Until this pandemic, I would have agreed with you. We canceled so many trips this year, I haven't even bothered to update my signature. Most recently I was at risk of losing soon-expiring points because I had rolled them forward, and while I did get them rented, it was a little more stressful than I would have liked. But I *do* agree that the 50-year expiration was a much bigger sell when we were comparing to BCV and BWV.
Same here. We have enough for 1BR and the occasional 2BR in a split stay with our MK home resorts, but if we ever wanted to stay at RIV longer, in a 2BR of GV reliably, we'd have to get more points. If we used RIV and knew we'd use exclusively for RIV, I would buy resale points for sure.
If all restaurants were open, I think I could say VGF is one. We've tried every restaurant there, and 1900 PF is our usual arrival night dinner. V&A for special occasions, everything else is terrific too, including the QS and the pool bar.
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We were primarily resale owners at VGF and BLT but had most blue card perks because of when we bought in. I was in the "only resale" camp as RIV came online and I wasn't a huge fan of the concept art. I'd thought I would wait and see, and maybe pick up a resale contract around $100-$110pp to use exclusively for split stays. We were also at the time (early 2019) thinking of an add-on to our BLT to be able to get into larger units to bring family and friends (VGF being too expensive pointswise for adding on). RIV was only about $5000 more for the points we wanted to add, and had the added benefit of being able to trade everywhere (if we'd added on BLT, our old points could have traded in to RIV but not the add on), and we would have to wait for listings, go through ROFR, etc. Plus home resort in HS/EP area. We took the tour, got ice cream and FPs, and had points in our account days (hours?) later, and made a home-resort-priority booking for New Year's in a standard room that had glorious views of Epcot and fireworks at MK. With a little craning we could see some of the EP fireworks too, but for those we went to the patio at Topolino's. It is very close to tied with VGF for our favorite resort - the kids like VGF for the pool and proximity to MK, I prefer RIV for the rooms (murphy beds rule; smarter TVs, more device-friendly) and the vibe of the resort. I feel like we already got our $5000 extra value from that stay.