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Luckily for RVers, there’s an abundance of RV clubs to join. When one club falls short of meeting its members’ expectations, people can and do go elsewhere. FMCA is the latest RV club to witness members leaving faster than birds migrating south for the winter.
There’s not a singular reason for members leaving. But today, we’ll share why we canceled our FMCA membership (any why hundreds of others are as well). Let’s get started!
What Is FMCA?
The Family Motor Coach Association (FMCA) is an RV membership club that began in 1963. It strives to bring the RV community together and provides various perks, programs, and other resources to help with RVing. While formally a club for motorized RVs only, the company expanded to allow towable RVs to join. The club has more than 138,000 members, including in Canada, Mexico, and Great Britain.
What Do You Get With FMCA Membership?
When you join FMCA, you get a subscription to its monthly magazine and several other perks. A bulk of the extras involve access to group rates on various programs. These programs typically are for insurance, mobile internet plans, and tires. Many RVers join for the FMCA Tire Program alone, as you can save hundreds of dollars.
Additionally, members can also access members-only communities and large in-person social events. Some members find the online and in-person community to be one of the biggest perks, as the RVing lifestyle has the potential to be rather lonely.
Why We Canceled Our Membership
After being full-time RVers since 2017, we found that we didn’t use our FMCA membership often enough. One of the big reasons we were sold on the FMCA membership was the rave reviews of the Tire Program. When we were ready to buy new tires for our truck and RV, we thought we would get some great deals.
However, when we began shopping through the FMCA Tire Program, we realized the majority of the deals were for Class A tires. Unfortunately, we ended up purchasing a total of 12 new tires for our truck and fifth wheel elsewhere. Not finding discounted tires was disappointing as we didn’t receive one of the more significant benefits offered through the program.
Another reason we opted to cancel our membership was the new changes to their affiliate program. There was updated verbiage to the contract, that in our opinion, sought to end honest testimony among their partners. Our policy as Getaway Couple has always been to partner and endorse companies that stand by their products and services and don’t feel the need to control the message.
Overall, our values no longer aligned with FMCA and we weren’t receiving enough annual benefits to cover the increasing membership cost. In our eyes, these reasons were enough to cancel our membership.
Why Others Have Canceled Their Memberships
FMCA has seen a dramatic exodus of members in recent years. Many members were disappointed in what they felt the community had become. Many former members described the elitist attitudes that seemed rampant at social events. Those with larger, more expensive motorhomes seemed higher on the social ladder than those with towable RVs.
Speaking of towables, many didn’t like the 2017 decision to allow towable RVs to join the club. This caused a great divide and likely led to some of the elitist attitudes that members witnessed at events. Less than two years after making this change, FMCA also raised its annual dues by 40%. The price increase was the final straw for some club members who chose not to renew their membership.
With families and younger professionals becoming RVers, the RVing community is becoming more diverse. However, many members felt FMCA caters too much to the retired or older demographic. They host midweek rallies, which can be more difficult for families and working professionals to attend.
It’s easy to see why members are canceling, especially when they’re not part of the club’s target demographic. If they can’t use some of the best benefits, the membership is useless. Combine that with the fact that you feel like an outcast when you do attend events, and you’ll likely have buyer’s remorse when it comes to your membership.
When the world shut down due to COVID-19 and the global pandemic, the FMCAssist benefit did as well. This benefit is for emergency medical evacuations and repatriation coverage. However, buried deep in the fine print is a pandemic exclusion.
A member posted on the FMCA forum saying she spoke with an FMCA representative after her husband died from COVID-19. She was trying to get home, but because her husband died due to the pandemic, FMCAssist didn’t apply to her situation.
When challenging circumstances happen, clubs tend to go in two directions. They either step up and help their members as much as possible, or they come up with excuses for why they can’t. This is the difference between great clubs and clubs you might want to reevaluate joining. You want to know the club and its benefits will be there to help when you need them most.
Exclusive for Motor Coaches for a Long Time
While the club was founded in 1963, they didn’t start allowing towable RVs until 2017. It was an exclusive club for motorized RVs only until this point. This exclusivity gave the community a bad reputation, and many of the senior members had pompous attitudes when it came to opening the club to other RV types. Many felt the fancier and more expensive the rig, the more pretentious the owner’s attitude toward other members.
While some weren’t happy about accepting towables into the club, many believe it was out of necessity. The club was declining and needed to adjust and embrace the growing towable community. For some, this decision was bad, and they preferred being a part of a club exclusive to motorhomes. Instead of embracing the change, they left the club.
