Lesson Learned about Renewing Thousand Trails Zone Pass

[trailertraveler]

During a recent stay at a Thousand Trails Park in Florida, I stopped in at the office and inquired about renewing my membership which was due to expire within the 60 day reservation window. I was given a phone number and called it. I clearly stated that I wanted to renew. I was informed that I would receive a new membership number. Unfortunately, this did not set off any alarms in my brain. It turns out that I was in fact issued a new membership number for a new membership that started the day after my phone call not upon expiration of my current membership. I therefore had two memberships for a little over a month. I also discovered that I was charged sales tax on the new membership but had not been on the old membership. Apparently this is the result of purchasing the new membership through a representative of the Florida RV Park rather than through the corporate call center. I was given credit back to my credit card for the duplicate month, but was unable to recover the sales tax. 

[agesilaus]

When you lie down with dogs, expect fleas.

Edited May 27, 2021 by agesilaus

[trailertraveler]

3 hours ago, agesilaus said:

When you lie down with dogs, expect fleas.

I take it your not a fan of Thousand Trails which is fine with me. It is not for everyone. The two years that we have had the zone pass, the cost of stays at their parks in Florida and Arizona, that we like, has come out to less than $10/night. Last year during the pandemic travel restrictions, they waved the time out restrictions allowing us to stay in a park in Florida for six straight weeks with no additional fees.

My intent in posting this was simply to make others that have and want to renew their zone pass aware that renewing through a campground might not have the same result as renewing on line or through the corporate 800 number. 

[dblr]

Good info that might save someone some aggravation down the road. We just did a transfer because of a death in the family and corporate was very good in helping us complete it, no transfer fee and the dues even remained frozen which worked out great for us.

[GR "Scott" Cundiff]

If you like Thousand Trails and plan on using the campgrounds a lot you might want to get a national membership rather than the zone pass.  https://www.campgroundmembershipoutlet.com/ is the best known reseller.   

Edited May 28, 2021 by GR "Scott" Cundiff

[trailertraveler]

On 5/28/2021 at 10:24 AM, GR "Scott" Cundiff said:

If you like Thousand Trails and plan on using the campgrounds a lot you might want to get a national membership rather than the zone pass.  https://www.campgroundmembershipoutlet.com/ is the best known reseller.   

Thanks for the suggestion. We are not fulltime. We are based on the East Coast and do not plan on travelling to the West Coast. The zone pass is not much more than the annual dues for most of the other memberships. Given our ages and how and where we like to travel, it is highly unlikely that we would ever recoup the transfer fee and purchase cost of a national membership. The only real benefit would be the increased reservation window which so far the 60 days has not been a problem at the times of year we travel.

[Barbaraok]

The key is to only use the online pay feature for the Zone Pass, never call any number a campground gives you, that will almost always get you to a firm that is marketing for TT.    Or if you really want to call, go online and use the phone number listed for for TT - again, the numbers the parks give out are almost always tied to a marketing operation.