Art Fund Reviews 18

My experience mirrors exactly that of others here. I won't comment on the value of the card especially for people outside of London and beyond the first year (extremely poor value at the moment) but rather on the customer service side. 3 days notification of a changed Direct Debit amount, money taken from account long before the renewal date, and with no opportunity to cancel (their terms state that once cards are posted out and payment is made no refunds are allowed - which is blatantly against the terms of their Direct Debit mandate). Then when they do agree to refund they drag their feet, agree to refund and then (per others) fail to respond to correspondence (after a bizarre 14 day waiting period they impose). Honestly they are not doing themselves or the venues any good at all by making the whole thing seem so scammy. People who would remain members are choosing to vote with their feet. Could do better.

More and more galleries year after year are abandoning the National Arts Pass as a system of obtaining discounts to their exhibitions. It used to be more or less universal that if you had an Arts Pass you got your discount. Now you have to check the website of the gallery concerned. Sometimes the discount is not half-price. Sometimes the fact whether the gallery concerned accepts the Arts Pass or not is not up front in their list of entrance prices ─ you have to ask.

The Arts Pass is not a trivial purchase. Currently it is £62.25 annually and £83 if you buy it with a debit card online. That makes the real price for the card £83 annually as no bank uses personal cheques anymore and no one can be bothered to go to the Post Office to get a Postal Order. That's a lot of money.

In a place like London, Cambridge and Oxford one is competing with rich tourists who have vastly more resources than the citizens of this country. Indeed the citizens of this country should be getting discounts anyway to visit these establishments. Other countries operate better arrangements for their citizens ─ Free entrance days and national passes granting free entrances to all of that nation's heritage for Free with one simple annual payment.

UK has far too many organisations managing its heritage: English Heritage, Welsh Heritage, National Trust, high prices to visit its Cathedrals, Royal Palaces etc. etc.. One has to be a Friend of the organisation concerned for a fee, or buy/pay for an annual ticket to a member of these organisations. It becomes too expensive for the citizens, and the nation's children become culturally starved.

Notable organisations who have dropped the Arts Pass.

Hayward Gallery
Dulwich Art Gallery for special exhibitions
Courtauld Art Gallery for special exhibitions

I take out a gift subscription for my son and his wife annually. Last year they did not receive their cards, despite several requests, and had to pay full price to access museums.

I have had very good value out of my card so far. I gave up my Tate membership to get this and I get far more use out of it. However, the app doesn't seem to work any more and is not on the App Store. From the other reviews here it looks like they have serious tech issues. Hopefully they'll be fixed soon....

My sister did not receive her card. A gift from myself and when I found out a few months later. They refused to issue a new one but only a replacement card for the remaining time!! Surely it's their responsibility to get the card to the correct address once we have paid!!

I was a happy user for a couple of years, until I decided to cancel my membership and found out there is no way of getting out!
You cannot cancel your membership on the website, you need to write an email. After 2 weeks of chasing I still have not received any response.
This is a sad note to end the relationship on, as I was thinking of eventually re-subscribing if my situation changed. Now I know better!

Their response to our complaint was really unreasonable. My mum has no use for an Art Pass has not received any paperwork or actual pass and their first response is that they have done nothing wrong and want to keep her £75.00 for a pass that was apparently sent to a holiday home a few doors down. The bank have raised a dispute. How did they charge something to my mum at anothers address? Terrible service. Hopefully a fairer response will come back from my 2nd email .....

I emailed Art Fund in early December to try to convert our joint membership to a single one. I was advised to cancel our existing membership and direct debit and my wife would then apply for a single membership in her own name. I cancelled the DD on 11th December but despite being informed that no further payments would be made, the joint membership renewal payment of £112 was made from my account on 15th December. I was then told it would take up to 14 days for this to be repaid as Art Fund would need to check the money had reached them (?!). I should contact them again on 2 Jan. My subsequent emails have been ignored. So I telephoned them this morning to be told that the DD payment on 15 December had "failed" so there was no money to refund. I've sent them a screenshot of the transaction because as far as I, and my bank, are concerned they have received the payment. There are so many things wrong here - systems, procedures, inaccurate information, poor customer service etc - and it is clear from other reviews that mine is not an isolated experience.

