DanCali
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2023
Far and away, most direct buyers are uninformed. They’re hearing the pitch and either liking or disliking what they see of Riviera. There IS some value in being able to say “the only way you can use your points for all DVC resorts is to buy direct from me.” If you think there are a lot of potential direct buyers specifically avoiding Riviera because they see what resale prices are, I’ll just agree to disagree.
I'm not specifically avoiding Riviera direct because of what resale prices are. But I am specifically avoiding Riviera direct because of what I think resale prices will be...
Of course DVC will make the statement “the only way you can use your points for all DVC resorts is to buy direct from me” - that's why they have the resale restrictions. And I agree that many direct buyers are uninformed. But there will always be a group of informed buyers, which may be pretty large, who love the product and the resort but has no desire to lose 30% of their "investment" on day 1. And that aspect will exacerbate if Riviera resale prices continue to drop as supply increases over the years, and that paper capital loss may be 50%, or worse.
Anecdotally, last summer’s grand floridian incentives were good enough to turn more informed consumers into direct buyers. I suspect the same thing would quickly happen with Riviera and other resorts if similar prices were offered.
The direct prices of VGF and Riviera WERE similar in the summer (within 2%-3%). And VGF outsold RIV by 2:1 and even 3:1. Similar room configurations, similar points charts, similar luxury level, similar expiration dates.... so I think resale restrictions are the main difference. One can always still attribute that disparity to the location, skyliner interruptions, lack of monorail at Riviera, etc. But then you'd think that once VGF was sold out, and without Poly2 or anything else, and there will be no competition and RIV sales with pricing in the $170s (after MB) would see a significant bump, perhaps even skyrocket to over 100,000 points per month. They didn't even get close...
VGF sales with informed buyers skyrocketed because it was direct pricing at resale prices. They'd have to drop prices by another $50/point to make that equivalency for Riviera.
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