What is the Passport America plan

[Horsedoc]

We found a sorta neat, new RV park in the edge of the N Georgia mtns yesterday. Nothing fancy just FHU 50 amp with a bath house. Small place, concrete pads, wide sites - some on a small river and others in the open. They say there regular price is 50 dollars, but with PA it is 25. I am not sure it is worth the 44 fee to join PA for a couple of times there per summer.
Tell me more about PA please

[Horsedoc]

One last question guys - These PA parks , do the commonly advertise or list their affiliation with PA or does one have to ask? Our common practice is to check the book for where we might be ending up at the end of the travel day. That might influence a choice at 50% off

[bikendan]

we have been PA members for years. we have always been able to find nice places to use it. since we retired in 2014, it's been way worth the cost. so much that we have signed up for 5 year stretches.
but if you only can camp on weekends and holidays or the summer, it probably won't work for you.
we are big fans of PA.

[DancinCampers]

I am a lifetime member, and use the CG whenever they are convinent. If you do not like the restrictions, move on.

[philh]

I first heard about PA when I stayed at a golf course with a campground. One the weekend, a lot of very expensive Class A and large 5th wheels. most left on Sunday night, and during the week, more travel trailers, smaller class A and 5th wheels showed up. at 50% stay costs, they collected a lot of revenue they wouldn't have otherwise collected. It was fascinating to see the switch 🙂 BTW, during the week, the golf course was mostly empty!

[Horsedoc]

Scottiemom wrote:

Horsedoc wrote:
We found a sorta neat, new RV park in the edge of the N Georgia mtns yesterday. Nothing fancy just FHU 50 amp with a bath house. Small place, concrete pads, wide sites - some on a small river and others in the open. They say there regular price is 50 dollars, but with PA it is 25. I am not sure it is worth the 44 fee to join PA for a couple of times there per summer.
Tell me more about PA please

What is the name of this park?

Dale

Currahee RV Park (Remember the series "Band of Brother"? Almost in the shadow of Currahee Mountain where that outfit trained

[georgelesley]

We just used PA on our trip to Iowa and back to TN. Sometimes if the park is not full, they will allow you to extend your stay at the discounted price. We have done that occasionally. They are often off the main roads (interstates), which suits us fine as we avoid them as well and take red roads usually.

[Community Alumni]

The 1,450 campground owners that accept PA obviously disagree with the opinion expressed by some here that accepting PA is a bad business decision. As an old business associate used to say: "Half a loaf is better than no loaf."

[wapiticountry]

A Passport America park tells me the park was either overpriced to begin with or it has a flaw that needs a gimmick to compensate.
From an owner’s point of view there are several problems. The idea it fills spaces during slow periods makes little sense. Those periods are slow for a reason. Saving a few dollars isn’t somehow going to make people travel to places they normally wouldn’t. So at best the park might add a guest or two a night. Then you have to take into account the fact that some of the guests who would otherwise stay at full price are also PPA members so they will be paying less than they would have if the park wasn’t PPA. If it worked out that there was two additional guests due to PPA and two otherwise full priced guests also used PPA the park gets the same revenue but has the added expenses of two more guests. Combine the math with the reputation hit I described in the beginning and you will see why I never considered putting my parks in the PPA network.

[JoeH]

SDcampowneroperator wrote:

Michelle.S wrote:
It's better for the CG to get 50% for an empty site than $0.00

Good luck to you with a loss for a business plan

Well, it depends on the incremental/variable costs associated with occupancy of a site. Electric,water,sewage. If that is covered by teh 50% then the remainder ( whatever that might be) can be applied to fixed costs, e.g. mortgage,taxes,insurance,etc. Something is better than nothing

Now, at our home base CG, we haven't had a vacancy since last fall. May is typically a slow month and we are packed. The CG is not Passport, but it would be of no value with our occupancy.

I've been a Passport member for many years, as others said, it generally pays for itself in a couple nights, but I've left my membership expire as many of the places are off the beaten path and not big rig friendly. It just doesn't fit our travel patterns which is now to go from destination CG to destination CG, just spending a night or 2 traveling and keeping close to our planned route.

[SDcampowneroper]

Michelle.S wrote:
It's better for the CG to get 50% for an empty site than $0.00

Good luck to you with a loss for a business plan

[Michelle_S]

It's better for the CG to get 50% for an empty site than $0.00

[Community Alumni]

SDcampowneroperator wrote:
Be very careful to see which sites in the camp are available for PA discount. PA camps also have the discretion to assign only certain sites for the discount.
They may be already filled, poorly serviced, or nearly impossible to level in.
GIMIC101 get you in, bait and switch Why would a quality camp give it away for less than cost?

Not so. We have never been assigned a bad site because we used PA. Park operators use PA as a means to attract customers during their slow times of the year.

[valhalla360]

jdc1 wrote:
They were not accepting Passport America anywhere the last few times we went out. Covid losses. Call to make sure they are excepting it.

Odd, we left last September went west from Michigan, across to Wyoming, down thru Utah, to California, then east across Arizona, Texas and into Florida before working our way north thru the Appalachians. Over 8 months we used 18 different PPA parks...none indicated any issue taking it due to covid.

[jdc1]

They were not accepting Passport America anywhere the last few times we went out. Covid losses. Call to make sure they are excepting it.

[Vw_triker]

I agree not always the best parks, but I have stayed in some very nice parks.
I like pa, great to use when inroute to destination, or back home.
Some don't have limits on stay.