Friday, January 10, 2014

Passport America Rates HIGH in Our Book

PPA
I think most RVers know about Passport America, if you don’t, you need to go to their website and see what they have for you.  Even those who boondock “most of the time” seem to belong to Passport America because you only have to stay in one of their parks just a few times and you get your money back.  $44 gives you half price access to nearly 2,000 RV parks, although many of the parks do have restrictions you need to work around.  These restrictions might be no weekends, or even blackout dates during the busy season for any particular park.  However, we have also found parks which have absolutely no restrictions.

image

So the day we were headed to San Antonio, those of you who read about it know that I ran into a Passport America advertised park which refused not only the Passport discount, but the Good Sam discount too.  Lucky for us, we found another Passport park on the other side of San Antonio, a side of town which we needed to go through to get to Florida anyway.  However, I still contacted both Passport America, and Good Sam.

Mobile_phone_rings
Within an hour of sending my complaint through the Passport America website, Tiffany calls to get more information from me.  Today I get an email from Tiffany with a full explanation of how this park had decided to pull away from the program due to “too much success”.  I checked, and it has been removed from their website listing.  Not only that, but she extended our membership by a couple of months…a move which was way above and beyond anything I expected.
image

And what about the “guy with the hallo”, well, other than a form email, I have heard absolutely nothing.  A check of their website and the offending RV Park is still active on their list.  Went by Camping World today and refused to “add another year” to my membership even though the new card would be used for discounts at Flying J.  I have a Flying J discount card, so there is no loss to me here other than I am lugging around two “cards” in my wallet instead of one.

goodJob

Now we have no affiliation with either of these membership companies outside of being “members”.  Because we purchased our motorhome from Camping World, our Good Sam membership is at the Elite level, but the Elite status played no part in our decision where or what to buy…we liked the size and layout of the Jayco Melbourne, and the price was fair, so we bought it.  In fact, we filled out a lengthy survey after we bought our Melbourne, and honestly gave few thumbs down on a part of the process we went through…mainly the pressure to buy their insurance and maintenance program.  We got no reply with those issues too.  But with Passport America, we feel they did a great job in handling this “complaint”, which to us was more like bringing a problem up to their attention. 

Condo

And on the “home front”, or should that be “condo front”….We were only in the condo for around three weeks before we took off this past summer.  So we are still in the “putting things together” stage, along with getting the motorhome cleared out and cleaned for storage.  We found a covered, 30 amp service RV storage lot with a dump station and cleaning station on site.  We paid for storage through May 1st, and feel very comfortable with the price.  Tomorrow we move the motorhome into storage…but it won’t be there long because we have 24 hour key coded gate access so we can take it out anytime we wish.  And the real good news is that the spot next to ours is empty this weekend so I will be able to practice backing into it without fear of hitting another motorhome.

10 comments:

  1. Hopefully, you'll be able to unpack, park your RV and get settled, quickly... so you can enjoy your condo home! I'm praying for you! Blessings, Lynn

    ReplyDelete
  2. I had the exact same experience with both "clubs" And did the same thing - kept passport and dropped Sam. Glad to hear everything is beginning to take shape for you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We automatically received Good Sam for 3 years after buying our motorhome, so in a few years we will have a decision to make, that's for sure.

      Delete
  3. We are not Passport America members. I will be looking into it. Thanks Dave!

    Ah.....long hot showers and comfy chairs. Enjoy!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Go to their map and look at the areas where you have already stayed and see if Passport would have helped you or not. In 2012 I did that and found that had we been Passport Members we would have saved over $100 just staying at the parks we stayed at. Who knows how much we would have saved had we picked Passport parks along the way instead of other parks we stayed at. That convinced me.

      Delete
  4. We had overpaid Passport and they went out of their way to get in touch with us and straighten things out. Good organization!

    Glad you found a covered storage facilty.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, they seem to be a class act organization...unlike another organization that I know of...

      Delete
  5. Well, I'm happy to hear of PA's response. maybe I should have contacted them when I was on a roll of not getting the discount in any park for the first three months of my membership! Geesh! I've been diligently working on refining my total travel lifestyle budget and am having second thoughts about some of my memberships. I'm thinking I just don't need ALL of them! I keep saying to you and Marcia: Don't forget to relax!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We see a light at the end of the tunnel now. Got the motorhome into storage, starting to get things together here at the condo, and all the while still going through those coughing fits...but the humid weather seems to be helping.

      Delete

We love to hear comments from our readers. All comments are moderated by Dave before added to the website. Spam, advertisers and rude comments are deleted, and due to high spam attempts, Anonymous Users cannot post, sorry....register for a Google ID, it is free and it is easy. Go to: Get Google ID