Rv Memberships?? - Montana Owners Club

Potvin · 05-02-2005, 12:51 AM

Hi
Stewart and I own a 2003 3295 RK Montana. We are new to this site and I am not sure how to navigate it but I was hoping that someone can give me a bit of information about buying into a home park and being able to camp for much cheaper rates than regular. We now live in Ontario Canada and are planning on full timing in the near future and I have searched the internet and it is a bit confusing. We have heard about Thousand Trails park , Roads of Distinction, and Western Horizon resorts. I hope someone can explain this to us and maybe make some suggestions. I would like to know if any one out there has had any experience with buying an RV Memberships?
My email address is lois.potvin@sympatico.ca

Many thanks
Lois

Glenn and Lorraine · 05-02-2005, 01:32 AM

Welcome Lois and Stewart to the MOC.

For reasons I won't go into other than they are HI PRICED I am not a member of any of the above mentioned RV Memberships.

However we do belong to Good Sams and PassPort America and can highly recommend both.

A good example is the park we are now in is a PassPort America campground. PassPort America costs $44.00 a year to join and on member parks you get a 50% discount. This parks rate is $32.00 a night, we pay $16.00 dollars a night. We are staying 6 nights and will be saving a total 0f $96.00.

Another half price club is Happy Camper which we will also be joining.

In My Opinion, in the end you will get a lot more bang for your buck with PassPort America, Good Sam and Happy Camper than you will ever realize with the HI Priced organizations. And if you don't like PPA, GS and HC you merely let the membership expire. Can't do that without losing big bucks with those other RV Memberships.

richfaa · 05-02-2005, 03:11 AM

Good Advise from Glenn& Lorraine. Both Passport America& Good Sams will save you a lot of $.

BillyRay · 05-02-2005, 03:57 AM

I agree, with good sam club...even though I don't use it much, the one time I did it paid for a three year membership.

adelmoll · 05-02-2005, 04:05 AM

Along with the above we find Escapees to be one of the best. They have half off at all Escapees parks and 15% off at hundreds of other parks across the country. They are a very close knit group and really make you feel welcome. Here is a link to find out more about them escapees.com

richfaa · 05-02-2005, 04:10 AM

Just a note about Passport America. They do not have a huge number of campgrounds. I think anout 1000 or so and they are in general not 4 star campgrounds..However the ones we have been to in Pa/Mich/ Ohio have been very nice/clean and well managed. Full hooks and some have pull throughs. Best of all they are ALL 50% off. Example Rocky Springs Campground in Western PA..12.00 per night full hooks, Pull Through, and the scenery..priceless.

HamRad · 05-02-2005, 05:05 AM

Like many of the folks who have posted we belong to the clubs listed. They all have paid for themselves easily. We attended one of the "high pressure" membership sales pitches. We were very new to the RV scene at the time and had been told by some friends to get some time camping before we purchased a Membership.

To this date we have not purchased such a product. But many folks have and are very happy with them. It just all depends on what you are looking for. Hopefully someone will come along and let you know about how much they enjoy the membership parks.

HamRad

Montana_2779 · 05-02-2005, 07:22 AM

Same here. We have had Good Sam for years and have received discounts at many parks. We also tried Western Horizons for a year (special one-year deal for one park only just to see if we liked it). The Western Horizons, Thousand Trails, etc. can be VERY good deals if you plan and use them right. These are usually best for fulltimers (or those who camp A LOT throughout the year). For those who camp occasionally or only seasonally, the fees and memberships are often not as cost effective as using other discounts at public or private parks. If you don't mind the 2-hour sales attack, I'd recommend at least taking the free-weekend offer from one of the clubs. We had a great time at our local Western Horizons (and still have the free TV!). Unfortunately, at the time, we were occasional campers, so the full membership didn't make sense for us.

P.S.-- Not sure how other companies (or other Western Horizons camps) work, but several folks at our Western Horizons were workamping. This worked well for them twofold: 1) They were not required to leave the camp after the standard seven days (most are seven days in, seven days out), and 2) they were able to reduce or forego some or all of their initial or monthly/yearly fees (depending on what they negotiated).

Everyone that we met who was workamping there absolutely loved it!

