Thousand Trails

[jagpot]

Considering various camping memberships, Passport, Escapees, Thousand Trails. Does anyone have a Thousand Trails membership? If so, what is your experience? The basic camping membership can pay for itself with one trip to the Keys in my case or Orlando for a week, etc. What is your experience with check in, site selection, extra fees?

We bought 1000 trails but we ended up buying it off of craigslist. Paid $1000. You still have to pay your yearly fee but we kept it for 10 years then sold it for $1000. We found their campgrounds in the beginning to be nice, but there weren’t many out west. As time passed, the campgrounds seem to have a lot of crime and we’re not kept up I would buy from somewhere else.

 

[Joe Hogan]

Booked our first Trip to an Encore property. Fiesta Key in Florida Keys. Works out that 7 days cost approx one night retail. The savings over retail cost just about covers the annual camping pass fee.
We are familiar with the campground and will report back after we stay there in the Encore "membership" spots.

 

[Underboss]

You really have to "get in line" at 12:00 noon??? Not me!!
I quit the "line stuff" when I retired!
Think I'll just make my reservations, and arrive when I desire!
"TT" is definitely not for me!! Have friends that are members, and enjoy it! To each his own!
Curious, or Nosey.....what kind of costs are the memberships??

WOW! Waiting in line, still baffles me to get into an RV park!! There's not one nice enough in the USA, for me to sit in line and wait for a site!! I'm shocked....naive.....or uninformed!!

Good Luck to all the members, and I hope you enjoy your membership!

Its not a line. Its a check in time. If the check in time is 12, you cannot get in until 12. Its not a policy to have a line, its a policy to have a check in time as every campground has check in times. If its a big cg and there is a lot of turnover on that day, yes a line may form to enter. If everyone did not show up for the early bird special, and just arrived at a reasonable time, like maybe 30 minutes later than check in time, there would likely be no line
I have stayed at the Orlando TT and at many TT campgrounds. Got to Orlando and it was no different then any other cg I have ever stayed at. Arrived at that cg at 12:20 and the line had to be insane, there had to be three rigs ahead of me, thats insane right? I had three rvs checking in before me, so I was stuck on a line. I had to suffer through ten minutes of waiting on that line. It was horrible and exhausting.

Wanted to edit and add the cost of the membership. I wanted to be correct so had to go check. So I bought a resale membership. The original owner bought and upgraded a few times. Typically if you buy a resale, it can only transfer once at the original level of membership but because mine was upgraded three times, I can resell one grade below. (more about this later)
So my membership cost the original buyers over 16k. I can stay 3 weeks at a time and go TT to TT parks with no time out of the system. I can book 180 days in advance. With Encore parks, two weeks in and one week out, book 2 months in advance. I paid about $5,400 plus the yearly dues which this year is $1,045.
I used more then $6,500 in"free" camping the first 7 months. I just sent in another yearly renewal at $1,045 (including Encore parks) So far, starting in June, I have 71 days booked "free" and only paying for one week at a non tt cg at $800 for a week. So if I was paying for those 71, even taking a conservative $40/night, I am saving $2,840. I just paid the dues and they are good for a year until next April 1st.
So I am ahead of the game, plus, because of my particular plan, I can resell it for $3,500. Most cannot be resold a second time.
If I was not retired, I would probably break even yearly. But I am so I am ahead of the game. I still have another whole year to book free camping, before the next dues are due.