Georgianne

We are sorry you experienced a delay in hearing back about this issue. We were unaware that you hadn’t heard back from them directly, so thank you for keeping us in the loop about your ongoing experience. After being alerted about this again and following up, they informed us today that they have reviewed the issue and would like to reach out to you directly for the inconvenience you experienced. I've sent you a private message to get your email address, to ensure SafeRide has the correct address for contacting you. Thanks for your patience, and again, our apologies that you had a poor experience with the Roadside Assistance program. We hope that this will not be the case in the future. And for others reading this, if you experience issues with SafeRide's service, please let us know in addition to reaching out to SafeRide by emailing us at clubbusiness@escapees.com. While we cannot research the details ourselves, we can reach out to our contacts at SafeRide, and ensure your situation has reached the correct people for research and resolution. This also helps us track what kinds of concerns come up most often to inform future discussions. Thank you!

We're sorry to hear about your experience with the Roadside Assistance program. This is certainly not the level of service SafeRide, nor Escapees, wishes for their customers to have. We've contacted our representative at SafeRide and asked them to look into your issue. We're hopeful they will be able to address this appropriately and reach out to you directly.

I think there may be some confusion between Escapees RV Parks and SKP Co-op Parks. The 8/4 rule only applies to Escapees RV Parks. If a co-op adopts something similar, that is up to them, but their day-to-day operations are handled by their respective co-op boards and staff. The Terms and Conditions portion of each of our Escapees RV Park websites is where you'll find more information about the stay limits. This only applies to temporary stays, not annual leases. "Monthly/Weekly/Daily Rental: visitors may renew at the monthly, weekly, or daily rate for no longer than 8 consecutive months. After 8 consecutive months, the visitors must leave the park for at least 4 months." Regarding others' comments about shuffling guests around- that has been more prevalent in the past, but in recent years, we have moved away from doing that. We no longer move existing guests around the park to accommodate "squeeze-in" reservations for longer-term guest reservations.

Hi all! Popping in to help clear up a few things. Sadly, yes, we lost Lou Petkus a few years ago, relatively suddenly. In his absence, a couple who were active in the BOF stepped up and took leadership, and are the contact you see now in the magazine. I reached out to our chapter/BOF Directors, Jimmy and Lockie Sailer, for more information on the overall situation. Since taking over the BOF, life events have led Brock and Janine to come off the road for the foreseeable future, and we received confirmation today that they are no longer able to lead the BOF. Lockie is now reaching out to the BOF members to see if there is interest from another member in taking leadership of the group. Regarding the Facebook group, it is a legitimate group. It was created before many of the Facebook group admin tools existed, so I presume Lou had his own way of verifying membership. Currently, it is still active with posts from members. Once a new leader steps up, the Escapees marketing team will work with that person and Lockie and Jimmy to help them resolve the concern over the open FB group. If leading this BOF sounds appealing to you, please reach out to Lockie and Jimmy at chapterdirectors@escapees.com. TLDR: The Facebook group is still valid and the BOF still exists. Our Chapter/BOF Directors are seeking a new leader for the BOF so we can get information updated on all fronts.

In today's Member News email newsletter, we ask members what they (you) enjoy about RVing in the fall. We'd love to hear your favorite things in the comments below!

The updated policy that was shared with affected event attendees is as follows:

Rynosback is correct. The discount park directory is only online now, though you can download or print the list for offline use when needed. https://member.escapees.com/benefits/discountparking/discountparkdirectory/ You can also use the interactive version here https://member.escapees.com/map/ You can input your starting and end points and set the radius to see what all parks along your route offer discounts to Escapees members, as well as fellow members who offer parking on their private property. (You'll have to be logged into your Escapees account to see all of the listings, as the Parking with SKPs options are not visible to the general public.) We stopped publishing the paper version of the directory for the same reason listed- parks change management and ownership so often that in the weeks between submitting the final version for printing and distributing it to members, the information in it was already outdated for some parks. We used to publish a mid-year update and send it with the magazine, which helped, but still didn't resolve the issue. To offer a more consistent, and accurate, experience, we moved the directory to online only. When we're notified of a change in park policy, we reach out to the park to update or remove their listing ASAP. If you run into a park that no longer offers an Escapees discount, you can send that information to our Member Services Team at clubbusiness@escapees.com and it will be assigned to someone to review and address. In case you weren't aware, there are other parking discount options available to Escapees members, too. https://daysenddirectory.com/#/ lists free and inexpensive camping options such as boondocking spots, privately owned land, etc https://member.escapees.com/members/discounts/ lists the other camping programs that offer discounts to Escapees members (you'll have to be logged into your member account to see the details on discount codes, etc.) Just use the search tool to pull up "Campgrounds & Resorts."

