RV Life Price Increase

[Rollin Ollen]

Normally a good faith company will email you prior to a price increase to let you know your next bill will be something different than before allowing you the option to continue or cancel. A 62% price increase should not be just drafted from customers as if they are a blank check to whatever a company wants to take from you on a recurring subscription.

I had been with them since 2007 but since RV Life has taken over, I found their management policies asinine. Many of their admin people are rude and all of the front line workers are volunteers. It seems that they charge for adverts, much of their product is given them for free (reviews) but pay nothing out. A few years back, there were problems with the maps. When we complained, we were told that Google was charging them too much so they went with a company that was cheaper and that we should just suck it up. So glad I am done with them. Opps...I hadn't intended to rant so much. Oh well, people need to know how they operate.

Darrell

 

[ARD]

Below is my correspondence with RV Life, beginning with my inquiry at the bottom.

I still haven't heard back from them.

 

[Texas Clodhopper]

Does anyone have experience with Roadtrippers? They bought Campedium recently and have integrated some of the better parts with Roadtrippers.

They are having a Labor Day sale so I may try them.

 

[ARD]

I like roadtrippers.

 

[bpaikman]

yes, my RV LIFE just expired and they want $65 before I can even access my trips. I know that’s not really very much per year, but I have kind of internal limits on what I’ll spend on things vs value…. everything is wanting a subscription these days and….$65 is a bit steep for me.
I’ll send them a note objecting and I’m going to look for alternates. I try to avoid all subscriptions and prefer one payment apps, but that’s getting more more difficult…. and I can understand it for things that need constant updating. But RV LIFE is just not that good.

 

[bpaikman]

at the bottom of the subscription page wanting $65, there was a click button for Support. If you click that button, it will take you right back to the same page.

 

[DennisT]

Yeah, I have found that exporting the gpx files from RVLife and importing to our new Garmin 1095 does not work.

Older versions I could text it, open in the Garmin drive app and import just fine.

May be time for a change.

 

[DennisT]

Has anyone tried inRoute?

Looks like it is free up to 8 stops in a trip. For more it is subscription - $40 a year and they added RV routing.

 

[bpaikman]

Here’s the response from RV Life.

Thanks for reaching out about this. Over the years we have raised our rates several times from a low rate of 39.00 to our current rate of 65.

The last time you renewed, you paid 49.00 (2021). At the end of that one year subscription, you received a FREE 2 year subscription based on your long time use and helpful posts over at iRV2.com (our sister site). That 2 year account reward has finally ended. I've made a refund of 16.00 to get you back to that old rate for the next year.

How did you even manage to contact them? I looked on the website and couldn’t find any way to contact them and decided …ok, they have no Customer Service.

 

[bpaikman]

Has anyone tried inRoute?

Looks like it is free up to 8 stops in a trip. For more it is subscription - $40 a year and they added RV routing.

I did use that when I used to deliver for meals on wheels. That’s not the same as using it for an RV but I’ll look into it again. It was OK. I don’t remember anything bad or good about it.

 

[bpaikman]

Normally a good faith company will email you prior to a price increase to let you know your next bill will be something different than before allowing you the option to continue or cancel. A 62% price increase should not be just drafted from customers as if they are a blank check to whatever a company wants to take from you on a recurring subscription.

100% agree. I didn’t have them as a recurring payment so I thought maybe that’s why I was being charged $65 but evidently not! I’m glad I didn’t have them recurring.
In my efforts to find cheaper or free alternatives to subscription things, I found I have only one subscription left now - for Mealime, a meal planning app. I also plan replace that one. They originally charged per year, then they went to three dollars a month. Still cheap, but at the same time, they messed up their software and it has a bad glitch, even crashing at times.

 

[DennisT]

I did use that when I used to deliver for meals on wheels. That’s not the same as using it for an RV but I’ll look into it again. It was OK. I don’t remember anything bad or good about it.

Looks like they added RV specific routing recently.

 

[AbdRahim]

Never paid for any Pro version. RVLife free has done well by me.

 

[bpaikman]

Mine renewed in June at $49 as it has since 2021

Has anyone renewed their RV Life (RV Trip Wizard, etc.) membership lately? Mine was yesterday, and I remember it was a reasonable annual fee, like 35. It is now 65/year. I never got any notice that it was going up, so don't be surprised. The Trip Wizard is the best option out there for trip planning, and I use it. Just an FYI

i must have gotten through somewhere to RVLife - had already forgotten them. But they sent me an email offering a ‘welcomeback”20% discount. But …. 1. still too expensive. 2. Would have to fight price increase every year, I suppose.

 

[bpaikman]

Never paid for any Pro version. RVLife free has done well by me.

Not sure how you do that. It says 14-day free trial, then $$$. (I tried setting up a new account)