I built a relationship with a non-chain AD by buying jewelry for my wife, occasionally taking something that is not exactly what I was on the list for, but a new Rolex or Patek none the less. If you think about buying a Submariner or GMT for MSRP, the AD is picking you to essentially sell you something you can immediately make thousands of dollars on. In my experience, once the trust was there that I was a real owner and not going to flip anything, I get offered MSRP Rolex and Patek regularly. That being said, having spent over $250k in my relationship with the AD and I don't expect to be offered a Nautilus any time soon - I know I am too small and the allocations are small. It seems to me that so much of the angst on these forums is from the fact that you can't walk in and buy something like a Nautilus or Daytona for retail. Well there are tons of excellent high end Swiss watches available to you for MSRP today which are just as beautiful and have as much history. You just want the one that has a 3x market value and that is also the reason an AD wouldn't release one to you. They can make better sense of selling that watch to someone who has a long term holistic connection to their shop. I'm not saying that no AD is selling out the back door, but my experience tells me that AD's take care of their best people first and that kills the walk in business. The other part of the problem is the flippers on Youtube are totally full of shit trying to tell you it's not possible to buy a watch at retail. Let me ask if you could buy a $11k Datejust for your wife and get possibly a Datejust for yourself, you will have started a relationship with Rolex and the Retailer directly. After that, you are more likely to get that tool watch which ends up being a nice two watch collection for you and your wife or GF has a beautiful gift - the total value of the watches exceeds what you paid unlike the gray market. My advice is to talk to AD's in person and don't listen to the haters on social media (who, BTW profit from you not talking to ADs directly). If your SO is a female, jewelry is the easiest gift and it can help build that AD relationship.