AFL Silver Membership Waitlist Number Part 2

[Satan]

What the Absentee member rule change has done is to force them back into gold - ahead of silvers.

Absentee members (who were previously Gold) get priority over silvers being offered fresh upgrades to gold - so with many of the former having to jump back on in mass if they want to retain their membership, there's little left for the latter.

That's the point I was making in my earlier post, it's much harder for silvers now due to Absentee members not being able to perpetually put their membership on ice year-upon-year. When a Gold member goes Absentee, their space opens up for the next person in the queue - but they stay at the top of the waiting list so they go straight back into Gold if they elect or are forced to.

Post covid was when absentee members we offered gold membership

 

[TigerR]

What the Absentee member rule change has done is to force them back into gold - ahead of silvers.

Absentee members (who were previously Gold) get priority over silvers being offered fresh upgrades to gold - so with many of the former having to jump back on in mass if they want to retain their membership, there's little left for the latter.

That's the point I was making in my earlier post, it's much harder for silvers now due to Absentee members not being able to perpetually put their membership on ice year-upon-year. When a Gold member goes Absentee, their space opens up for the next person in the queue - but they stay at the top of the waiting list so they go straight back into Gold if they elect to or as it happens now - they are forced to.

Makes sense but they should be transparent about it.
The 2015 annual report stated there were 31017 full members, 20469 silver and 3270 Absentee. So Gold plus Absentee is well over 30000.
It also says the churn rate for Full was 3.71% which means you would expect over 1000 to be upgraded each year. I suspect that 30000 figure has been slowly decreasing each year, in fact I am sure of it.

 

[kriles76]

Makes sense but they should be transparent about it.

 

[NetworkNerd]

They would have had to say something if people waitlist number increased in 2025

 

[Demonic Ascent]

So called up yesterday and asked for an updated waitlist number,went from 1900 to a current number of 1800 and told him pretty much wtf?how? Then asked about my brother who was 3342 and he has dropped down to 3201.

Something stinks here!

There is no transparency, they just do whatever the **** they want and know they will get away with it. I had a back and forth with them over email a year or two back and they just stonewall you and refuse to answer any direct questions, useless.

 

[Demonic Ascent]

This is shocking ,guess until payments are made in dec,they wont know who are renewing

They should know based on who renewed by May 2025. They used to offer mid-year upgrades, now it is end of year. So the waitlist movement/upgrade offers is based on 2024 members who did not renew for 2025.

 

[TigerR]

Post covid was when absentee members we offered gold membership

That's when long time lapsed members were asked to come back as Gold. People here reported they had not been members for years and were offered a place back. Not the same as absentee. And utterly ridiculous and unfair.

 

[TigerR]

I had a back and forth with them over email a year or two back and they just stonewall you and refuse to answer any direct questions, useless.

The problem is you would only be talking to someone down the chain who is probably in the dark themselves or at the very least told they are not allowed to tell us anything.
The lack of transparency is unnecessary and it would have to be very demotivating as an employee dealing with annoyed members but not be allowed to tell them anything for no good reason.
The way a lot of organisations treat their customers nowadays like we are stupid, feeding BS or fluff is terrible. The AFL on this and other matters is up there with the worst and I think it is partly symptomatic of being based in Victoria where quasi-dictatorship rules. It is just seen as normal.

 

[Demonic Ascent]

The problem is you would only be talking to someone down the chain who is probably in the dark themselves or at the very least told they are not allowed to tell us anything.
The lack of transparency is unnecessary and it would have to be very demotivating as an employee dealing with annoyed members but not be allowed to tell them anything for no good reason.
The way a lot of organisations treat their customers nowadays like we are stupid, feeding BS or fluff is terrible. The AFL on this and other matters is up there with the worst and I think it is partly symptomatic of being based in Victoria where quasi-dictatorship rules. It is just seen as normal.

I had a feeling that my emails were escalated to a more senior person though there was nothing in the email to indicate that other than the tone of the email and that my initial email was handled by one person but all subsequent ones were responded to by someone else.

 

[NetworkNerd]

Urghh.

 

[Satan]

Disgrace

 

[Pakenhamsaint]

Does that apply to commerative cards as well?

