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Old 04-12-2018, 07:15 PM   #1
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Does anyone recommend certain memberships like passport america, good sams, etc for d

Looking at discount memberships..does one usually do all, one, none?
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Old 04-12-2018, 07:25 PM   #2
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Depends on how much you travel and where you stay.

We have been Passport America members for around 6 years and have saved hundreds of dollars every year with that membership.

Good Sam is also camping world and includes a 5 cent per gallon discount at Flying J & Pilot travel centers. That makes the card worthwhile to us.
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Old 04-12-2018, 07:28 PM   #3
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Yep, we like Good Sam for gas savings. Sometimes it helps with RV parks when we can't find a city/county/state/national park to camp in.

Joined Passport America, we'll see how that shapes up. So far they mostly send me spam email.

Highly recommended: AAA Premier RV - roadside / towing assistance and AAA discounts at many tourist destinations.
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Old 04-12-2018, 08:01 PM   #4
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If you travel, good idea. If not, maybe hold off.

Membership

- National Park Senior Pass. It costs ~$80, but worth it. Lets you stop in if you want with no hook to stay. Also gets you a camping discount. Not all same, but the half price ones are deals.

- Passport America is worth the cost. Use their catalog to plan when and where to use their parks. There are new parks, old dead parks, and real gems. Half price is a deal. Do it, unless you can not bring yourself to stay at their parks.

- KOA is a it depends on you. We use their parks from time to time. Some are a perfect solution. A known quantity if you will. The discount is not much, but it helps. The win is their free days when they run a special. Again, this is not a bargain basement discount. Unless you use them a lot, maybe low on the list. Hint - take a tent site with elect/water and dump when you leave. Some don't save much. Some save a lot.

- AAA and AARP - gets you a discount when others don't. Just do not forget they can help.

- CASH can get you a discount. It can avoid restrictions on discounts too. An empty park looking at cash can get you four days at discount when the normal deal is two. It can sometimes get you a 5% discount on top of a AAA discount.

- There are other discount or time share or specials. Find your game, research how it works and play it. State parks can be quite cost effective and also quite expensive. Don't know about the COE parks, but believe them to be a deal.

Good Luck with your travel. Pat

Edit - Good Sam - good - propane, works like AAA/AARP, all camping goods - good campground recommendations too.
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Old 04-12-2018, 08:23 PM   #5
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PKI

The senior pass gets you a 50% discount at the COE campgrounds.

Mansderm161

We like National Forest campgrounds too. The senior pass is good here also. Being able to camp without hookups can save a lot of money.

It is not a discount but $10 for the ALLSTAYS CAMP & RV app is the best money you will ever spend.

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Old 04-12-2018, 08:37 PM   #6
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Did not know that - thanks a bunch. We have had COE on our list to try, and just have not found one on the route. Shame on us. Great advantage. Pat
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Old 04-13-2018, 02:28 AM   #7
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The National Park Service Senior Pass (for age 62+, there is a fee to buy it) or Access Pass (for handicapped, no fee to obtain it) is good for a 50% discount at National Park campgrounds, 50% discount for camping at Corps of Engineers campgrounds, and free admission to day-use areas at CoE campgrounds. I have the Access Pass. Note that these discounts do NOT apply for the NPS Annual Pass. All 50 states have at least one National Park (though not all have camping), and 44 states have CoE campgrounds. In addition, there are a few states— Louisiana and Arkansas are two of them— that offer the NPS Senior Pass and Access Pass discounts at State Parks, but only to residents of a state that also offers the discount. So Louisiana or Arkansas residents can get the discount at Louisiana State Parks (for example) but Mississippi residents can't.

Passport America's discounts are excellent on paper, namely a 50% discount at any member campground, but there are a lot of restrictions. Some only apply to the first night, some have exclusion periods or exceptions for special events, etc. So it's entirely possible to pull up to a member campground and be told that no discount will apply to your stay. Also, the quality of PA campgrounds is hit-and-miss; I've stayed at some that were horrible, and the only thing to recommend them was that they had hookups, unlike a Walmart parking lot. So I find myself using my PA discount card only at waypoint campgrounds where I'll stay overnight and leave early the next morning and might not ever see the campground in daylight. Don't get me wrong— there are some excellent and well-maintained PA campgrounds, too.

Good Sam only offers a 10% discount, but Good Sam parks tend to be pretty uniform in quality; I haven't stayed at a bad one yet.

Some (but not many) campgrounds offer an AARP or AAA discount, so if you are a member of one of these organizations, be sure to ask when you call for reservations or check in.

Kampgrounds of America membership provides a discount at KoA Kampgrounds, plus you can earn points for free nights. I belong to KoA as well, and for my trip to Salem, Oregon this summer for the WBCCI/WBAC International Rally, I will be staying at a KoA for every waypoint stop between New Orleans and Salem (8 intermediate stops altogether), so I should rack up a lot of points in one trip.

Military retirees and active duty— and Department of Defense civilian employees/retirees— who have a DoD-issued Common Access Card (CAC) can use the CAC to stay at Military Family Camps (FamCamps) at about 240 military bases nationwide, that aren't even available to anyone else.

Many Elks Club lodges offer RV camping to members. One member is always trying to recruit me, but his main selling point seems to be the bar in the lodge, and I don't drink. Still, there are hundreds of Elks Club lodges nationwide, so membership may be worthwhile to you.

