It wasn't a one-off, they did the exact same thing at Boardwalk in November.
That's my point. The approach I'm describing doesn't require unusual ROFR activity. It's a way to periodically clear the balance sheet after
ordinary ROFR activity.
Disney is not like any developer. People buy
DVC largely because they have affinity for particular resorts (or particular parks). Animal Kingdom Lodge isn't attractive to a Beach Club person and Riviera isn't attractive to an Animal Kingdom Lodge person. When you buy DVC, you "buy where you want to stay," right? When you buy HGVC, you're not buying because you feel particular love for one property in particular. They're built to be generic and interchangeable, with the only difference being physical location. You're buying to get access to the system. A point is a point. Not so with DVC. A Poly point is fundamentally different than an Aulani point.
Again, DVC resorts aren't interchangeable, they're unique. Poly 2 and Poly 1 are interchangeable, to your point, which is why they aren't ROFRing Poly 1. But selling ROFRed Bay Lake Tower points as an alternative to Riviera points isn't selling the same thing at a different COGS, it's selling a different thing entirely.
Your argument is like saying "Honda makes more profit selling CRVs than Civics, so they should stop selling Civics." Except not everybody wants a CRV. If you ONLY sell CRVs, you lose out on would-be Civic buyers.
Also, your argument works best as a case against exercising ROFR in the first place. "Why buy back these contracts?" But they ARE buying back the contracts, so it's moot. We're not discussing whether they should ROFR or not, because obviously they are. The question is what they should do with the points once they have them.
Finally, your point about margins would also apply to cash inventory. The case that some have made that Disney might be buying points to sell as cash rooms doesn't hold up. Just as they could build new DVC resorts more cheaply than flipping ROFR points, they can also build new cash resorts more cheaply than buying ROFR points to sell cash inventory.
. I think you're fine.
