An update for anyone following. I have allowed my US World/Premium subscription to lapse (ie didn't let it Auto Renew). I had been invited to renew my subscription as follows:
. Your 12 Month World Subscription is due to end on Sunday, 02 December 2018 and when it does, you can claim 15% off your next year with us by switching on auto-renew in your account. Instead of $239.50, you'll pay just $203.58. It's our way of saying thank you for your loyalty
I have, in its place, purchased a 12 month US Ultimate British & Irish package, currently c$179 or c$152 with their 15% loyalty discount.
So, if a loyal member allowed/allows their sub to auto-renew, it seems they would have paid/ will pay
$203.58. If they allowed/allow it to lapse then purchase a new subscription, they would have paid/will pay c
$152 (or less if they are entitled to any different discount), for
exactly the same record access. Quite a price difference, so thanks but no thanks Auto Renew. I remain loyal, but 'with more $ in my pocket'.
Partly because of the price difference, I had been sceptical about these packages having the same coverage (also because of the poor wording on the page describing the Ultimate British and Irish), but then RunKitty shared their experience of having already subscribed to the Ultimate package. Now that I have also taken out the Ultimate package subscription, I can easily see from my receipt, that it does indeed give access to all the same records (it would have been clearer from the start if they had used the description they have on the receipt, on their Ultimate package description page as well):
