Marketing Practises.

Bigdog wrote:
I have seen this subject in the General and Class A forums and now I have gotten the letter myself. I have been a GS member since 2000 and am now a Life Member. I have had GSRA for going on 14 years and have never had a problem with it. Now the problem, I got a letter last month trying to get me to re-up 4 months early at a discount of, I think, $10. This month I got a letter that says that I was given a FREE Platinum membership and that it's about to expire and now I can renew for $79.95 with $60 off the regular membership. So now, since my annual membership was paid for last year and is good thru October 2015 and if I renew and it's good till October 2016, just where does this free years membership come in? It would appear to me that I shouldn't be paying for this coming year and then in October of 2016, I would resume paying the regular membership fee. Don't be telling me that I got something for free, when I didn't.There was also no notification that I was getting thi free thingy.

I believe they call this "churning". The earlier they can get you to renew and thus shorten the time you have paid for your membership the more they make. But more importantly they increase cash flow. Almost all membership schemes do this. AARP has it down to a science.