Originally Posted By Goofyernmost >>>There's nothing unethical about it.<<< It's all in how you base ethical. Keeping money and not providing the service isn't ethical to me even though I know why they do it and I don't have a reasonable solution, but it's all in how one views things. I'm not trying to sue Disney over it, but I think the other guy might and that's why I brought it up.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>It's all in how you base ethical.<< I'm largely with you. I think some great points have been made and I was unaware of the extent this goes; entire ticket brokerages based on it. That can present a legitimate problem for Disney. That said, Disney markets park hopper tickets as a certain number of days in the resort. They adjust pricing based on the number of days one purchases. Consumers are not unintentionally given the impression they are purchasing a finite product or service: a tangible ticket with a specific number of uses. Imagine if a five-day park hopper had five punch holes, and each day you get one punched out. That's absolutely the impression most consumers will get. How and when those are used will be irrelevant to most consumers. Again, I find it hard to believe that's not intentional. To put in fine print that, well actually, no, you're not purchasing a product, but something more akin to a software license that grants you, the user, into the park for no more than five days, but has to be used within a certain time frame, and can only be used by you...yeah. Call it whatever you like: It's exactly the kind of very common bait and switch, fine print, "check our website for full details," stunt that's all too common among most large corporations today. Promise a simple, straightforward service that can very quickly become not so simple and straightforward.
Originally Posted By sjhym333 I am with Disney on this one. Disney has spent a lot of time and money to try to fight the ticket scalpers and brokers from doing this and with good reason. Not only does it undercut their ticket sales, it is Disney who is usually put in the position of talking to a person who shows up at the front gate with a ticket that was purchased outside the gates but is not a valid ticket. Here is Florida the secondary theme park ticket market had really gotten out of hand with ticket stands everywhere. And while you may think it is buyer beware, Disney was the bad guy who had to tell the guest that the ticket they purchased was not good. It often got ugly. I know from experience. I guess you can make a cast that it is not ethical to sell tickets and not allow the person to give unused days away, but on the other side of the coin, no one has forced a guest to purchase more days then they need. In fact you can purchase a multiday ticket and then add extra days if you need them at the lower price. Disney loves it when you say I bought four days but we are having so much fun we want to get two extra days. I recently spoke to a ticket manager here in Florida who told me that they are having problems with counterfeit tickets that have broken part of the scan code on the ticket. The system is still catching the fake tickets and at WDW they have taken a tough stance on not allowing the person with the ticket to enter the park on that ticket. He told me that it is a big problem. I am not sure what the answer is, but I do know that as long as the ticket clearly states the policy, you would be hard pressed to win your case in court.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "To put in fine print that, well actually, no, you're not purchasing a product, but something more akin to a software license that grants you, the user, into the park for no more than five days, but has to be used within a certain time frame, and can only be used by you...yeah." Strange that anyone would think that they are buying a piece of DL for set period of time when they purchase an admission ticket to the park. What you buy is not a product but a service. I'm not sure why this isn't obvious. "Call it whatever you like: It's exactly the kind of very common bait and switch, fine print, "check our website for full details," stunt that's all too common among most large corporations today." Would it be "bait and switch" if you went to the park and some of the advertised attractions were closed for maintenance? I share your taste for large corporations, but I don't think it's fair to automatically assume that Disney is purposely trying to be evil or undermine consumers with their ticketing policy.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "I share your taste for large corporations..." I meant "distaste".
Originally Posted By ecdc >>I'm not sure why this isn't obvious.<< Perhaps I'm splitting hairs. I mean, I know the difference between a product and a service. I think what Disney markets is tangible access to a service. Again, a ticket with a finite number of uses. Disney says, in all their marketing and in their ticket packaging, that you are buying a set number of days in the park. That people on a message board have to go into lengthy (good and interesting, BTW) explanations of why, no, Disney isn't actually selling days in the park, underlines the problem precisely. "It says five-day park hopper!" "Well you haven't purchased days in the park." I can't imagine where someone would get the idea they had >>Disney is purposely trying to be evil or undermine consumers with their ticketing policy.<< Evil? No. Undermine...probably not. Deliberately opt for simple marketing to sell more product that can and will backfire on consumers? Yup. I think my previous analogy of software licensing is onto something. You go to Costco, you buy MS Office 2013. It's a box with an actual DVD. You feel like you are now the proud owner of MS Office. But actually, no. You are the owner of a single license to essentially "rent" MS Office on a single computer. Consumers find this out very quickly when one computer dies and they try and install the program on another, only to get an error that tells them the license is already in use. You own a Kindle. You buy a book from Amazon. You think you now own the book. Oops! No, you own a license from Amazon to read the book under very specific circumstances. And as some consumers have learned, Amazon can and will remotely disable your ability to read that book as it sees fit. It's commonplace. It's usually not a big hassle for consumers. But when it is, it requires jumping through bureaucratic hoops just to get the product or service you've already paid for to work properly. Is it unethical? I don't know. It's just a rigged system designed to make it easy for companies to take your money, hard for you to right the situation if it goes wrong.
