Restriction-Free Points Idea

[RoseGold]

Disney is clearly placing their flag on top of the hill that says resale restrictions, now and in the future, will not hurt our product.

That isn’t what they said at all. They said they didn’t think the restrictions would hurt direct sales, which is what they actually care about and have an army of people to sell. RIV is 40% sold, so maybe that wasn’t a great hill to die on.

The whole point is that it will hurt the resale of the product to owners trying to sell. Problem is, those owners have to start out as buyers. I guess we are seeing now whether buyers care.

DVC’s behavior, Poly 2 in particular, is a reversal IMO, and maybe because the restrictions have failed.

 

[Bjaiken77]

Good news is we don’t have to debate how harmful this policy is now or in the future. This isn’t going to be a hypothetical. We are going to get more and more real life case studies as many RIV buyers go to sell. I think it’s a failed policy, but that’s just my opinion.

 

[DVCSunDevil]

I was thinking about all of the discussions going on about the future of restrictions: the Poly will have them, the Poly won’t have them, Disney might remove them at Riviera, Disney will never remove Riviera, etc. I have this thought that Riviera owners might hate but that just might make sense. What if Disney decided to keep restrictions but offered the chance to upgrade your points so that they weren’t restricted. This would, of course, only apply to resell points. For some fee, say $25/point, you get the option to upgrade your points. This upgrade would not qualify you for Blue Card status, it would only apply to where you can book stays.
It opens a new, basically free, revenue stream for Disney. They would be able to, just like direct points, raise the price every year. It does dampen their pitch that you must buy direct - but let’s be honest, there are some people that will not consider buying direct. I think it could be a winning formula. I would certainly consider such an offer. Of course, there are many people on here much smarter than me that will probably be able to point out why this is a horrible idea. What do you think, would you pay to upgrade resell points - resell Genie +?

I don't see this happening. DVC doesn't "care" about past resale purchases. The purpose of the resale restrictions are to get NEW buyers to buy direct. If they offered some "upgrade" package, new buyers would buy resale and then upgrade their contract which would still be cheaper than buying direct. That would defeat the entire purpose of the resale restrictions. Restrictions are meant to drive people to buy direct and I don't see DVC giving an option to circumvent that. And the fact that this idea is being proposed shows that their resale restrictions are working. People are feeling the "pain", which will influence people to buy direct in the future.

 

[Ruttangel]

I don’t think anyone should ever do this. It would be cheaper to rent your RIV points out and rent in at the other resort. Probably break even

 

[Bearval]

This topic comes up from time to time, but when it is brought up, it typically comes with some unrealistically low upgrade cost (from Disney's perspective). It is going to cost much more to qualify the points. So if there is, for example, a $50 spread between direct and resale, expect it to cost $75/point or even $100/point. They will not set the pricing where it entices someone to pay for resale + upgrade instead of just buying direct points.

I agree that if they did decide to do it I can see DVD charging something like a 20% premium over the current spread between resale and direct to discourage someone from buying resale then upgrade. Long time resale buyers ~ 5 + years may see a benefit in converting points to direct.