I have an answer! As suspected (and promised) your Escapees Roadside Assistance policy (which is serviced by Saferide/VAS) does include all vehicles under the same policy. The only exception to this is what I mentioned previously regarding MDT & HDT tow vehicles that have sleeping quarters. Those specific tow vehicles need a policy of their own, per VAS. Roadside assistance is roadside assistance- as long as your vehicle isn't included in the exception above, it gets the same coverage as your RV, your towed vehicle, and/or any other vehicle under your ERA policy. If for some reason you are told otherwise when trying to make a claim, ask for a supervisor or call back and speak with someone else. Keep notes of what you're told, and copies of your receipts/invoices. Customer service representatives can and do make mistakes, but VAS will make it right. Each call is recorded, and when they learn that something was handled incorrectly, they pull the recording to review the situation and do their best to make it right for the customer.

Checking in to update that we are still working on this answer with VAS. Between our own office closures due to hurricanes and other scheduling conflicts, we haven't been able to connect with their president just yet. We hope to have an answer on this soon! I will check back in once we do

You are correct, Kirk.

Good morning! To answer the question about tow vehicle coverage- our CEO is reaching out to the president of VAS (parent company of Saferide who services our roadside assistance program) for clarification. The only exception to tow vehicle coverage that we are aware of is if your tow vehicle is a medium-duty or heavy-duty truck which has it's own sleeper cabin. In those cases, they must carry their own policy per VAS, in addition to the policy on the trailer. Now to the overarching concern- The majority of the complaints we learn about stem from uninformed customer service staff. Each time we learn of a poor customer experience, we go directly to our contacts at VAS to open a discussion and work on a resolution if possible. When VAS has made a mistake, they do their best to make it right with their customer, our member. Sometimes, the lack of service comes from members misunderstanding their coverage, though, which is tougher to resolve as smoothly. In each case, VAS tries to resolve the concern directly with the member. Because of this, we don't always learn the details of the outcome, and due to the personal nature of some, we don't post them publicly even when we are involved. Please know, though, that we would not continue promoting a service to our members which we knew to be subpar or intentionally misleading. We respect the trust our members have in this organization we have built together. To put this in perspective, more than 1000 Escapees members have subscribed to roadside assistance through our program (which is serviced by Saferide). While poor customer service is not ok, and is especially frustrating when you're stuck on the side of the road or in another stressful situation, it isn't the typical experience for the majority of Escapees members who use our roadside assistance program.

Thank you for the update! My apologies for the delayed response- we followed up with them regarding your complaint and were waiting for them to complete their research into the issue. It appears they reached out to you directly, instead Please know we are still working with them to resolve the miscommunication that led to your experience in the first place.

I'm so sorry to hear about your experiences, @daveandmary. From your comments, you're right- your experience doesn't align with the service promised. I've notified our CEO about your situation so he can follow up with our liaison at SafeRide to see what's going on, and will let you know as soon as I hear back. You're welcome to send me a message with any additional details, if you'd like. Thank you for sharing, and I hope we can help make this right for you.

I'm the Communications Director for Escapees, and want to chime in to let you know that I've seen and shared your comment with our board. This is not my area of expertise, so to avoid giving you inaccurate information, I've sought their input. I'll let you know what I find out. Thank you for bringing this to our attention!

I shared the discussion here with our CEO, Shawn Loring, who leads our advocacy efforts, among many other things. From what he shared with me below, he and others in our leadership are trying to work with the local Census administrator to determine the best way to approach this situation honestly and with accuracy. The response below is from Shawn: "Please know we maintain that our members are establishing a domicile, not a residence, when they use our mail forwarding service to connect with an area. The rules of the 2020 Census discussed in this forum allude to a residence—where one sleeps at night. Establishing and maintaining domicile requires active engagement with a chosen county/community. And, when one establishes and maintains a proper domicile, we contend that they should be counted, in the census, in that area. We are attempting to contact the local 2020 Census administrator to have our members’ counted."