It seems to me that the concerns about the lawsuit's impact on current AP ticket sales might be misfocused, at least if Disney acts rationally. If as alleged WDW sold "no blackout" AP's in 2019 and 2020 and if instituting a reservation system breached that implied contract, the focus is on that time period. The language I quoted in a prior post shows that WDW sold or is currently selling APs subject to the reservation system.
The "ifs" I mentioned are pretty big contingencies. Unlike Tulane's situation, WDW did not blackout all APs but limited their use. Is requiring a reservation the same as a "blackout."
Also, I looked at the T & C from the AP I bought in November 2018. It obviously did not contain language about reservations but it did include this:
Parks, attractions or entertainment may change operating hours; close due to refurbishing, capacity, low demand, weather or special events; and may otherwise change or be discontinued without notice and without liability to the owners of the Walt Disney World® Resort.
That doesn't exactly say WDW could require reservations. But saying the theme parks could close or "may otherwise change", especially when we are talking about an implied-in-fact contract, is evidence that could help WDW.
A prior post pointed out that WDW offered to buy out AP holders. I would need more facts to understand this. I don't recall WDW offering a buyout to people who didn't want to be subject to the reservation requirement but I had other things on my mind at the time. I'm also not sure this would matter. If you have a contract, offering to buyout the other party doesn't give you the right to unilaterally change the agreement if they refuse the buyout.
As for reservations and the impact on APs, I doubt anyone here thinks reservations for AP holders will go away. If you do, then you should need to understand that in May 2021 Bob Chapek said at a JP Morgan conference when asked about "dynamic pricing" and whether Disney saw this as a potential "for better yield management longer-term":
Yes. It's more important than ever, I think, not only from a demand management standpoint, but also from a guest-experience standpoint. Our yield has been up double-digits, as I think I referenced in the earnings call. And there's a lot of shifts between the constituencies of ticket types that we will be proactively managing. Again, tremendous disparity in yield or per caps per guest depending on what ticket type they kind of come in at. And this gives us the opportunity to really look at that. And of course, we've got a new reservation system at
Disneyland, not unlike the one that we've got at Walt Disney World. Disneyland, of course, being our most constrained park in terms of demand being in excess of supply.
And that's going to give us a chance to really strategically manage that attendance versus price balance that we've been working on as you referenced. So I think it's really going to be almost a paradigm shift. We've had essentially so many legacy systems that we've relied on that have somewhat constrained us from a technology standpoint in terms of fully going into yield management in a sophisticated way as we'd like. And this pause has given us the ability to do that. So we're looking forward to reemerging fully once we get full demand and employing a lot of these utilities
He didn't say it explicitly, but the statement there is a "tremendous disparity" in "yield" or "per caps per guest" based on the "ticket type" seems to me to directly target AP holder spending.
WDW could throw $100m to settle the WDW and DL lawsuits and that would be a drop in the bucket compared to the "losses" WDW attributes to the disparity in yield or per guest spending between AP holders and per visit ticketed guests. My point is whatever the lawsuit might cost WDW (if anything) Disney is focused on maximizing yield and per guest spending.
That means APs will continue to increase in price and an effective decrease in availability both from the ability to purchase APs and increasing the limits on reservations fr AP holders.
And frankly, given Chapek's inclinations, I would be surprised if WDW and DL didn't start making reservations more available to those AP holders who have a history of spending more in the parks and on property. For all I know they have already done this. If you have an AP and book an on-property resort, does that affect whether you can get a park reservation?