I am thinking of taking a trip around the Sth.Gippsland area of Victoria and I happened to look up the RACV Resort site in Inverloch to check their current pricing. As of 1st July '14, they want $40 for members or $50 for non-members per night for a basic site. This goes up in the shoulder season and peaks in the high season at $54 and $74 respectively. They are currently offering a deal where you stay for 3 nights and pay for 2. This effectively means that for members it brings the nightly rate down to around $26 which makes it a pretty reasonable offer given the quality of the park.
My concern with their pricing policy is that for much of the time, the site fees are outrageously expensive from an organisation which is supposed to be there for their members. The RACV now seems hell bent on becoming this monster tourism organisation that sees itself buying up all sorts of resorts in various states and then upping the pricing through the roof so it can fund further expansion.
The RACV Cobram Resort is no better. In fact the best you can get there is a stay for 4, pay for 3 deal. This is only for a limited period and their pricing is identical to Inverloch.
My question to forum users, is this type of pricing what we should expect from RACV or should they be encouraged to rethink their strategy and give a bit back to their members via more affordable rates?
I agree with you Happy Camper about the quality of both facilities. When I first went to Inverloch, just after it opened, I thought it should be used as a template for all future caravan parks. Plenty of space to spread out in, foliage between sites for privacy, perfectly level sites with concrete slabs, even heated floors in the amenities block, not to mention the great heated indoor pool. Unfortunately, the cost of staying there just kills it stone dead.
The dumbest thing about it is that whenever we stayed there in the past, admittedly in off peak times, there was almost nobody else in the caravan park section. Suited us just fine, but wouldn't you think the penny might have dropped and the gurus who run the place might have just twigged to the fact that they needed to look at their pricing structure. Personally, I reckon that having a reasonably full park at say $25 or $30/night is way better than having an empty one at $40 or $50. Maybe that's just me!!!
Agree with all the above comments it used to be a motoring organisation looking after members but now it is all big business and the profits do not go into lowering roadside service or insurance premiums Just another big business but they forget we are the shareholders Ken
-- Edited by ken thomas on Wednesday 9th of July 2014 02:02:19 PM
The NRMA is doing exactly the same and one of the reasons is the board has a number of ex politicians, who are just in it for what they can get from the long suffering members.
Cheers
David
I could not agree more with the negative comments expressed. I was a member of NRMA and am a member of RACT. I used to have all my insurances, house car van etc. with RACT until i ran a comparison search. Not any more! saving myself heaps. I will never encourage them by patronising their overpriced establishments. I use only their roadside scheme, and if there was a viable alternative I would not even use that.
I must admit that part of my disappointment with RACV is linked to their treatment of our house and contents insurance a couple of years ago. We also had everything else insured with them but they decided all of a sudden to increase our house and contents policy by 500%. Their rationale was that they believed our property was flood prone despite the fact that we have never had any form of flood anywhere near our property in the past 20 odd years that we have lived at the address. Nor had we ever made a single claim on any of our policies with them.
Despite our protestations at what we saw as an outrageously unfair and unjustified decision, their State Manager said that was how they saw it and no correspondence would be entered into. So just like you Friar Park, we did a bit of investigating as to what possible options we might employ and would you believe it, they were everywhere we looked. Not only did we escape the ludicrous hike for our home, we also found numerous more affordable quotes for our van and motor vehicles as well.
It really is such a pity that this once proud and decent organisation, which was founded on the principles of looking after its members needs, has turned on them in their efforts to join the big end of town.