Absolutely appalling customer service. Send you a renewal card 6 weeks before your renewal starts without asking if you want to renew. Then you have to cut up and photograph the destroyed card and email again.They then ignore that email or claim they haven’t received it ( when later you can see they have). Then take out the direct debit anyway!! Then you have to wait and wait with various excuses and promises about a refund which takes about three weeks for some reason.other people have mentioned this so it feels like a policy for keeping funds in their account for a while! There was a particularly rude person called Jason who claimed they had not received my email ( when a later person found it ok) and just kept saying “ it’s in the terms and conditions” really unhelpfully.
The magazine is good but the card does not pay for itself unless you use it quite a bit. I will be getting a Tate card instead. Avoid.

Waiting for my card more than a month. They first mess up the address sending it to completely different postcode, then after “fixing” it they promised to send a new one with express delivery. 10 days later - still nothing. And you have to call them on a phone to buy under 30 pass because they can’t make their purchase form to follow their own terms and conditions.

UPD: had to call them to sort this out again because they didn't reply to an email. It turns out they completely messed up their system creating different accounts for me and a person I was purchasing pass for as a gift, not registering a payment properly and saying that they sent it to the gifted person address even though I asked clearly multiple times to send it to different address, because "computer doesn't allow them" (surprise disclaimer - there was nothing at that address).
Good thing the customer care response was quick and they agreed to extend validity of the card. Finally received the card in few days. And it has a typo in the owners surname...

Seems like you can't use your card before you receive the physical one in your post. This can take up to 10 days, and in 2023 it's absolute madness when they could easily create a digital pass.

No information whatsoever about this in the FAQs. Terrible experience on their website, very clunky and information-poor

Since I thought I could use my digital card, I've now also activated my membership already so I guess I've wasted 10 days on it. I wanted to use it on an exhibition today and needless to say I won't be able to do that.

I love the experience when you have (almost) all museums in one place, can explore new exhibitions and add them to your favourites. I do understand people's complaints but anyway, I like to support the art fund

It does not worth the money. I got my pass when RA has 50% off, then very soon they notified me it is only £1 off. My membership expired in April, they send me a new card in early March, wrote an email to cancel, still got charge in mid March. And they asked me to email and request refund only on April. Thanks for the time wasted. Bad value for money anyway.

Terrible customer service. Slow to react and even slower issuing refunds.

I had an Art Pass for years, but gave up last year as the organisation got worse. You got endlessly bombarded with special offers by email no matter how often you opted out, it got ever harder to find sites (the website's art map was first hidden, now deleted) and its daft that it takes 2 weeks to arrive unless you pay £7 more for "special delivery". There used to be a handy app but they abandoned that.

I got a 3-month trial of a National Art Pass. I'm only halfway through but I feel that I'm not going to continue.
There aren't many museums included that are free. Some are free to everyone anyway which I think is misleading. And the search results on the website aren't great so it looks like there're more than there really are. For instance, if you search for London, they add a few on in Cambridge, Bath, Yorkshire... Unless they regularly add new free ones, which I don't think they do, you would surely exhaust the ones they do have pretty quickly.
I have been to a couple of major exhibitions which have been 50% off but I can't help but find that kind of offer unappealing. I mean, you're paying a subscription in order to obtain a DISCOUNT on something - not to get it upfront or included, just to get a DISCOUNT on it. There're also some museums which offer outrageously poor discounts... I've seen one that just offers £1 off with an Art Pass.
I feel that, if there was a subscription where you paid x amount a month and you could go to all the exhibitions you wanted - at least at all the museums taking part in the scheme - then that would be something worth paying for. But in its present form, I can't help but feel it's not a good offer.
There also seems to be some suspicion surrounding the Art Pass where some staff behave in an overly officious way in my opinion and really scrutinise you.
You can't use the Art Pass until the physical card arrives - but mine only took 5 days.
There are a few emails, but I haven't received the Art Map (guide) and Art Quarterly (magazine) advertised - although that might just be for the yearly subscription.
Overall, I really enjoy going to exhibitions and I was excited to try this, but I've just been left feeling disappointed.

A truly great idea and programme but docked two stars as there was no option to purchase as a gift - which is wild as it makes such a fabulous gift - and no way to use your card digitally when you’ve already paid but haven’t received your pass yet (which is a shame, especially in this period when postal services are facing lots of disruptions).