Since I'm a GS Life Member, I'll have to say I like it
It all depends on how you RV. We are sightseers (we've seen the major places, now we look for out of the way, lesser known sights), retired, and tend to go for months at a time. For us, GS worked out to be the best, most dependable discount club. We've tried the others, but, found that with our travel style and their "black out days" (where their discount isn't any good) that we just couldn't get their discounts. With GS, if it is a GS campground, you get the discount. Being sightseers, we use our RV as a base camp to go the various sights in and around wherever we are staying, only coming back to roost when we are done for the day. GS campgrounds have the quality and locations that serve our needs. The other club we belong to is KOA (since 197
. Folks will complain that KOA is expensive, but, for us, their uniformity in amenities and quality make that "extra expense" worth it.
If you, on the other hand, prefer rustic camping where you camp and sit, mainly a "family get away" time, one of the other clubs may work for you, just make sure you go to their websites and look through their campground listings and "black out dates" to make sure that you'll get your money's worth. Many folks do just fine by them, but, trying to work my sightseeing schedule around the fewer campgrounds that those clubs have and contending with the "black out days" didn't work for us.
As for the GS ERS...again, I have their Platinum Service. Have only used it once and that was for our car (not RVing at the time). Blew the transmission cooler fitting on the radiator connection. Called ERS, they said they would have tow truck there in an hour (showed up in 50 minutes) and would tow to XYZ Repair. I asked if they would tow to the dealer (another 2 miles) instead and they agreed. They called back in 60 minutes to verify that the tow truck had shown up. Called us back again in 2 hours to make sure that we had been towed and were satisfied. I can't complain about the service.
One thing you have to keep in mind... These road service companies are merely clearing houses for receiving distress calls and they farm the call out to the nearest tow/service operator working under contract for them. Timeliness and services are really dependent on how close a contractor may be to you, how many other calls they may have and what the call will entail (a closer contractor with just a smaller tow truck may not be chosen because your call may require a heavy tow for, say, a DP or a large 5th wheel). Since I
am a Good Sam Life Member and based on my limited experience with their ERS, I choose to stay with them. You'll hear lots of nightmare stories about any of the services, but, you have to take them with a grain of salt. For someone to complain that when their DP broke down half way down the Extraterrestrial Highway and it took 5 hours for someone to show up to tow them and then they wouldn't tow them an extra 50 miles to the site of
their choosing is just plain wrong. BTW, the Extraterrestrial Highway if you've never been down it, is about as far from civilization and in the middle of nowhere as I can remember being for quite some time...
Ultimately, the choice is something you'll have to decide on based on cost and what a given club or road service program will do for you based on your needs. For the way we RV and the back roads we prefer to use, Good Sam Club, KOA and Good Sam Platinum ERS works for us.
Good Sam Club
Linear Mode
