason for these restrictions that likely bears no resemblance to reality).

Of course DVC is not a perfect economic system, and much of the above is simple math that leaves out some nuance, but it pretty cleanly illustrates the Points Devaluation problem of RIV. And your eyes are probably crossed by now, so we'll just stop it here.

Suffice to say, though, I have given this matter quite a bit of thought.

Wish I had the patience and the know how to figure it out the way you did. I’m more of the simple kinda of guy!! By spending a short amount of time glancing over the cost of ownership and the points allocation, it was easy to determine it was more expensive to stay there then all other resorts. With that said thanks for confirming my glance. Lol