Non-UK membership and Flying Hours

[BWP]

I rejoined the Airfix Club this year after a few years of non-membership as it appeared to me that they have rejigged things enough to make it valuable for non-UK members (as IMO it used to be). Besides, I wanted that Meteor kit. Well, that's all fine. In the intervening years I have accumulated a bunch more Flying Hours, and wanted to use them. The last time I was a member the process as a non-UK person was a little involved, but basically it involved sending off the passport with my CC details and was charged a nominal shipping fee and got the otherwise-free kit without issue.

Not any more. On the website Airfix advise non-UK members to contact them regarding how to organise the shipping. The reply I got was "no problem, just pay the standard GBP50 shipping to Australia". What?? For that amount of money it's cheaper for me to flush the Flying Hours down the toilet and buy 2 or 3 kits at standard prices from the local store. I'm happy to pay whatever a basic charge would amount to these days, but GBP50 is ridiculous. When I pointed this out the response was if I order over GBP250 then the shipping is free, When I asked what kit is priced at GBP250, and how many FH tokens would I need for it, I got no reply. Their final comment to me amounted to "eh, that's the charge, deal with it".

My conclusion is that unless you have money to burn, and don't care how you spend it, FH are essentially worthless to non-UK members. That lessens the value of Club Membership by a fair amount (it's not like the various admission discounts etc. are worth anything). To get the Membership Box also involves a GBP50 shipping charge, but since it's a flat cost I added in a few extra kits to "justify" the total cost and received it all in about a week. It's not that the shipping charge in itself doesn't represent good service. In the context of free kits for FH, though, it just makes no sense at all.

I guess you could, in theory, co-ordinate the use of the FH with purchase of other items to again, in total, "justify" the shipping charge. How do you communicate that total order to Airfix though? You can't place the order on the website, you'd have to send a letter when you post the FH wallet. Very, very messy.