Airfix Club - Flying Hours

[nheather]

In the past, I have mostly collected/built 1:35 armour, so in my embarrassingly large stash there are no Airfix models because until very recently they haven’t really competed in that genre.

 

But more recently, I’ve started an interest in 1:72, early WWII, British aircraft and now have a modest stash, mostly Airfix.

 

So I looked at joining the Airfix Club and this, if I have understood it right, is why I am put off doing so.

 

• Membership, I’m sure when I looked a couple of years ago there were two ways to join, plain member and deluxe member which came with a special edition kit.  Pretty sure that the plain membership gave you most things apart from the kit.  Now it seems, as a UK member, I can only join as a deluxe member which is a put-off as I’m not interested in the kit.
• Flying Hours - I read this, https://support.airfix.com/hc/en-gb/articles/360017083939-Airfix-Club-Flying-Hours which suggests that the number of flying hours is related to the series number of the kit and gives the example that a Series 2 has 2 flying hours.  Naturally, with this information I assumed that a Series 1 would have 1 flying hour, a Series 4 would have 4 and so on.  But when I look at my models, it seems reality is half that.  My Series 2 kits have 1 flying hour, not 2 as the Airfix website suggests and my Series 4 have 2.  So to get a Series 2 kit that I can buy delivered for £12 I need to buy over £200 of Airfix products.  Did Airfix half the flying hours at some point and not update their website?
• Flying Hours P&P - the Airfix website says that the completed passport entitles me to a free kit, I just have to pay P&P.  But then they magic a P&P of £5.95 out of nowhere when the standard P&P in their shop is £3.95.  So what they really mean is that I have to pay P&P plus an extra £2.  So essentially, the free kit that I could buy for £12 is costing me £6 and I need to buy over £200 of Airfix products to get that.

 

Overall, I just don’t find it very enticing and won’t be joining and as a benefit I won’t feel obliged to always look first at Airfix.

 

Appreciate everyone is different, just saying for me, the club and the flying hours are simply not that attractive to me.

 

I will of course collect the flying hours but will send them to Help for Heroes instead of using them myself.

[treker_ed]

As you say everyone has their own view. Last year the club more than paid for itself for me. The club was £30 less 10% discount , over the year I bought most of Airfix 2022 releases direct, those that interested me, and which I would have bought anyway. Stashed flying hours meant that I was able to order a series 8 or 9 kit, I got the Anson, and cost me £3.95 postage. Taking all that into account and club discount, I saved over £70. Yes I still paid a lot of money out, but I would have paid that anyway. And in my view, better in the pocket of Airfix to develop new products. The only one I didn't buy was the 1/48 bucc, and that was from a small LHS in Carlisle. But bought for the equivalent of what I would have bought direct from Airfix, with discount.

[Julien]

If you buy a kit the P&P is say £3.95 but if you send your hours passport in its £2 more, its probably costing them more than £2 admin to process it all so I would say not an issue.

 

However if its not for you then dont do it, no one is forcing you to? As for not wanting the kit, you could always join and sell the kit on, im sure their are people who want the kits but are not wanting to spend the extra to join just for the kit?

 

Julien