• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

Merlin Annual Pass

Sazzle said:
Just wanted to share my recent experience of attempting to book a hotel room at Towers for Friday 15th March (night prior to opening) through Merlin Holiday Club (MHC).

Spoiler alert: It resulted in the furious typing of a complaint letter.

When I checked the MHC site, there were no rooms showing except for CBeebies Hotel at £218, and a Treehouse for £800. What great value I hear you say.
When I checked the Alton Towers booking website, directly, Alton Towers Hotel showed for £198 and Splash for £168.

After fighting with the absurdly unintelligent automated bot, I managed to speak to a staff member via Facebook Messenger. I asked why there were no rooms for 15th March on MHC despite there clearly being availability as I could see it on the Alton Towers website.

I was advised:



When I asked for further clarification I was then advised:



I then learned from a friend who had tried to book a room, and had called the team to discuss their experience of being unable to book a discounted room, that there was more to it.

March 15th had been designated a "restricted date" and there were to be no discounts available.

News to me that there is now an option for Merlin/attractions to designate "restricted dates" for bookings and therefore blanket stop any discounts... anyone else come across this?

My furious letter went something like this:
  • This is not advertised when purchasing a pass - perks include 20% off accommodation, or "up to 25% off" at Alton Towers, depending on which of the hundreds of contradicting web pages you come across.
  • The terms and conditions of my Annual Pass do not reference anything specifically around restricted dates where discounts will not be offered (I acknowledge S26 which states discounts are subject to change at any time).
  • In plain English, passholder discount on stays has changed from being an advertised discount available for use when the passholder chose to use it, to being something that Merlin/attractions have control over at their discretion and when they designate ‘availability’, except there is no information to tell passholders when that is.
  • If I apply this logic to everyday life, for example Tesco Clubcard prices, it really doesn’t make sense. If I pick up a tin of beans which is lower on Clubcard price, I expect to pay the lower price because I have a Clubcard. If I get to the till and the checkout staff tell me that the allocated number of tins of beans in the Clubcard offer has run out, but the shelf is still full of tins and the label is still telling me there’s a Clubcard price, I haven’t been fully informed of this and therefore Tesco have hidden some key information about that offer. If the beans are out of stock, I accept I’ve missed the offer.
I believe a few people have raised this with the booking team and also sent in complaints.

The outcome?

...Discounted rooms for 15th March are available tonight...

The concern for the future?
A fundamental and substantial change has been made quietly, and has been done deliberately without telling passholders. Introducing silent ‘restricted dates’ is a huge change which has not been advised to passholders, and there is no information explaining this anywhere.

GO MERLIN!
Click to expand...
That's appalling. Towers/Merlin could find themselves reported to the ASA again if they're not careful.
 
Poisson said:
That sounds more like "It's out of season and we can't be bothered"
Click to expand...
I disagree. I think there is high demand for opening day with the anticipated reopening of Nemesis, and so they whacked it on a restricted basis to try and make more money.

Not a clever move…
 
Both of these moves sound indicative of a business realising their cheap anual pass strategy is not working, that it allows too many people to access a site for next to nothing on a per visit basis and that volume means you can't take the more lucrative money off the day visitors, or you can but the crowds caused by the passholders impacts the enjoyment of the day visitors to the extent it is harming the headline value of the product.

It's exactly what Paultons went through before practically doubling the AP price and heavily restricting AP total numbers. It has done wonders for the on park experience, and the small AP numbers mean they can be truly unrestricted in access. I really hope that is where this is going...
 
Excluding 15th March is an active move for obvious reasons because they know there's a large percentage of passholders who'll be staying that weekend. The terms for the MAP do state:
  1. 26. On the presentation of a Platinum Pass, Passholders may receive discounts and/or benefits from Merlin and/or third parties. Such third party discounts and/or benefits are subject to change. Merlin is entitled to remove, change and/or withdraw any or all discounts and/or benefits in its absolute discretion at any time and for any reason. A list of the current benefits available directly from Merlin can be located at https://www.merlinannualpass.co.uk/passholder-hub/perks/in-our-worlds#tabsand are subject to availability.
Click to expand...
If you look at the details for the Holiday Club, the discount is up to 25% and subject to availability and on selected dates (let's ignore them not updating the date to 2024 yet!:
Offer is subject to change and availability. Save up to 25% on selected rooms at the Alton Towers Hotel, Enchanted Village Woodland Lodges and Splash Landings Hotel. Discount is not available at CBeebies Land Hotel, Stargazing Pods, Enchanted Village Luxury Treehouses or Gangsta Granny rooms at the Alton Towers Hotel. Offer valid on selected dates throughout 2023 Park opening and excludes themed weekends.
Click to expand...
Now I'm not agreeing with Merlin on this, but from a legal standpoint that likely covers their backsides. It's also not a new thing - they've excluded select dates for many years now (Fireworks/Scarefest weekends for example), but this is the first time that I've seen the Friday before season opening excluded. I can accept the odd peak date being excluded where they can guarantee the hotels will have high occupancy, but for a Friday before opening? There's no way the hotels will be remotely full even with a higher enthusiast attendance - it stinks of an attempt at pure profiteering.