Lstierw · 05-02-2005, 10:42 AM

We live in Spokane, Wa and we were recently offered a package from KM Resorts (about 3500.00 up front) but considering we will be full timing it offers 8 resorts in the state of Washington for no charge for up to 14 nights and as long as you are away from that resort for at least 7 nights, you can return again with no charge for another 14 days. The annual dues are about 325.00 and after the peak season (September) we can stay at our homebase (Yogi Bear Campground) for only 150.00 per month until we are ready to head south. We can add Resorts of Distinction when we travel. Here is a link to show the resorts on our package.
http://www.kmresorts.com/campsite.shtml

DiananColin · 05-02-2005, 11:21 AM

Lois, I researched for a long time on the Internet and asked questions on a few forums on this subject. My conclusion (for our type of RV use - not full time but 15 - 20 weeks a year) were that these "home park" deals were no deal other than for the home park owner.

We belong to Good Sam - for the discounts and Emergency Service (never had to use yet but heard nothing but good words about the ERS). KOA for the convenience of knowing that there will be a site available for us that is usually in OK shape and maybe a little more expensive than average but (so far) no disasters. In Canada if you join Explorer RV Club you get an nice discount on Insurance (from a company that actually knows how to insure RVs) - discount more than covers annual fees of Explorer.

Playing with the idea of joining Passport America but we have a dilemma - we like to have premium sites at premium resorts and this may not be covered by Passport America.

Not a club really but Presidents Club of Camping World is invaluable for Canadians - we don't have the range of supplies up here at good prices and so far CW have proven to ship quickly and at a good price to us. So far no difficulty with Customs either - works better if you ask for expedited delivery.

PM us if you need further thoughts

sreigle · 05-02-2005, 01:29 PM

Our experience with Passport America is such that we continue to use it. We've had some really excellent parks who take PA and there have been some pits. No different than Good Sam and even Escapees. There are "over 1200 campgrounds" who take their discount, per their website. That's close to the 1000 mentioned. But we've used them often enough that we usually recover our $44 in the first month we have it each year. What I do is find a park in the Passport America directory, then look up that park in the Trailer Life directory and the Woodalls directory to see how they rate it. We've had parks rated as tops in those directories that also take Passport America. And we've seen some we'll not use even if they paid us. I feel PA is a good deal. We also use Good Sam and Escapees for discounts. Pretty much the same story on quality with all of them. A cross section of American campgrounds is what you get.

azstar · 05-02-2005, 02:04 PM

Hi Lois,

You have heard from only one side so I better let you know that a lot of us have done very well with Memberships. There is a Campground Membership Outlet in FL, that you can buy Memberships at a tremendous savings.

They sell all of the Major Memberships.

We belong to Coast to Coast, our annual Membership costs about $80 per. year. We also pay a maintenance fee to our home park of $49 a year, fixed for life. The initial cost was $249. The initial cost has probably gone up some. We then pay $8 per. night at about 150 C2C Parks where we can stay up to 7 days twice a year. We also have a couple of hundred good neighbor parks where we pay $13 a night.

So you can do the Math for your own situation and see if it worth it for you.

A word of caution, if you buy a Membership make sure you get a Home Park with fixed dues for life. When you buy a Home Park you don't ever have to go there. We didn't until last year and we bought into it a little over 4 years ago. We use the system about 30 days a year, so in our case it works for us. We also have Passport America for thoes quick stops as a lot of them are near the Interstates.

Here's the Outlet PH# 1-800-272-0401 If they ask how you found them you can use my name.

Happy Camping

Steve Buckert
Chandler AZ

Dave e Victoria · 05-02-2005, 02:17 PM

We also use GoodSam and are lifetime members. Occasionally use KOA but regularily use Good Sam when we are traveling. However, we also own memberships in Resort Parks International(RPI) and Coast to Coast. We got a deal by going to a resale broker who sold us a home park back east somewhere that made us elegible for these two memberships. The reason we did this is there are a couple of parks that we wanted to use that are not available to the public. One is El Gofo in Mexico south of Yuma. This is the only park in the area with hookups and it is right on the beach.

Originally, we listened to one of the pitches by Colorado Rivers Adventures(CRA). We liked the parks but the sign up was something like seven grand. WAY TOO MUCH for this dude. After that, I posted on this site and was referred to the broker. We got a deal More like $300.oo to sign up and rathe nominal annual dues. We can stay at any park in the network for up to two weeks and twice per year per park for $8.00 per night.