Originally Posted By ecdc As usual I end up looking like the guy who just has to have the last word. I've said my peace I will be in L.A. next month for business. I genuinely look forward to purchasing a license to use a non-transferable, non-refundable service in the Disney parks for a day
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan I think how most guests treat a third, fourth or fifth day at DL is very different from days one and two. Or maybe I;m projecting, but here's how I see it working: Day one and two, you have more energy and are more likely to be in the parks longer, perhaps even back-to-back open to close days if you're a real commando. Day three is to cover any of the attractions you may have missed, or things you want to repeat. By day 4 or 5 you've covered most everything by now, and perhaps you spend more time at the hotel pool, or sleep in, or just drop into the park for a few hours. Still, knowing you have bought those additional days, you're not as likely to venture off to Universal Studios or Knott's or something. You might buy souvenirs or have a meal or sodas and such on those 4th and 5th days. It's all part of Disney's calculus, I'm sure. And if people are allowed to sell those other days left on their pass, Disney winds up with more cost for no additional revenue. Regardless, I have a big problem with people thinking rules they don't like don't apply to them. As long as Disney's terms say you can't resell the "unused" portion of a pass, you really can't. If you aren't going to use 5 days, then buy one for less days and stop trying to turn a profit.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>As usual I end up looking like the guy who just has to have the last word.<< LOL! I thought that was me? ; )
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost >>>I don't think it's fair to automatically assume that Disney is purposely trying to be evil or undermine consumers with their ticketing policy.<<< Surprisingly, I don't for a minute think that Disney "set out" to do anything other then protect their income. I understand that completely. But I feel that in doing so, it also 'took the money and ran'. I have never purchased a ticket that I didn't intend to use and I doubt that most folks have thought that far ahead to do that either. I'm not sure how these guys manage to sell them now. It was easy back when the used dates were stamped on the tickets, but now it is blind trust. They have no way of proving that there is even one day left on the tickets, much less a bunch of them. It must be part of the P.T. Barnum syndrome of "there's a sucker born every minute". I have seen people stopped at the gates due to ticket problems. It does not make for a Magical Day. I have to admit that I was guilty of not only buying used tickets, but selling them back as well when they were manually validated. At the time, I didn't have a pot or a window to throw it out of. Seeing as they were every 10 feet or so, along Rte. 192 it never even occurred to me that there was anything wrong with it other than Disney didn't want me to buy from anyone but them. Since funds were limited, I could get maybe a ticket with two days on it, save money and no hassles. The only time I sold one was when I had misjudged my "cash flow" and couldn't stay for the entire 4 days on my ticket (purchased through Disney) and sold it to have enough money to get home. Yea, I know, cry me a river, I should have known better, but I didn't plan well enough to anticipate expenses. So there you go. But back then we were not talking about a lot of money. A 4 day Passport (Park Hopper) was only $45 dollars so under normal circumstances neither one of us (me or Disney) would have been out a fortune, but it bought me gas money home. Now it is a good sized investment to buy a multi-day ticket. Not just chump change. There is no way of knowing whether someone gave the ticket away or sold it, so that shifts doubt to anyone trying to use one. I wish I were smart enough to devise a plan that would weed that out and be able to tell a legitimate gift from a third party vendor. Alas, I am not, but who knows maybe a flash of genius will strike me when I least expect it. It could happen!
