I logged into Yahoo! Personals the other day to note any changes and notice a few surprises with regards to the memberships. The first is, Yahoo has gone from 3 membership levels down to 2. Their Premier Membership has been removed and the remaining membership pricing will be just a dollar more, when compared to the old casual membership. Subscription prices are now between $13.99 to $25.99 per month depending on the length of the membership. The old Premier prices for a month ranged from $20.83 to $39.95. The features that where part of the Premier subscription level (which dealt with searching and rating matches) have either been removed or rolled into the existing paid memberships. The free membership as far as I can tell has remained unchanged.

The major surprise is Yahoo! Personals has a guarantee now. If you purchase a 6 month membership Yahoo will make you a 6-Month Promise. If you do not find someone special by the end of your subscription, they will give you another six months for free. You must have a approved searchable profile with a photo and must communicate with at least 5 different members each month to be eligible. Another nice touch is they will email your status each month to help you keep track of your eligibility.

It appears that the 6-month promise started in May, 2008. I am unsure why Yahoo did not promote this at all since few dating services actually offer a guarantee. If promoted they would have brought in more members and received some free publicity from dating blogs such as this one. Sometimes you have to wonder about large companies marking departments, it doesn't take much to release a press release.

Yahoo Personals promise is very similar to Match.com "Make Love Happen Guarantee". In fact it is virtually the same except for a few small details. I guess they figured if it works for Match, it will work for Yahoo.

For more information on Yahoo! Personals, please read our review.