What else can Disney do to discourage buying Resale?

jimonb

Earning My Ears
Joined
Apr 10, 2017
It seems Disney really wants to discourage buying resale for obvious reasons, however, one of the perks of DVC is that it somewhat holds it’s value. If it becomes too difficult to resell a contract will it also hurt direct sales? Would Disney ever consider further restrictions on resale contracts such as eliminating the 11month window for home resort, or only allowing use of your points at your home resort?
 
I'm not sure some of those restrictions you mention would be able to be bifurcated for just resale contracts. I could see them doing more/different Membership Extras such as Fastpasses (can book them earlier and/or get more of them), wider discounts on APs, etc.
 
The 11 month window and ability to trade to non-home DVC resorts are part of the timeshare declaration. It would be virtually impossible for them to change that.

Resale prices are driven by retail pricing and demand. If people suddenly decided not to go to WDW and DL, demand for DVC would disappear and prices would fall. If Disney dropped their cash price for rooms, DVC would have a harder value proposition, and would would likely have to cut the price charged for points, which would have an effect on resale pricing. If DVC built a monorail resort on the MK loop (there's space for it), it would exert downward pressure on prices for Poly, BLT, and GFV.
 
Besides the fact eliminating the home resort advantage and trading to non-home resorts would be against the timeshare declaration, it would devalue the whole DVC system for direct members too. Most people buy direct to also be able to stay at non-home resorts in addition to their home resorts. Preventing a whole population of members from moving resorts would create less spaces for direct members to be able to switch into.
 


A strong resale market is a good thing for DVD, and honestly the only reason I even entertained the idea of buying into a timeshare. Other timeshare systems you can't even give away your interests sometimes, or it's worth a fraction of what you paid.

If DVD wanted to kill the resale market they would just ROFR every contract that goes up for sale and make folks buy direct points. They don't. In a roundabout way they actually prop up the price of resale a bit by exercising ROFR on underpriced contracts (or contracts they feel they can make a healthy profit off of). I don't have a ton of time to look, but I just pulled up data on 1 contract they ROFR'd last month. 300 BLT points at 85 bucks a point. A 250 pt contract that passed ROFR went for 132 a point. 132 is much more in line with the current resale market than 85. I'm seriously confused as how someone would be willing to sell their points at 85, but there are a lot of DVC owners that don't really understand what they have.

They're limited in what they can change legally with the Core DVC program. As others have already mentioned, they can't really make changes to the 11 month window or limit the points to the home resort only.
 
If DVD ROFR'd every contract, resale prices would just go up to direct prices, because owners would know that it would be taken at any price so why not jack it up to direct pricing and have DVD pay. It would also be a much quicker transaction.
 
I think they are down to the little things - perks and discounts. They could probably do some priority on room assignment but it would probably be too much hassle. They could easily do an extra Fastpass or an earlier FastPass and Dining reservation window (or make the resale window later)
 


If DVD ROFR'd every contract, resale prices would just go up to direct prices, because owners would know that it would be taken at any price so why not jack it up to direct pricing and have DVD pay. It would also be a much quicker transaction.

If they ROFD’d every contract DVC would own a lot of the resorts, because a lot that buy resale would never buy full price. It would not make financial sense.
 
I guess they could introduce some new benefits for only members with xx number of direct points.

Just like they sort of doing now. We have some with 25 points direct others will in the future get 75 direct.

They could say members with 200 point direct will get AP for $200. They would ofc grandfather old members with 200 points direct.

Other member tier with 400 direct points would get ADR at 11 months and FP’s at 6 months on top of the AP discount.
 
I don't think DVD should proactively discourage resales and feel that it's not what DVD is trying to do with these restrictions. The goal appears to encourage direct sales since DVD realizes (correctly, I might add) that a healthy resale market can be a good selling point. That's why DVD has been enhancing benefits for direct sales purchasers. I know it has been mentioned before (both in this thread and others), I don't think it's too far-fetched for DVD to eventually adopt a tier system where its "best" direct customers are awarded for their "loyalty." For now, even with an eligible direct contract in hand, why would an existing owner look to direct sales when it's time to add-on unless it's a small number of points or at a new resort?

However, if adding on the next contract directly through DVD brings on yet additional and perhaps even more enticing benefits (as the number of direct points grow), one might at least think twice before start looking at the resale market. Plus, if someone is already committed to buying, let's say, a 100-point contract direct (for whatever reasons), what a great motivator would it be if the next threshold of benefits is only 50 points away! Even if that prospective owner ends up buying only 100 points on the initial contract, he/she will surely look for a direct purchase should there be a need for additional 50 points down the road. This system inherently encourages/promotes direct sales for existing owners, who most currently no longer bother buying direct because they are already "set."

LAX
 
I think it’ll have to be pretty big to make a difference like the tickets or cruises,etc. With the market being so hot right now I can’t see that kind of stuff happening. Maybe during the next downturn if things get imbalanced.
 
I think heavily discounted park tickets and/or fast passes would be a huge drive for people to buy direct. I would put more value on fast passes than i would dining discounts. But could you really see disney IT being able to create a system to determine that only direct buyers get an extra 2 FP selections.
 

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