 

[rfc4eva]

Like these pricks don't scam us enough! The least they could do is start putting our clubs players on the front like they use to and not the generic crap since covid

 

[ComfortablyNumb]

just include it in the membership price ffs

 

[Max Caddy]

The enshittification continues

 

[TEDDY24INC]

Like these pricks don't scam us enough! The least they could do is start putting our clubs players on the front like they use to and not the generic crap since covid

I’m going to email them about this.. utter joke.

 

[eddiesmith]

Disgraceful and the Marvel security were much happier with people who had physical cards entering the members bar, made life much easier.

 

[Underarm]

just include it in the membership price ffs

What if you're not a boomer who needs a physical card?

 

[the harry]

What if you're not a boomer who needs a physical card?

The apps genuinely suck. Physical card is just easier and not reliant on apps/wifi

 

[TigerR]

I had interesting conversation with someone from AFL Membership this week who contacted me about an address.
I asked what was going on with upgrades and they said they will now be in March after they have seen who renews.
Maybe they are in a bit of a quandry for after the rules changes on absentee memberships so need the non renewal numbers to upgrade more than 60 people.
Cynic 1 tells me that they will change their minds in March and only those 60 will get upgraded.
Cynic 2 tells me that they will do this so they can maximise the number of golds (for revenue not out of consideration for us).
Or they could be making it up as they go.
Interestingly when I asked for my waitlist number, it hadn't changed which ties in with the March story but is not like others who have asked and moved up 60 places or so.

 

[abakus]

I had interesting conversation with someone from AFL Membership this week who contacted me about an address.
I asked what was going on with upgrades and they said they will now be in March after they have seen who renews.
Maybe they are in a bit of a quandry for after the rules changes on absentee memberships so need the non renewal numbers to upgrade more than 60 people.
Cynic 1 tells me that they will change their minds in March and only those 60 will get upgraded.
Cynic 2 tells me that they will do this so they can maximise the number of golds (for revenue not out of consideration for us).
Or they could be making it up as they go.
Interestingly when I asked for my waitlist number, it hadn't changed which ties in with the March story but is not like others who have asked and moved up 60 places or so.

My guess is that they are in a quandy and are freaking out re. the optics of only upgrading 60 ppl per year. If you extrapolate that out, someone who becomes silver today could take 333 years to become gold (based on 20k silver members). Because this isn't practically possible, they would need to change how they are marketing AFL memberships (as it would be misleading to give the impression that silver members will become gold in their lifetime).

 

[abakus]

I had interesting conversation with someone from AFL Membership this week who contacted me about an address.
I asked what was going on with upgrades and they said they will now be in March after they have seen who renews.
Maybe they are in a bit of a quandry for after the rules changes on absentee memberships so need the non renewal numbers to upgrade more than 60 people.
Cynic 1 tells me that they will change their minds in March and only those 60 will get upgraded.
Cynic 2 tells me that they will do this so they can maximise the number of golds (for revenue not out of consideration for us).
Or they could be making it up as they go.
Interestingly when I asked for my waitlist number, it hadn't changed which ties in with the March story but is not like others who have asked and moved up 60 places or so.

I also think that since changing the absentee rules they now have more that 30k gold members, so they also are trying to work out how they can bring that number down incrementally (i.e. by upgrading less members each year)

 

[robbieando]

My guess is that they are in a quandy and are freaking out re. the optics of only upgrading 60 ppl per year. If you extrapolate that out, someone who becomes silver today could take 333 years to become gold (based on 20k silver members). Because this isn't practically possible, they would need to change how they are marketing AFL memberships (as it would be misleading to give the impression that silver members will become gold in their lifetime).

100% agree with this, there is a backup on membership and now they don't know what to do with the optics.

Just spoke to the AFL Membership department to ask about where I was placed on the waitlist for a Silver membership (placed around 4800) after joining as a Bronze member earlier this year and was told not to expect a Silver membership for quite a few years. Joined in the expectation that I would next reach Gold Membership but didn't expect the wait for Silver to be so long.

 

[Pakenhamsaint]

Disgraceful and the Marvel security were much happier with people who had physical cards entering the members bar, made life much easier.

They were fine with the blue background e tickets as well. Basically anything that made it easy to do a quick check.

 

[dmac2812]

73 movement for me.....

2021 - 3313
2022 - 2646
2023 - 1378
2024 - 613
2025 - 284
2026 - 211