I took out memberships to 2 chains. They were both being offered at half the usual joining fee. The most recent I took out because I was going to tassie and planned to stay at a couple of their parks on the trip. Essentially, the saving on that trip was the cost of the joining fee and any further stays will be a "real" saving. Yes, it's not much, but a dollar's a dollar. I asked to book 2 days to cover my night sailing on the second day, but they let me have that day for free as a "late checkout" which was late afternoon to go to the boat.
The other one you can get a bag of ice or something, as well as the discount. It isn't that hard to tot up enough days to get the small benefits on offer.
They also have deals with retailers that offer discounts to members. I tend to ask for discounts, but for some people, getting a flat percentage can be worth it.

A few years ago when used to spend 6 mths or more on the road every year we became members of the then two dominant chains.  Their programs were simple, just offering nightly discounts & we quickly recouped our membership fees.

 

These days we only go for two or perhaps 3 one month trips per year often to single locations rather than touring, we have let our memberships lapse.

It seems to me that there are more chains now and to give coverage you may have to join several making the cumulative membership outlay a bit much to recoup with discounts etc.   I find their loyalty programs a bit complex & confusing or maybe it's my failing cognitive ability and lack of interest in saving at the margins.

We just pick the CP that suits us best & has suitable available sites (we are rather picky) and if we are interested in reducing costs, look for the 'pay 6 & get one free' type offers or try for Seniors discounts.  We'd rather get a good site & enjoy the trip rather than trying to save a few dollars.

In 2018 we stayed at a CP at Kinka Beach on the Capricorn Coast QLD for 6 weeks.
It was privately owned but while we were there it was taken over by Discovery Parks.
The new management were giving away free memberships so we accepted one.
We used it a few times here & there, saving a small amount of money.
When it came up for renewal we decided not to.
We couldn't see ourselves redeeming the cost.
Pre covid we saved lots of money with Travel Auctions.
Eg: 10 nights on a lakeside powered site at Wallaga Lake near Bermagui for $170.
10 nights on a powered site at a station in the Flinders Ranges for $210.

-- Edited by 86GTS on Thursday 1st of December 2022 06:25:49 PM

As Dougwe mentioned families joining, one of the benefits on one or other is equipment hire.  That could be worth it if you've got kids and will use it for them. 

We just spent 10 weeks travelling around Queensland and stayed in plenty of CPs, we were already members of Big 4 but also joined G'day Parks while we were away. We stayed mainly in the G'day parks because there seemed to be more of them in the places that we went. G'Day parks have a tiered system - stay certain numbers of nights and you go up in levels giving more benefits.  Having said that the benefits that we now get on the top tier we probably wont use like a free bag of ice, early check ins, late checkouts, free use of park hire equipment. Apparently we get a couple of free nights a year and we have already been saving a few dollars on each stay.  Is it worth joining  - only if you plan on staying in those parks a lot otherwise the cost of joining is probably going to outweigh the benefits. 

BB

Meredith wrote:

---

but they had a special on their website that gave us considerably more off than the 10% discount their card would offer and you couldn't use both on the one booking. We have also found many parks will give us an equivalent 10% off as a seniors discount in off peak times, again cannot get both discounts.

---

 The good thing I've found is that the booking staff figure out for me what gives me the best deal.

We joined a couple of the chains and possibly got our money back on savings, but let them lapse. For us, it is a moot point as to whether it is value for money because the particular chains are often not where we want to be. We normally use CPs more than free-camping and like to pick the CP on location rather than loyalty/membership.

Rob,
We joined Kui Parks for a 2-year period. Soon after joining, a special price (better than we paid) was offered. Found only one Kui park in a recent 8000km trip where we wanted to stay, Sapphire (Qld). Stayed one week (lovely park) and discount for a week stay was same as member's discount.
My opinion, membership is a waste of time and money.
An example; You stop at a town with 2 van parks, one you are a member of and the other you're not. The second one looks nicer and is slightly cheaper. What do you do?
Cheers,
Roy.

I joined two reward memberships in 2017.

I travelled through SA VIC NSW and Qld in that year and I found the memberships were not worth it for me.

My observation was that the parks that I was a member of, were either not suitable, too expensive even with the freebies offered or just not in the right place or location if compared to some other No brand parks.
I also was taking the option to use free camps or Showgrounds etc and I wish I had have put a bit more thought into it before I paid out my money.

Would I do it again?

No.

The pricing at some of these branded CPs can be interesting.
We recently stayed at a Big4 in Melbourne and just booked online for a regular powered spot.
I think They were quite full.

The spot was fine, but very high density, a bit like a Coles car park.
OK, but a bit too tight for our 'personal' space......

'Madam' noticed that they had en-suite sites as well.

We weren't really looking for those but out of curiosity drove back up to reception to enquire if one was available.

We had the choice of 2. For $5 extra!

A nice concrete pad (2 concrete wheel tracks) to park on, power and water hook ups and our own en-suite which was really in quite good condition.

Nice to be able to have a long shower sometimes..........