However, my annoyance with the whole thing is firstly due to the hurdles that has to be jumped by a passholder to book. If I go to book a two day stay as I did this week and there's no discount available on certain days, then show the availability just don't apply the discount - they show a before and after price to demonstrate your savings anyway. That's been the case when I've booked before and indeed is the case when CBeebies and Treehouses are displayed, both of which are excluded from MAP discount. That way a guest can make an informed decision whether to book or not and should see the same availability on the standard booking site and Merlin Breaks. Earlier this week, if I want to stay for two nights and therefore give more money to Towers for a two day stay, but the booking site only allows me to book for one day. Many passholders wouldn't bother to check the main site and just assume no availability for Friday, so there's more revenue lost by the park.

Secondly, from a moral standpoint it's crap. Passholders can be the park's biggest critics, but they can also be the biggest promoters of the park too. We've all got friends who take the mick out of us for going to Towers constantly, but equally that gets the park into the minds others who are not regular visitors too - "if they're there that much, maybe we should pop along too?". Treat those passholders badly, they're no longer promoters of your brand. Now I'm not expecting the red carpet to be rolled out a la VIP passholders, just a bit of respect doesn't go amiss - especially when we're not just turning up for entry as part of our passes. We're wanting to spend money on staying on resort, drinking at the bars, eating at the restaurants.

Then there's also the issue of inconsistency and lack of flexibility with processes and customer service. Many of us have queried the availability of the hotels in recent days. We were told of the restriction dates and that they were "sold out" of the allocation of MAP bookings. Instead of actually looking into it and raising it as an issue, we get the age old "subject to availability" answer - they were not budging. So instead, we have to make one Friday booking at full price, another at MAP discount for Saturday with a note to keep the same room. We'd no doubt still have to "check in" and get key cards redone on the Saturday, but that's the only option we had.

To only find out only a few hours later that MAP availability had suddenly appeared for the Friday, at a lower price than what we booked is a kick in the teeth. We can of course cancel as it's within 24 hours, which will be done tomorrow. But there's the added time and frustration for the guest, and the added time for Towers dealing with the refund, the complaint and the cost of refunding and recharging the card for a new booking. What should have happened is questions could've been asked internally that there's plenty of availability throughout the resort for the Friday, so why were they not adding allocation to MAP holders. Someone could've took ownership and actually addressed customer's concerns and saved a lot of money and time for all parties.

Now to jump in before the "don't bother staying at the hotels" argument - some of us really want to catchup with friends at a place we love. It's a 6+ hour round trip to Towers for me, I'd like to head there without a hideously early start once in a while. Yes, there's guesthouses and places nearby, but now and again (especially after a year plus of not bothering) it's just nice to be in one place without dreading the drive home.
 
pluk said:
Both of these moves sound indicative of a business realising their cheap anual pass strategy is not working, that it allows too many people to access a site for next to nothing on a per visit basis and that volume means you can't take the more lucrative money off the day visitors, or you can but the crowds caused by the passholders impacts the enjoyment of the day visitors to the extent it is harming the headline value of the product.

It's exactly what Paultons went through before practically doubling the AP price and heavily restricting AP total numbers. It has done wonders for the on park experience, and the small AP numbers mean they can be truly unrestricted in access. I really hope that is where this is going...
Click to expand...

It's funny, i was just speaking to a friend in the US and they mentioned the annual pass for Disney World was $1500. They couldn't believe the Merlin pass was around 10% of the price.

I can't imagine the equivalent price of a MAP if you take into account everything it offers. Expect it would be around £500.

The implication of what you're saying though is that MAP holders are a detriment to the park experience but i'm not sure how you can demonstrate that without knowing the ratio of respective visitors. Surely the improvements at Paultons are down to the investment, planning and organisation?
 
The only reason I said it was CBA was I believe previously none of the hotels were available for any point up to opening after FHT, now after Saz has scared the bejesus out of them it seems like they are.
 
Poisson said:
The only reason I said it was CBA was I believe previously none of the hotels were available for any point up to opening after FHT, now after Saz has scared the bejesus out of them it seems like they are.
Click to expand...
Having spoken to them twice in two days (to be three times in three days tomorrow) it sounds like it had been an active decision to make the 15th a restricted date with no further allocation of MAP discounted rooms available.

The fact that they have suddenly appeared as soon as they’ve had at least two complaints on the matter, as well as other queries, to me says they realise they’re in the wrong.

The manager I spoke to was adamant that nothing could be done, the allocation was sold out and that’s that. It’s how their business works, and it’s not just Merlin who work like this. I told her it’s quite frankly ridiculous.

I should be able to resolve our issue tomorrow morning, but it’s just so so poor that it takes this much effort to book a stay. Not that long ago you just got a blanket 20% discount regardless, it’s not a lot to offer really is it?