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt “Evil? No. Undermine...probably not. Deliberately opt for simple marketing to sell more product that can and will backfire on consumers? Yup.” But you just said it was a service not a product. Even so, how will it “backfire” on consumers? It’s not complicated: buy your ticket and use it according the rules. Any reasonable person understands without reading the fine print that it’s unethical to purchase multi-day or annual ticket media to a theme park and sell an individual day’s admission to a third party for profit. It’s also been pointed out several times here that Disney has been willing to work with customers who have legitimate reasons to break the terms printed on the ticket. >>As usual I end up looking like the guy who just has to have the last word.<< “LOL! I thought that was me? ; )” Ha! And I thought that was ME.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <Keeping money and not providing the service isn't ethical to me> If a person buys a 6-day hopper and decides not to use it for 6 days (and perhaps sell the rest), that's not Disney "not providing the service." That person could have chosen to avail himself of that service, but is choosing not to. That's HIS choice. Again, if it's an emergency situation, Disney may well accommodate you and let you give it to someone else. If it's just you (or a broker) trying to create a discount Disney doesn't offer, you really don't have much of a complaint. Nor do I see it as a bait and switch. I had bought hoppers at WDW multiple times before DCA opened, and they were non-expiring. And in one case we ended up not using one of the days, and in fact it was honored on a subsequent trip. The first time I bought hoppers for DLR I thought they might be non-expiring too, but it said right on the ticket (and on the website), that they expired after 13 days. Okay - fair enough, I thought. DLR has a whole different demographic, and I immediately figured out that since it's so heavily local, it would be all too easy for people to buy multiple day tickets and just visit for a day and then hand them off to friends. Perhaps not unethical on their part, but neither is it unethical for Disney to insist on one-day prices if indeed people are using the ticket for one day (each). I didn't even think about ticket brokers. But at any rate, they spelled out the expiration date right on the ticket.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 >>As usual I end up looking like the guy who just has to have the last word.<< <LOL! I thought that was me? ; )> I'll have you know that's me! And I don't want to hear a peep out of either of you now.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>>>>>>>As usual I end up looking like the guy who just has to have the last word.<<<<<<<< >>>>>>LOL! I thought that was me? ; )<<<<<< >>>>Ha! And I thought that was ME. <<<< >>I'll have you know that's me!<< Nope. Me. So there.
Originally Posted By karlg I have a simple solution for Goofyernmost and ecdc. Just buy one day park hoppers as you need them. If you want you can 5 of them and then you can give them to 4 other people. If you are going with someone then you can just given them one ticket per day and in case you break up you can use the remainder of the tickets with your new friend. <sarcasm off> For normal people, it makes sense to offer a multi-day discount. A typical person if they buy a one day ticket is likely to go all day and pack everything in to take full advantage of the ticket. Whereas with a multi-day ticket they are much less likely to spend full days in the park. Often them will only have part of a day the first day when they arrive and part of a day when they leave. On my coming trip to Disneyland I bought 5 day tickets. We will probably spend most of the day the first two days in the park. Then on Day 3 we going to catch a few attractions in the morning and drive up to L.A. for the day. The 4th day we are also going to go in the morning and then meet friends in the afternoon. The 5th day we are flying home. If it were $100/day, I would have crammed the park days together more and probably have bought only 2 or 3 days AND would have flown home a day. earlier. Also my wife will probably skip the park one of the days so I could have got her a 4 day hopper but why worry about that for the extra $15 for another day (this cost is trivial compared to plane, car rental, airport parking, and hotels). Another point is that multi-day ticket people are likely to be coming from out of town (why they cram all the days together) and generally SPEND more money so they get a break on the per-day cost.
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost Almost never has the point of a discussion been so grossly misunderstood and so much dialog completely ignored or not seen. It has reached the point of "not much sense of continuing on" with this one for me. Correction: The first paragraph scenario happens all the time.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 You shouldn't confuse "ignoring" or "misunderstanding" with "not agreeing with." I can't speak for everyone, but I understand your point. I just don't agree with it.
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost Stop it Dabob...I'm trying to have the last word here. ;-) Not everyone but the posts of many completely miss the mark. I wasn't even solidly for what I was saying, I was trying to show that an outsider might be able to make a the Big Bad Company is stealing from you, legal argument. I still think that is what is going to happen. And it will be Disney bringing suit to stop him and then the points are used to make the case. That's all.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <I was trying to show that an outsider might be able to make a the Big Bad Company is stealing from you, legal argument. > No way. The brokers don't have a legal leg to stand on, due to the contract that Disney has very carefully written for those tickets to represent. I'm sure the brokers understand this. If Disney sues THEM, what else could they do but try to make that argument? They won't be foolish enough to sue themselves. Disney might, but not the other way around. Actually, if Disney does sue, what else could the brokers do but make that argument? What they probably WOULD do; settle out of court or simply fold their tents and leave. A single session with an honest lawyer (insert joke here) will tell them that there's no way they can win the suit. My guess is they'll try to hold on as long as they can, trying to discover a new angle or two, and Disney will have to determine whether it's worth their while (and billable lawyer hours) to sue. If word gets around that partially used tickets are being routinely rejected, that may take care of things all by itself - no doubt Disney's hope. Customers for the brokers will dry up, and problem solved.
Originally Posted By LP Watcher AGKoolAid: "The back of a Disneyland Resort admission ticket, purchased from the ticket booths on Jan 19th, states plainly in big letters at the top of the ticket: Not for resale. Void if altered. Revocable. Nonrefundable. Admit One. Nontransferable; must be used by the same person on any and all days. May not be sold, bartered, nor exchanged for goods, services or benefits. Plain and simple. If you don't like their rules, don't go. They have every right to do what they are doing." Well, if they had you sign the contract with that wording BEFORE the purchase, I'd agree. But if you don't get the contract until AFTER the purchase, there's probably some openings for argument.
