Suggestions

Is Genes Reunited ashamed of its subscription charges? It shouldn't be, because they're good value. Yet you can't find them without filling out a "subscribe free" form. Not much use if you are already a member! In general I find sites that hide prices are usually untrustworthy. Genes Reunited should not be among them.
Rosibo

Are you talking about if you are a new member?

I have just clicked on the subscribe tool bar and up came the cost of the standard and platinum membership and what records are included in these memberships.

Gai

Okay todays stupid question :-S

Whether I am logged in or not I do not see a subscribe tool bar.



When I posted this thread
http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards.page/board/suggestions/thread/1276062

The membership fees were not showing and the info displayed then has changed

Rosibo, I would agree, and have just done some tests with my two accounts - one is free, the other subscribed.

You only see the "Subscribe" option if you are a Free Member. Subscribed Members, see "Upgrade". Gold Members probably see nothing, but I can't confirm, not being one.

Also, have a look at the T's and C's under Section 6. Membership Services and Fees.

IGP,

I'm a Standard member and I can see the subscribe option as I believe GR would want me to upgrade to Platinum.

From what I understand there are 3 memberships available on GR being Free, Standard and Platinum.

Gai

Gai,

I am a standard member and I can only see the "upgrade" button. If you click this you only have the option to upgrade to Platinum membership.

Kath. x

Gai, my screen is like Kath's

Reading left to right it says:-

IGP Standard Member : Upgrade : Pay per view : My account : Sign out

Upgrade just gives me one option, to upgrade to Platinum.

On my Free Account Upgrade is replaced by Subscribe and it gives me two options. Standard or Platinum Membership.

Just another thought. Is your subscription due for renewal shortly?

I have been in contact with GR about the discounts that members claim they are been offered for renewal.

As usual I did not get a direct reply about discounts or where the costs of membership are shown on the site but this is what I got on the 31st August 2011



"I have added the costs of membership below and the full details of what you get with each membership for your further information.

It is free to register with Genes Reunited. You can build your family tree, use the search facilities to find possible matches to your family name, add notes against relations in your tree, post photos on your family tree and receive emails from other members and reply to these emails. Also, if you already have experience in researching your family history you can import your GEDCOM file on to your Genes Reunited family tree.

We offer 2 types of membership:

1). Standard.
This is available for 6 months at a cost of £14.95 or as an annual subscription at a cost of £19.95.
If you choose a Standard subscription you will have the ability to contact other members from your search results, link up to view other members' trees when they invite you to do so and add messages to the message boards. The cost of the subscription does not include credits for our records section, although you do get free access to our birth and marriage index records. Credits for the rest of the records have to be purchased separately. You do not have to be subscribed to buy credits. Further details can be found at the bottom of the page.

2). Platinum.
This is available for 1month at a cost of £19.95, 6 months at a cost of £49.95 or as an annual subscription at a cost of £79.95.
If you choose a Platinum subscription you will be able to contact other members, link up to view other members' trees when they invite you to do so, post photos on your family tree and add messages to the message boards.

If you are already a standard member, you can subscribe at any time to Platinum membership. It is not possible to downgrade your membership during the term of that membership. However, at the end of the 6 months you can then downgrade, or not renew at all, if you wish.

A Platinum subscription gives you access to the following records:

Indexed birth, marriage and death records
Census records from 1841 to 1911
Overseas birth, marriage and death records
Military records

At the moment we only accept debit/credit card or paypal payments.

Please click on the 'subscribe' link on your homepage to see the cost of the subscription in your own currency.

3). Pay per view credits.
They cost £5 for 50 credits or £17.95 for 200 credits and give you access to all of our records:

Indexed birth and marriage records
Non-indexed death records
Census records from 1841 to 1911
Overseas records
Military records
Travel and overseas records

£14.95 (6 months) or £19.95 (12 months)?!??!?!
Seriously???? Wow, I knew we got a reduction for long-term membership and continuous renewel, but didn't know it was as much as that now!!!!

Thanks everyone. I teach genealogy and wanted to update my handouts for students with details of the subscription options available on all the major sites. With GR I got descriptions of the *types* of subscription, but I couldn't get to the prices unless I subscribed as a new member. As InspectorGreenPen said, I can only see the price to upgrade from my own Standard membership to Platinum.

Glitterbaby I thank you very much for posting these prices. You are a treasure! I copied and pasted the details.

I still think GR really should make the prices and details of their various subscription options available for everyone to see, whether they are a new member, potential member or existing member. I will have the same problem next year as I do every year.

Can anyone tell me, if you have standard six monthly membership and want to change to yearly, how do you do that? My only option seems to be upgrade to Platinum. I don't need that as I have Ancestry and FindmyPast membership.

Thanks everyone,
Rosibo

Hi Rosibo

I think your best bet is to find a thread on the "Suggestions" board where Phil Moir from Genes has posted and click on his name and send him a private message and ask him to let you know. I can't see any way of upgrading from 6 monthly to yearly, but perhaps Phil can help. He is on the boards regularly so you should get an answer from him.

Kath. x

IGP,

I just checked when my membership expires and it's the 4th October so that must be why I can see the subscribe option.

Gai

That would explain why other members can't see the link.

So, back to square one.

"Please could GR be transparent and publish their current fee structure for all members to see."

This is more of an operational issue, rather than a site functional one so probably doesn't sit best on this particular board.

Thanks Kath!

Sorry if I got it wrong , Inspector GreenPen. Which board do you suggest I should have written to instead? No other in the list seemed to fit.
As you see I am not a regular board writer, but I wanted to communicate the need for change in this matter.

Rosibo, It sits somewhere in the middle this one, but probably more a question for the Site Management to deal with rather than the Software Development team, which is where this board is aimed at.

What I would suggest is write to suppost@genesreunited.co.uk and mention that you have raised the question on the Suggestion Board, or do as Kath suggests and ask Phil (the senior programmer) to bring it to managements attention.

Hi All

You do not need to subscribe or register to see the subscriptions. On the home (splash) page when NOT logged in, underneath the centre banner and on the right hand side are links to Platinum, Standard and Pay per View price options.

We are not trying to hide the prices at all. We do not show discount codes on this page when not logged in, because then we could be showing an invalid price to existing members. When you are logged in, believe it or not we will actually calculate all the offers you may be entitled to, such as email campaigns, etc. and we will show you the CHEAPEST price possible that you are entitled to (for clarity this excludes promo codes as these are generally only available to never subscribed members).

If you have any other questions about this, I am more than happy to try and answer them.

So okay then where is it showing when you are logged in

I had a battle with the team to get the info I posted above and they still did not answer all my questions about discounts offered

Re-reading through the post in full, there are a couple of questions left unanswered.

If you are standard (or still on an old gold) you will see the upgrade link.

When you reach the last 4 weeks of your membership period, this changes to subscribe.

If you are in the middle of your subscription, then you can't extend it. At the end of the subscription period (or in the renewal period - last 4 weeks), you can opt to change you package, up or down.

So am I reading your 2 replies correctly then

You can only see the subscription rates,when logged in, when your membership is due for renewal