Premier got in touch with me a few days ago and asked for a meeting. We'll be meeting tomorrow at 11am, I should have the official line then.
Facebook seems to be filled with a lot of propaganda. Imagine that!! Amidst all of the ranting and speculating you will find posts from guests who recently traveled on referral (last 2 weeks) who state that they received all benefits with the exception of the butler. Most seem to want to ignore those posts and keep speculating. Likely there is no communication from Premier because no decision has been made to date. Also, we are members and are still receiving the $250 referral fee. --Chris
Hmmm. "The Premier benefits remain as the same." I've noticed one thing, they stick to the express terms of a written agreement tightly. What that does not say at all is that the person receiving the referral has no contract, no agreement with, and no representations from, Original Resorts. I bet if we go looking we'll find one of those T&C may change without prior notice provisions in anything dealing with Referrals.
Jannet and I were invited to a meeting today with Marco Orellano who is Premier's Members Manager. We spent an hour and a half discussing all things Premier including the upcoming changes for Referrals. As you'll know for every decision there are 4 parties involved; Premier, Hotel, Members and Referrals. Each party has differing priorities which often conflict with each other, so coming up with something that suits everyone is near on impossible. Premier have a strict budget to work within and their budget priority is to provide maximum benefits for members. One new proposal is that members will no longer need a minimum stay to qualify for the lobster dinner. Changes for Referrals are coming but are still to be signed off. One of the main reasons for lack of sign off is that one of the signatories has been in the US receiving medical treatment. The changes were launched early without Premier's go ahead and were soon reversed. All referrals are currently receiving full Premier benefits (minus butlers and Premier dinner, which has been the case for a while). There are 4 Premier concierges who are available to referrals. A gold band for referrals will be introduced (to be known as VIP) and some benefits will be reduced, but there will still be benefits over and above those available to a white band. The gold string type bracelets are on order. To start with the bracelets will be the old style gold band that they have a surplus stock of. They'll also be introducing a chip enabled wristband that will remove the need for the plastic card door keys. We also talked about grandfathering in, i.e. referrals should receive the benefits they were promised at the time they booked, since that was part of the buying decision process. I'm pretty sure this will happen. It's true that new contracts don't include referrals, and that upgraded contracts are having referrals phased out. It follows that the number of referrals on offer will gradually reduce in time. We talked about people going on multiple referrals with no intention to buy in and also about some members selling off their referrals for cash and telling people to not attend the presentation. Both of these affect Premier's budget in a negative way, although there was no firm solution regarding these two issues they are known and options are being considered. I also mentioned lack of response in the Premier group as one of the main gripes of members. They did have some community manager staff to run the group but Premier is a complex thing and they were often unable to answer without referring the queries up. Marco is now largely dealing with the group himself in addition to his other duties. It's probably fair to say that if there is no news forthcoming, it's because there is no news to give. All proposals are subject to change until sign off and that hasn't happened yet.
Thanks for the report. I doubt we'll do any referrals, but it's always nice to get the info. Will the chip wristband be for the entire resort? Disney World has had that for many years now, and it's nice not to have to worry about a key.
So essentially no one is losing out on anything yet. But official reduced changes will eventually be rolled out, once signed off on. And already booked Referrals should be grandfathered in. On a side note, people are exited about key-less entry wristbands. (In TTR fashion, I can't wait for that technological debacle, hahaha)
Thanks for the info Steve. I'll safely assume all will be as we expect them to be as we check in Friday afternoon. See you Friday afternoon after the BC or Monday whichever comes first. Worse case I walk across the street and buy a bottle of Jack.
Key-less entry will get us back to the old BBG key on a chain days. Nothing worse than being completely shit faced after the BC, a full day of drunkenness or your secretary is ready and you can't get back in the room because the damn key card fails. Getting "Key-Blocked" seriously sucks.