So far, we have only used the CRA parks. Their parks are nice and clean albiet a bit too organized for me with swim classes, hoseshoe tournaments and the like. They are really set up for retired snowbirds. The clientele is largely motorhomes and lots of full timers.

The other parks in the network are generally off the beaten path. That is, a few miles off the interstates so we plan to continue using Good Sam when we are on the move. It looks like there are about 300 or so parks nationwide. Many are in great locations. The northwest appears to have some of the best.

This summer we plan to head through Albuquerque, on to Kentucky, up to Michigan, Wisconsin and then head off to California. My preferred method of travel is to do 250 miles maximum and no more than two days in a row. Then hole up for a couple of days before moving again. I plan to try to organize these stop-overs around campgrounds in the network. I also plan to post our experiences on our website.
Dave

Montana_3696 · 05-04-2005, 04:12 AM

Lois

We have been members of Thousand Trails for over two years and have been very pleased with their campgrounds. As noted in another response, we purchased ours through Chad at Campground Membership Outlet, phone number 800-272-0401. If Thousand Trails has campgrounds in areas you are going to frequent, a membership can be a very good investment (exceptionally good if you buy a membership that is up for resale). We have also found Good Sam to be an excellent organization. Flying J offers a free discount fuel card program that we have used extensively.

Jim

ols1932 · 05-07-2005, 09:12 AM

We've been full-timing for over four years now and I agree that memberships in RV organizations is well worth the $$. Even though Thousand Trails cost us $3000 three years ago, we have more than made up that amount with the numbers of nights we have stayed in their parks. I keep track of how much our memberships cost (TT, Coast-to-Coast, Passport America, Resorts Parks International) and each one has paid for itself. We have experienced some downers at some Passport America parks where they give you the first night at half price and then resort to the normal price for any additional days. Some Coast-to-Coast parks will not accept you for weekend stays, only nights during the week. So, there are pros and cons. But all-in-all, memberships are very good.

Montana_2753 · 05-14-2005, 09:41 AM

I recently upgraded from the Western Region to the National Plan with Thousand Trails (14 days in/7days out). I also upgraded to Resort Parks International Preferred Gold which allows:

Extended Stays: Whenever you want, wherever you want, enjoy unlimited 14-day visits throughout the year and two 14-day stays during peak seasons.

No Mileage Restrictions: Members may use all RPI Preferred resorts, regardless of proximity to your home resort or where you live.

One Low Nightly Rate: Our standard $8 overnight fee applies to all RV sites nationwide.

There are also discounts on airfare, condo rentals, etc.

I have Passport America, that was given to me by friends, and has been explained by others. I belong to Good Sam, mainly for insurance, Roadside Assistance, and the Continued Service Plan. I am looking into Escapees (another post on this Forum) because I am looking to "full-time" within the year.

If I were to do it over, I would still have bought Thousand Trails, but looked into a resale, as has been previously mentioned. However, be aware of transfer fees, dues changes, etc. If you have any questions or concerns about the contract of the resale, ask for a copy and call TT headquarters for information. Remember: Buyer beware!

Bruce

stiles watson · 05-17-2005, 10:15 AM

Good Sam, Escapees, Passport America.

ken · 05-17-2005, 11:32 AM

Lois
I think everyone has made some excelent suggestions. We also belong to Good Sam, Passport America, and thousand trails and Outdoor World. The last two are membership campgrounds of which we bought as resales in Orlando at Campgrounds Resales, 1-800-272-0401. Thousand Trails has several campgrounds across the US where Outdoor world is located on the east coast. We spend the winters in Florida and use both TT and Outdoor World costing us nothing but our annual dues which is less than what we would have paid otherwise. When Traveling, I look for TT, Passport and then Good Sam as the sites would cost us: nothing, 50%, or 10% respectively. The bottom line, You have to use the campgounds to make it worthwhile. Were not full timers but travel quite a bit and using the above sites has saved us some money as we have been members of TT and Outdoor World for over 20 years.
Ken and Velda Taylor

Dahgren Va
2005 3475 Montana
2000 Ford F350 Diesel

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