No CLP Discount for Lotusphere this year???
I posted a thread last week in the certification forums asking if there would be a Certified Lotus Professional discount for Lotusphere this year? The silence from official people in the forum has been deafening. That said, James Roysdon wrote to the registrar about this and got the following response:
We are still offering discounts this year. What’s new this year is – ALL discounts are based on dates, and are no longer unique to particular sub-groups. Please refer to the table posted at www.ibm.com/lotus/lotusphere for further details. We encourage all of our loyal Lotusphere constituents to register early for the best price.
So, if I go early bird this year and get the BEST discount, it’s $1695. Which is exactly $500 $300 more than I paid last year. I’m not fond of this decision at all. Why do this discount for years and then drop it? This was one of the only tangible benefits I’ve gotten from my gazillion Notes certifications… [sigh]
EDIT: Ed is trying to help here, and I commented about the pricing on Rocky’s blog here. Thanks guys!
EDIT 2: My figures were off and Rod Stauffer let me know in the comments here and over at Rocky’s. Thanks Rod!
August 23, 2006 @ 3:50 pm
Agree. This is weak.
August 23, 2006 @ 9:56 pm
Thanks for keeping up with this. It’s unfortunate. I thought it was really cool to offer a discount for people with certs, and it kinda sucks that they’re killing that.
August 24, 2006 @ 6:53 am
Yeah, it’s rough, especially when you pay your own way. I am at this point waiting to see if my abstract is accepted now before registering….
August 24, 2006 @ 2:10 pm
That response James got was really lame. So, now it’s a bit of a catch 22… wait to see if they do give the CLP discount, but then run the risk to miss the deadline for the reduced price. OR pay early and then, dang, nobody registers and they invent a massive discount in January to boost attendance and you miss out ’cause you already paid. It sucks.
August 24, 2006 @ 3:00 pm
When you pay for Lotusphere on your own this is a big deal. I was planning on going this year again but not at that price. Yeah, yeah, we’ll here from IBM that it will pay for itself and that if we are commited we will do what needs to be done to get there. But the bottom line, it is a lot of money. Period. And when you were counting on the CLP discount it makes a big deal.
BTW: If I remeber correctly, this is how the discounts were done in ’98, ’99, etc. They started offering the CLP discount sometime after 2001/2002 to generate attendance. And apperently it worked. So now what about us?
August 24, 2006 @ 10:33 pm
see my comments at
http://www.edbrill.com/ebrill/edbrill.nsf/dx/channeling-grandma-bowens-spirit—-maybe-we-can-make-the-clps-happy…
August 25, 2006 @ 1:48 pm
Interesting. $1195? Haven’t seen that myself since LS 2004. My CLP discounted registration for LS 2005 and LS 2006 was $1395. Either you got a much better CLP discount the last couple years than I did…or…
(see my comments on Rocky’s blog for more price info)
In any case, I hope they bring back the later (i.e. early December) deadline…
– Rod
August 25, 2006 @ 3:40 pm
Thanks Rod, I’ve made an edit above and actually responded over at Rock’s place. I still think we had a $100 less than the going rate, but you are right it looks like I paid $1395 last year. Thanks for keeping me honest.