You just lost out on another £2200 here. What kind of awful awful person would do this? Have you had a change of manager or let the wrong person onto the board or something?I can't tell if you are trying to be really nasty and keep people out, or if you are just totally out of touch?You have secretly changed the rules so lifetime members have to go on their own or pay again if they want to take someone. You have absolutely misjudged why people buy lifetime membership gifts for people. It's obviously not a cost-saving exercise at over £2k a pop. You would have to live for around 25 years and buy NT membership every year just to break even.It's not well advertised, but buried in the small print you've halved the value of lifetime membership from two people / visit to one while at the same time putting the price up by 10%. That's a 120% increase in price!It was very close. We nearly paid you, but realised just in time what you had done.By removing the "take a friend with you if you want" option you've just lost another sale.We bought a lifetime membership for our son three years ago. It was the most expensive gift we ever bought him, but knew that he would always have place to go no matter where he was, no matter how tough life got and no matter who he ended up with. We bought him "happiness after we are gone".We were about to buy the same gift again but now you are selling, "be on your own", "can't invite a friend" and "the gift of loneliness". You have totally missed that National Trust is not always about the buildings, it's about the day out. It's about always having somewhere to go and it's about always being able to take someone somewhere when they just need a friend.Not everyone has £15 to spend when you just want to go somewhere for an hour with someone you care about.You've transformed "Lifetime Membership" into a voucher for a table for one at a restaurant. Who would give someone a gift of one cinema ticket on its own and expect them to be happy?And then you've cut and pasted a response to others complaining about the same thing on Trustpilot, justifying what you've done by saying it's because you want more gift-aid money, and it caused poor sales with your "2 members of the same house package". If you just want more money then sell then sell the +1 option as well and let people choose.Not everyone wants to go somewhere with the same person every month for the rest of their life. You must know that.Be honest, don't hide what you are doing like this. This policy has changed the tone (and by the look of things, the reputation) of the National Trust completely. The current custodians could do well to reflect on how they are performing in comparison to every other generation before them.I'll be keeping the £2200 for now though. There are better gifts available for £2K than making someone walk around a stately home on their own every month for 25 years! National? Maybe. Trust? Maybe not.
