Thousand Trails Booking Tips

[EddieK82]

Hello,

We just upgraded our Thousand Trails membership to Elite because we plan on fulltiming within the next year. I have been trying to book in the system, and I have to say, their website and booking is horrible. It's a guessing game for dates and we are having a lot of issues getting into the Encore parks we like because they're full the same day the new 60 day window starts.

Do you have any tips or recommendations I could use to get the parks we want?

I'd also like to add, they should remove the 55+ age restricted parks off the map for adults who buy thousand trails and aren't 55+, I think that's false advertising IMO.

[geotex1]

Unfortunately, this has become the norm with TT. They TREMENDOUSLY oversold the program! Nikki and I were in the program super early, and even with that status in the hierarchy it was getting to the point we weren't even able to use what we invested each year. We sold our stake about 5 years ago now. About the only tip I can offer is to check it constantly because MANY, many members reserve because they can and then cancel later when the know they can't make the reservation.

[EddieK82]

Thanks, yes, that seams to be the trick with this, book everything and anything then cancel or switch. I'm shocked with the money they are getting their website is so bad. How did you sell it, just incase we want to in the future. And are there other ones that are better?

[D2Reid]

The other trick we learned was to book when you purchase. Making the purchase dependent on getting a reservation motivates them to get a reservation, no reservation, no sale.

[BB&LAB]

We have had better luck calling to make reservations than using the website. Like any RV park, time of year, popularity of the park and of the area are factors that play into availability.

[[email protected]]

Hello,

We just upgraded our Thousand Trails membership to Elite because we plan on fulltiming within the next year. I have been trying to book in the system, and I have to say, their website and booking is horrible. It's a guessing game for dates and we are having a lot of issues getting into the Encore parks we like because they're full the same day the new 60 day window starts.

Do you have any tips or recommendations I could use to get the parks we want?

I'd also like to add, they should remove the 55+ age restricted parks off the map for adults who buy thousand trails and aren't 55+, I think that's false advertising IMO.

We have found many TT's allow long term renter's and that cuts down the sites for the rest of us. We just came from one park that had ropes across about 20% of the 50amp sites, when we asked about getting one of those empty sites we were told they were holding them for people. Most of them were empty the entire 3 weeks we were there. Good luck getting into an elite park. We have been trying for 4 years. We call on the first day we can and have never gotten in. And we're not trying for holidays. We are very disappointed with our membership most of the time.

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[EddieK82]

We have found many TT's allow long term renter's and that cuts down the sites for the rest of us. We just came from one park that had ropes across about 20% of the 50amp sites, when we asked about getting one of those empty sites we were told they were holding them for people. Most of them were empty the entire 3 weeks we were there. Good luck getting into an elite park. We have been trying for 4 years. We call on the first day we can and have never gotten in. And we're not trying for holidays. We are very disappointed with our membership most of the time.

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I'm not happy with Thousand Trails, either. Like you said, it's been impossible to get into most places and we have 180 day out booking. And, encore is the worst with 60 day out. No matter what we do, we can't get in anywhere with them.

[jillhope7]

I searched TT to see what was said about it because I am also disappointed with my membership, and it seems I'm not alone. The people I've spoken to at the parks couldn't be nicer, but I've canceled two of the three reservations I've made because the available sites were so unappealing. I had a reservation due to start this Sunday and I went in my car to check it out (we've got a huge rig and I wanted to scope out possible sites before I had the rig attached), and after my visit I decided to cancel. Only a handful of sites were long enough and they were all practically on top of others. And most current occupants clearly seem to live there full time based on the permanence of their setup. I also saw a lot of sites that were roped off as "occupied" even though they were empty.

Our first stay was almost worth the cost of the membership, but I don't think I will be reupping again at the end of my year.

[BB&LAB]

The other trick we learned was to book when you purchase. Making the purchase dependent on getting a reservation motivates them to get a reservation, no reservation, no sale.

Am I missing something, I am not sure I understand this, purchase what? If you are talking about purchase of the membership, your approach can only work one time upon purchase of the membership and if you know at that time when and which park you want to go to.

[D2Reid]

Am I missing something, I am not sure I understand this, purchase what? If you are talking about purchase of the membership, your approach can only work one time upon purchase of the membership and if you know at that time when and which park you want to go to.

You got it. Why do I mention this? It's because after purchasing one year whenever we would attempt to reserve a site at a location we desired via there reservation system it would be unavailable. Calling the call center was a little more effective, but essentially we paid for something that was sold out at the location we desired at the time we desired. Now, if we wanted to go to different Thousands Trails other than the area we desired, we could go there. Or we could wait till the middle of the winter and there would be lots of availability. See, camping available, so why would be disappointed?