Having boycotted staying in the hotels for the whole of 2023 after many different issues in 2022, they’ve not got off to a good start for our decision to give them another chance!
 
Bowser said:
The implication of what you're saying though is that MAP holders are a detriment to the park experience but i'm not sure how you can demonstrate that without knowing the ratio of respective visitors. Surely the improvements at Paultons are down to the investment, planning and organisation?
Click to expand...

If they are limiting numbers I think it is self evident that without controls beyond the AP level restrictions that the sites have capacity or become loss making without ticket sales, or they could let more and more in. Otherwise they wouldn't do it, theyed be no advantage in turning away the AP booking.

As for Paultons, it is definitely what they have done and they were quite open about it. During and coming out of covid they had a big issue when once AP prebooks had taken their unrestricted slots they had insufficient day ticket availability to run profitably. What they have done since is slashed their overall capacity (self imposed max number of guests) so there are little to no queues and that helps justify the high and rarely/never discounted gate price. When you fill the place up with AP the product itself becomes devalued by queues. They have had capacity days last year where they have turned down further on the gate ticket sales (but AFAIK APs could still.turn up, not an issue when there are so few of them) and even those days you'd have struggled to find a wait time over about 15 minutes*. Premium product, and you can really feel the difference on park.

I'd love to know what Merlins AP percentages are. My guess is they are massive, and if they were halved for a double price product you'd really notice it on park.

* apart from Mrs rabbits helicopter ride, because it is a.throughput nightmare!
 
pluk said:
If they are limiting numbers I think it is self evident that without controls beyond the AP level restrictions that the sites have capacity or become loss making without ticket sales, or they could let more and more in. Otherwise they wouldn't do it, theyed be no advantage in turning away the AP booking.

As for Paultons, it is definitely what they have done and they were quite open about it. During and coming out of covid they had a big issue when once AP prebooks had taken their unrestricted slots they had insufficient day ticket availability to run profitably. What they have done since is slashed their overall capacity (self imposed max number of guests) so there are little to no queues and that helps justify the high and rarely/never discounted gate price. When you fill the place up with AP the product itself becomes devalued by queues. They have had capacity days last year where they have turned down further on the gate ticket sales (but AFAIK APs could still.turn up, not an issue when there are so few of them) and even those days you'd have struggled to find a wait time over about 15 minutes*. Premium product, and you can really feel the difference on park.

I'd love to know what Merlins AP percentages are. My guess is they are massive, and if they were halved for a double price product you'd really notice it on park.

* apart from Mrs rabbits helicopter ride, because it is a.throughput nightmare!
Click to expand...

Interesting. I suppose the counter to this would be less people in the park is less people spending money on other things and how much of that is the parks overall income vs gate.

I expect AP visitors are less likely to spend money though as they're more savvy to the inflated costs and workings of the parks.

But i do struggle to imagine a world where Merlin increasing AP prices leads to a park full of 15 minute queues. Presumably there isn't a way to find out the AP ratio?
 
I thought I would ask this here, rather than start a new thread, and make the forum more cluttered.
I renewed my pass in November, and when the pass arrived in December, although the package was addressed to me, it contained someone else pass attached to their letter, so I had their address.
I then, on the same day, got a message request on FB Messenger, from someone asking if I live in Chorley, and that they had my pass.
I alerted Merlin to this, and the data protection issues, straight away, and they advised me to destroy the pass I had received.
I have yet to be contacted back about it, and still don't have my pass.
I got on chat with them about it in the second week of January, and was told my complaint was with the data protection officers, and I would be contacted separately about it, and that I was "on the list" to get a replacement pass, but they were having technical issues preventing them from printing new passes just now, but if I visit an attraction before I get the new pass, I can have one printed at said attraction.

Has anyone else had this issue happen to them? And how quickly did Merlin respond to address it, and what was the outcome?
 
This sounds like quite a serious data protection breach. Do they still print date of births on annual passes? If so this person has your name, DOB and address - pretty much the full picture from an identify fraud point of view.

Now the chance of anything untoward happening is probably quite low, but Merlin should be acting much quicker on this and I would be pushing them to do so if it were me. It’s pretty standard these days for organisations to give you free access to a credit reference agency fraud service for at least 12 months when they have had a breach.
 
Last edited:
One of The data protection officers should have been in contact you by now.
Contact for them is a generic email address
[email protected]

If you have dates, times and name of staff from the phone call then supply them. Point out the length of time you been waiting for the promised contact over the breach personal data, that is enough for identity fraud.
And that you been advised to contact the data commissioner office of the breach and the length of time so far for any contact over the issue.

By email you create a paper trail you can use if you go to ICO or DCO.

Sent from my SM-A705FN using Tapatalk
 
Bowser said:
It's funny, i was just speaking to a friend in the US and they mentioned the annual pass for Disney World was $1500. They couldn't believe the Merlin pass was around 10% of the price.
Click to expand...
Makes total sense to me - the costs are absolutely relative to the quality offered. WDW is in another stratosphere to anything Merlin has ever built, as such is the price!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top