LEGO Star Wars VIP card plans included GWPs and more
The harrowing journey of the LEGO Star Wars VIP card has been explained by the ex-head of loyalty at the LEGO Group, including cancelled plans.
For the first several months of 75192 Millennium Falcon‘s lifespan, LEGO VIP members could score an exclusive black card that would enter them into another program within the program, with further incentives promised as long as they were willing to pick up the £734.99 / $849.99 / €849.99 model early on. Unfortunately, the limited program didn’t quite live up to the expectations of the community and ended
One of the few benefits launched as part of the short-lived 2018 program includes an exclusive card-holder gift-with-purchase but aside from a double points event and two other offerings, it wasn’t exactly a busy and lucrative opportunity after all. Speaking on this experiment on the A Couple of Brickheads podcast ex-head of loyalty and the VIP program at the LEGO Group Jason Whiting explained what went wrong and what was planned for black-card holders in 2018, but never came to be.
“The plan was to release something every two months and it might be from early access to a set or double points early before anyone else and one by one, the fans started asking why they didn’t have something immediately or every day of the year,” said Whiting on the podcast.
No specific details were promised for the black VIP card, despite expectations otherwise as Whiting continues to explain; “Customer-facing was that we were going to release an unspecified number of things for black-card holders throughout the year and it started with like, there was going to be a free GWP that was only for black-card holders – one of the carded minifigures.”
“Everybody had in their mind expectations of what they would get and then a few of the things that were planned ended up getting cancelled so in the end I think there were four benefits that ever happened.”
That wasn’t quite what the LEGO Star Wars community were expecting after picking up the £734.99 / $849.99 / €849.99 set to become a member of this limited club, but for Whiting and the rest of the small LEGO VIP team, dealing with members become challenging while balancing the rest of the program behind-the-scenes.
“There’s a decision that I have to make as the new leader of the team. We have a set of really strong, vocal fans that are having issues with the black card and then we have the other 99% of people who buy LEGO that we also have to service.
“We were spending 50% of our time trying to chase the black card members and I decided to figure out what we could do for black-card holders, but we were re-developing the program, working behind the scenes for a new launch of the program and trying to run the rest of it for every other cardholder as a team of six people.”
Inevitably, the black card program was ended with only a few benefits and no such clubs have been trialled since, not that it didn’t cross Whiting’s mind.
“We talked about whether we wanted to do more cards but where we really hone in into what people are interested in and we took a step back after the black card and asked how could we make the whole program interesting for everyone versus targeting one group,” explained Whiting.
The journey of the LEGO Star Wars VIP card and the issues it faced eventually gave way to the relaunch of LEGO VIP as LEGO Insiders, though it’s unlikely that a club within the program will ever be trialled again.
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