Originally Posted by
Raffles
Very interesting!
Although, of course, there is also Plan B - which is that the Ambassador books the room, puts in the friend as 'Additional Guest' and then friend checks in first (and indeed last!), handing over the cert. Extra benefit of this is that the Ambassador will get the points as well!
It was actually a bit "more interesting" than that.
On one of the two visits the male check-in agent said to my friends "I notice you don't appear to be an Ambassador member - have you considered joining". At this point my friends thought that this would mean a weekend cert refusal - but they said "sounds like a good idea - let's see how we enjoy our visit". The agent said "let's see what I can do" had a few taps and upgraded them. They didn't join because they didn't think they'd make future use of it. As you know it doesn't actually say on the cert it can only be used by Ambassador members, (even though it has an Ambassador logo) and as we also know most check-in staff aren't as knowledgeable about these things as FT'ers!
The weekend certs were being sold on ebay regularly every few days and certainly up to a couple of days ago and I haven't seen any sales pulled so far. One person seems to repost his few every few days or so at a rediculous price - from recollection I think it was $399 but I may be wrong and obviously in the hope of finding a punter who doesn't know that first year membership is only $150. But in a way that is what ebay is all about!