TOPIC: Campground memberships

Has anyone had any experiences with campground memberships like Thousand trails, RPI, COAST TO COAST. I have always stayed away from time shares and membership organizations but am exploring some options.

We had a membership with Thousand Trails the first year with our RV. It allowed for up to 2 weeks at a site and the. One week away before you could use it again. We only used it once, but it paid for itself. We stayed at Thousand Trails Orlando from New Years Day to Jan 14. That covered the cost of a campsite easily. We chose not to renew because most of the TT properties aren’t what we are looking for. But for a lot of people who travel a lot and move from site to site it’s a real cost saver. I think when you get into the higher end membership it’s a little more rich but for a basic I would say try it for a year.

John

Thanks.

From our experiences we could stay at a lot of nice rv parks in a year for the price of a membership in some not so nice parks.
We even found that Passport America didn't work for us, too many days we tried to book that it didn't apply.
Just our .02 cents!!

Was your experience just with Passport America? We tried it several years ago and didn't care for it.

The thing with memberships is you have to use them to make them pay off for you. Thousand Trails has a yearly membership for a reasonable price. The best way to get their best deals is to call them directly. They often have unadvertised deals going on, such as two zones for the price of one, etc. Using the yearly membership will give you an idea on if a full membership would be advantageous to you. If you decide after a year that it works out for you, don't buy a full membership from thousand Trails. Use a broker to get a used membership. A broker can help you decide which of the many plans would work best for your situation, and will save you thousands of dollars in the long run.

Waltgolf3 wrote: Was your experience just with Passport America? We tried it several years ago and didn't care for it.

We had PA for a year & didn't renew, seemed to not be valid on any day ending in Y or at least any day we wanted to use it. Have friends that use to without issue.
Also had a free weekend at a TT & CC, both needed some updates & did not like either for the high prices.

We have Thousand Trails and are lifetime Passport America. When we travel, TT is our first choice but are mainly on the west and east coast with a few north and south - nothing in the middle. We use PA for most overnight stays going across the country. My advice is try them both and see if you like it and use it. Both have paid for themselves multiple times over in our experience.

Thanks We just bought the TT pass and the Trails Collection and also Passport America. We are going to try them although you have to have the pass before you can upgrade to an elite membership. We were able to get the pass half off for the first year so we got all of them for less than the cost of a Pass. If we decide to purchase the Elite then we will decide to buy a used membership or a new one. Do you have membership or a pass.

As I said before, don't upgrade to Elite through Thousand Trails. Do some research on buying a "used" membership. It will save you a whole lot of money.

Thanks I'll be doing some research. Also I'll see what they offer. I got the Pass 1/2 price so I'll let them make offers then. I've found they are capable of reducing the cost just to get a deal and the Elite is worth at somewhere up to $2750 for resale from TT and unless you get one that has an unlimited resale many resales are not resaleable. Not got that far yet.
All good information though
THANKS
WALTER COLLINS

We started with the Zone membership and got the 2 for 1 deal. I figured that $500 was pretty inexpensive in the scheme of things to try it out. We used it frequently that year so began looking nationwide on Craigslist for a used membership and ended up purchasing that for a substantial discount. If you go that route, get the membership number from the owner and then call TT. They will give you the details of what is included in that membership plan, and they are all different. If the owner won’t give you their number then don’t even bother because you won’t get what you think you are buying.

We bought a nationwide lifetime Elite with a very reasonable annual maintenance fee and added the Trails Collection this year. It’s been well worth it - just stayed at Yosemite Lakes, four miles from the entrance gate of Yosemite with great trout fishing in the river at the campground.

The campgrounds are inconsistent though. I learned the hard way to always ask at the gate where I should not go with our Redwood.