Wally Byam Airstream Club, also known as WBCCI, doesn't offer much in the way of discounts for individual travel, but some WBAC Units (Texas Gulf Coast Unit's TAHI on Sam Rayburn Lake in Texas and Pensacola Unit's Mystic Springs are the two closest to me) own campgrounds that are only available to members. Also, there are many Unit, Region, and International rallies and caravans that are only available to members. But club membership has other benefits as well, including the fact that many members offer free "courtesy parking" (some with hookups, others without) at their homes to fellow WBAC members who might be passing through.

One final caveat… Some commercial campgrounds belong to more than one discount plan, such as both Good Sam and PA. Be sure to ask about all discounts that apply that you qualify for, and use the best one available. I recently stayed at a campground that offered a Good Sam 10% discount for every night of the stay or a PA 50% discount for the first night, so the total discount for 5 nights was the same with both plans. But I didn't use either one, because they had a weekly rate that was half-price for the whole week, so by extending my stay by 2 more nights, I stayed cheaper than I would have by only staying 5 nights with Good Sam or PA.
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Old 04-13-2018, 02:38 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PKI View Post
Did not know that - thanks a bunch. We have had COE on our list to try, and just have not found one on the route.
Excuse the back-to-back posts, but I wanted to answer this one separately… You can find all CoE campgrounds nationwide by using the Corps Lakes Gateway (https://corpslakes.erdc.dren.mil/visitors/visitors.cfm).

There are a couple of books that list Corps campgrounds ("Camping with the Corps of Engineers" is for sale at most Camping World stores) but the coverage for any one book is incomplete. Also, the AllStays app lists all CoE campgrounds. But the Corps Lakes Gateway lets you filter your search by the activities offered, so if you specifically want campgrounds with hiking trails, or golf, or fishing, or a playground for the kids (for example)— or any combination thereof— you can search only for those within a given state.
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Old 04-13-2018, 03:23 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PKI View Post
Did not know that - thanks a bunch. We have had COE on our list to try, and just have not found one on the route. Shame on us. Great advantage. Pat


I just wanted to ad that the COE campgrounds are probably the best campgrounds that we have stayed in.

Dan
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Old 04-13-2018, 06:32 AM   #10
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I use Good Sam's Roadside Assistance. Joining Good Sam also means you will get a lot of promos for other insurance. As far as Camping World when you join Good Sam you get membership in the "President's Club". My experience with President's Club is, for the most part, Camping World is overpriced and the club helps buy at a fair price. Once in a while there are "great deals". Never have been but you can also go to Good Sam Samboree rallies.
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Old 04-13-2018, 09:14 AM   #11
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Elks Club - found one outside Oakhurst California that is extensive enough to allow non-elks members to stay there. Not any nicer than parking lots at most Elks Lodges, but the location is not too far from Yosemite. Pat

Pro &TD - we have info on the COE. Have even investigated a few. They are just not where we travel. It's a distance to goal thing with some time restrictions. It's also a newbee restriction as to possibilities. They are often located on a lake up the road, but we are headed down the road. Going to have to develop a route that twists through back roads from one COE campground to another. Convinced they are nice parks. Who would not want to wake up with a lake view? Pat

NPs - the one exception we have found to the NP Senior discount pass is the Fishing Bridge Campground at Yellowstone. It's full price. The other campgrounds that do not have hookup utilities are half price. Pat
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Old 04-13-2018, 09:40 AM   #12
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AAA, Passport America and the AllStays app.

Many full price campgrounds, including Good Sam, give a 10% discount to AAA members.

Passport America has had a good app the past few years, allowing a map visual of participating campgrounds in any area you are looking at, then simply click on the icon to view the particulars on a campground.

I just joined Harvest Hosts last year, and look forward to visiting more of their overnight offerings.

The latter are always dry camping, at anything from a winery to a farm to a local visitor attraction, but free.

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Old 04-13-2018, 11:13 AM   #13
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I joined Passport America for one year and it didn't work out. There weren't many PA parks along my route, and those that were were pretty seedy. The better parks had many exclusions so, I probably broke even but didn't save anything.

Good Sam is worth it if you also use Camping World.

This year, I'll try AAA.

The reality is I've never been asked for a card. I could just say, "I'm a Good Sam member" and no one checks.
Also, if you ask "How much is a night?" and they'll say, "$35"
Okay, I'm a Good Sam member, expecting to get 10% less, but the campground says, "That price already has the discount factored in." You never know.

In general, Good Sam is very popular.
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Old 05-08-2018, 08:35 PM   #14
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Can you get allstays app for android. And can you get apps with the fusion navagation installed on the interstate
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Old 05-08-2018, 09:09 PM   #15
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We have been Passport America Members for years. We always get our membership fee back at least five fold. We travel pretty extensively. We usually spend 150 nights or more per year out in the Airstream.

The Allstays app has not been available for Android for about a year now. You can join the Allstays Pro on-line for about $30 per year.

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Old 05-25-2018, 04:09 PM   #16
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So I am a good sam member, but I joined KOA because as a kid, I loved KOA. Stayed at three so far, as expected, very nice. One other listed as KOA, but is also travel resort...some kind of ownership program and it was a far stretch from both KOA and being a resort. Think I'll try to stay away from the ownershio "resort" facilities.
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Old 05-25-2018, 04:21 PM   #17
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The Journey KOAs seem to work best. The Destination KOAs are excessive for our core needs. Also noting we are not seeing discounts for elect/water sites. Higher prices on FHU as well. The tide may be turning. This year looks like we will use some. A new review may be in the works?

We are also finding KOAs are becoming independent or alternate chains. The world turns. Pat
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