<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by pinniped:
One legal outlet would be to turn your DC points into Southwest tickets and sell those on eBay. They cost 25,000 DC points each and yield $325 or so on eBay.
What is a "gray market" dealer? Ashford.com isn't selling fake or stolen watches, are they? (My only experience with Ashford.com is that I had 200 shares in their IPO. I held them for about 15 minutes.)</font>
I didn't know it was OK to sell WN FF tix. If so, that's the solution. Is it in fact OK per WN's T&C?
A "gray market" dealer is one that procures authentic product from an authorized dealer then remarkets the product. It is my understanding that gray markets exist in part because of inventory requirements imposed upon authorized dealers by product manufacturers. If an authorized dealer is required to stock, say, $250,000 of a reasonably slow selling item (such as a moderately expensive watch) they may liquidate some portion of that inventory to a gray market dealer, who then sells the goods to consumers. This is one way for the authorized dealer to manage inventory while preserving the dealership.
Manufacturers complain about gray marketing, but it's window dressing. A routine audit of the authorized dealer's books would uncover gray marketing (and depress demand for the manufacturer's goods).
Mike
[edited for clarity]
[This message has been edited by Mikey likes it (edited 06-09-2003).]