zOwie Omega Discussion Forum

Ashford.com is not an authorized dealer for Omega. Omega does not allow any internet based authorized Omega dealers. As you note, Ashford offers a 3 year in-house warranty to mitigate the fact that the authorized Omega warranty will not be honored on purchases from them.

With that said, there are some reasons to consider Ashford even given this grey status.

1_ Although there is surely warranty risk in buying an Omega from them (if they were to go out of business etc...), they are one of the largest internet based dealers around. They are a solid, real company - my *opinion* is that they will be around to honor warranties for some time to come. However, business is business, and I could be proven wrong.

2_ I believe an Omega factory warranty only lasts for a year anyway. Given the heavy discount that can be obtained on many items at Ashford, the savings may far outweight any repair cost you would have to pay Omega for repairing a grey market watch.. Take for instance the $1276.00 Omega Speedmaster Moon Watch. That's a pretty huge savings - some $500.00 better than the best authorized dealer I've found... that's more of a savings than I suspect I would spend on repairs in a years time if Ashford were to shut its doors and I needed to send my watch back to Omega and pay the full repair price.

Buying grey might effect resale value - I know that I am apt to look for watches that were purchased from an authorized dealer... However, Ashford seems to hold one of the few exemptions.. I'm not sure I would purchase an extremely complicated or high priced item like a tourbillion from them, but I had no hesitation buying the Moon Watch at their generous and amazing price.

Hope this helps,
-Dan

: I've noticed very attractive prices on Omega
: watches on Ashford.com's web site.