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Merlin Annual Pass

There's probably a few things at play. Moving people onto newer plans en masse will certainly be an absolute nightmare. The booking system barely copes with the setup they have now, let alone throwing in an upgrade process between monthly pass tiers. I did see Merlin mention on Twitter to a few people to contact them directly to arrange an upgrade, so it's presumably possible but not really a standard process. As Rick mentioned though, the issue of the joining fee would no doubt have to be addressed as I've not seen anything about this being waived at present, aside from them replying on Twitter to "watch this space" when someone queried it.

Elsewhere, Merlin have probably done a bit of research and worked out that the cost of premium monthly pass holders who would completely discontinue their pass if they were forcefully moved to higher tiers would outweigh the revenue they're getting for them at the current price. Merlin are probably fairly happy to leave those pass holders alone at present as a guaranteed monthly income. With the winter months coming up, it's essentially "free money" as a large chunk of people will be paying that monthly fee and not really going to any attractions. You've also got annual pass holders who still have passes valid until February or March next year due to extensions, so they don't want to be seen as trying to get rid of monthly pass holders while annual holders still have the same type of pass.

The likelihood is we'll see a continued dilution of the old premium product to put it into a managed decline, to slow the number of people who completely leave over a longer period of time. We've already seen that dilution with the £20 fee for fireworks at Alton and Legoland, along with having only 3 prebook slots. We'd likely see a few more benefits tweaked on the Platinum/Gold tiers too which wouldn't be available to the legacy pass holders as time goes on too in order to encourage uptake.
 
My original expiry date was at the start of August 2020 (as stated on the card). However, the pass got extended for several months due to Covid. Just tested putting my card number in online to see if it would let me renew but it's not recognizing my details. I'm guessing it's not counting the added Covid bit then as the expiry cut off? Shame really as with summer out of the way I might have bought a renewal but I'm not paying an extra £70 now when my original expiry didn't miss the cut-off by too long.

The renewal cutoff is supposed to include any pass extensions.
"
Pass Renewal Period Extension


Passes that expired from September 2020 – 2nd August 2021 now have one week left to benefit from our magical renewal rate.

From 9th September, all existing Passholders will now have one month from your current expiry date to renew for another year of EPIC!

For passes that have been extended, this will be your new expiry date with extensions applied. "
 
The renewal cutoff is supposed to include any pass extensions.

It has included the pass extension, but unfortunately his pass even with the new extended expiry through to May 2021 is over the 8 week period allowed for renewals. The 8 week period reverts to the standard 4 week period from 9th September.
 
My passes originally run out in Sept 2020 and then and I renewed them a couple of days so as long as BarryZolas pass expired after after Sept 2020 with extensions I read it as he should have up to the 8th Sept to renew. So reading the quote from the website the pass expired in May 2021 with extension so that is between Sept 2020 and Aug 2021
 
Yeah, I'm not entitled to renew. I will wait for an Alton only annual pass now anyway as it appears they may re-introduce one in the next several months. I don't really use the other attractions anyway so the Alton pass which will be slightly cheaper will be a win-win for me.
 
The end of all of this will hopefully be a realistic set of fairly priced passes with a sensible amount of circulation. It's a hotch potch at the moment. As Craig suggested, I expect further dilution of benefits of premium passholders in order to gradually encourage uptake of platinum options: especially for monthly members.

An Alton annual pass, which is probably likely to give the same benefits as a "Gold" MAP, should be around £100-120.





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I also have to agree, I get that for individuals it will be a bit of a blow but the previous system of cheap passes and cheap tickets was not a sustainable model, the only way to keep it going was to continually cut costs to compensate for a lower take per head. This impacted the rest of the guests visiting and no one should be seen as second rate when you are paying for a day out.
 
Merlin are now sticking this sentence in responses to folks with the 'old' Standard and Premium memberships.

"Please be aware you are not required to move to our new memberships as our Standard and Premium memberships are still active for existing users until cancelled."

I suspect this will come back to haunt them at some point, or they will perhaps just change the T&Cs to water it down to the point where you want to 'migrate'.

For now, we seemingly don't get a calendar (unless I am missing it?) but this article suggests we can just go whenever, subject to the dreaded pre-booking.

"ARE THERE ANY RESTRICTIONS FOR WHEN I CAN USE MY PREMIUM MERLIN ANNUAL PASS?

Enter 30 of our attractions as a Premium Annual Passholder with no restriction dates (other than attraction opening calendars, of course!)"

https://support.merlinannualpass.co...when-I-can-use-my-Premium-Merlin-Annual-Pass-
 
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Premium was always the equivalent to platinum anyway with no blocked dates.
But yes I think they should give notice to those on memberships and move everyone over to the new format passes by the start of the theme park season in March, I expect all annual passes on the old terms should expire by then as well so it makes things simpler.
 
Merlin Annual Pass have partnered with The Restaurant Group plc to offer 20% off meals at Frankie & Benny’s, Chiquito and their Coast to Coast brands.

Odd choice to go with these failing restaurant brands, and I can’t imagine this would drive much revenue towards TRG bar the Frankie’s restaurant in Uttoxeter. I know the image of Frankie’s in particular is pretty poor across the UK now so this partnership seems quite odd from a brand reputation perspective.
 
Merlin Annual Pass have partnered with The Restaurant Group plc to offer 20% off meals at Frankie & Benny’s, Chiquito and their Coast to Coast brands.

Odd choice to go with these failing restaurant brands, and I can’t imagine this would drive much revenue towards TRG bar the Frankie’s restaurant in Uttoxeter. I know the image of Frankie’s in particular is pretty poor across the UK now so this partnership seems quite odd from a brand reputation perspective.

The restaurant probably just said to Merlin can we give you a discount and get some free advertising.
 
Merlin Annual Pass have partnered with The Restaurant Group plc to offer 20% off meals at Frankie & Benny’s, Chiquito and their Coast to Coast brands.

Odd choice to go with these failing restaurant brands, and I can’t imagine this would drive much revenue towards TRG bar the Frankie’s restaurant in Uttoxeter. I know the image of Frankie’s in particular is pretty poor across the UK now so this partnership seems quite odd from a brand reputation perspective.
Frankie and Benny's Uttoxeter closed a year or so back and is being turned into a Greggs so that won't be much help :sweatsmile:
 
20% discount isn't really worth having in those restaurants anyway, they're blatantly priced so they have margin when people use BOGOFs/meerkat etc.

And they're (mostly) mediocre to boot.
 
Unless I'm mistaken there doesn't seem to be any sale price for renewals? I got an email from Merlin with this and thought it was good timing as my pass expires later this month, but it doesn't seem like there's anything more than the standard renewal discount.
 
Unless I'm mistaken there doesn't seem to be any sale price for renewals? I got an email from Merlin with this and thought it was good timing as my pass expires later this month, but it doesn't seem like there's anything more than the standard renewal discount.

It appears it is a sale on new passes only. Except for Discovery where the new and renewal price has been lowered to £69, I imagine because if they didn’t do that then a renewal would cost more than a new one, which wouldn’t look great.
 
Unless I'm mistaken there doesn't seem to be any sale price for renewals? I got an email from Merlin with this and thought it was good timing as my pass expires later this month, but it doesn't seem like there's anything more than the standard renewal discount.
Anything to stop you buying a new one with a different email?
 
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