FMCA Raised Its Prices
Two years after making a significant decision to change the demographic of the club, FMCA raised its membership fees. It raised its annual membership from $60 to $85. While this is just over a 40% increase, most members wouldn’t have a problem with it if they felt it was justified.
However, FMCA raised its roadside assistance coverage from $74 to $129 for towables and $159 for motorized units four months later. For a club that seemed to pride itself on exclusiveness and elitism, price increases were a sign to many members that the club was struggling.
Overall Club Membership Declining
When the club released its 2021 budget, it was a shock to many club members. There was a $230,000+ budget deficit. This deficit is even after terminating 15 employees and the club making other budget cuts.
The club’s president, Jon Walker, even shared the hard numbers with the club’s board members. He shared how members were leaving faster than new members were coming in. They anticipated losing 600 to 700 members in one month alone. The club having to pull the funding for FMCAssist, one of its best benefits, will likely increase the number of members exiting.
We Switched to Good Sam Club
Good Sam Club is a great alternative for those looking to leave FMCA behind. The new club has memberships starting at $29 per year and provides many exclusive membership benefits. You can even save 10% on more than 2,100 parks and campgrounds around the country. Members also enjoy discounts at Camping World and Gander RV.
The club is open to all RVers, without the pompous attitude. All RVs use fuel, and an added benefit of Good Sam Club is the $0.05 off gas and $0.08 off diesel per gallon at Pilot and Flying J. There are online communities that are exclusive to members, as well as RV tour events.
Pro Tip: We have a complete guide to the Good Sam Club to help you decide if it’s a better fit for you.
Should You Avoid FMCA?
After seeing how FMCA turned its back on its members when they needed it the most, increased prices, and struggled to pay the bills, it’s not a hard decision. With better options available to the RV community, joining FMCA anytime soon could be a gamble.
FMCA is in a pivotal time for its club. Will it recover from the issues of the past several years? Or will it join the long list of businesses that no longer exist? Do you still have your FMCA membership?
I wouldn’t give Marcus Lemons my money for anything. Good Sham Club another of his tentacles.
My FMCA membership allows two free nights a month camping at their campgrounds. I will pay for my membership staying there this month alone.
I guess my skin is a little thicker and I don’t really care what others think about my membership with a fifth wheel.
I believe FMCA only has one campground and it is in Cincinnati, is that correct?
You neglect to mention FMCA had to cancel some of their large rallies AND refunded or credited monies paid by members. At the same time they had already committed to vendors and had to make those payments. That was a big part of the dollar deficit. We are members of FMCA and other groups. Only FMCA refunded reservation payments.
I must say that I did benefit from the FMCA tire discount to put all new tires on my towed car. And I saved enough money to pay for my FMCA membership for a few years. However, I went to one of their rallies and it left a really bad taste in my mouth. Because I happen to be camped in the area already, I didn’t want to break camp and camp at the rally and I decided to just attend for one day with a day pass. If I recall correctly the day pass was about $20, but the seminars were not nearly as good as the seminars at an Escapees Escapade I had attended the year before. I wasn’t feeling like I got my $20 worth, then in the afternoon they announced it was time for free ice cream. As I lined up, a woman pulled me out of line! She was so rude and so embarrassing. She said that day pass people could not have the free ice cream. This, despite my paying $20 and not getting $20 worth of seminars! A friend of mine happened to be working security and he said I can’t believe what I just saw, he said I will get you some ice cream. And he did. Later on, they had lots of ice cream left and they were begging people to come and take it! I believe I was the only day pass person, but come on! You would deny some of your cheap ice cream and do it in such a rude way? This would never happen at an Escapees event. Also Escapees has the same emergency roadside service for a lot less money.
Obviously you can’t satisfy everyone so to each their own.
I’m glad that FMCA is one mess we’ve missed out on. We did have Good Same roadside assistance but when we needed them for an issue , they couldn’t find anyone willing to help. We were in a park in San Diego, a major metropolitan area. After repeated phone calls, I was basically told I that they had no one to respond. We now have Coach-Net.
I feel the same way about markus lemons, was thinking of fmca but not helping a fellow rver is enough said. I will not, older na not traveling as much coach net and escapees is plenty. A lot of things have changed in the last 20 years, a shame. I started traveling in 87 due to layoff and changing from button pusher for dupont to silver and gold smith doing shows all over the country. Now i am retired, the whole country is going to crap.
Like many, we were on the fence too. But then I received an email from FMCA to refinance for 3.62%. This alone will save me almost $2800 the first year.
We have FMCA simply for one reason. Tech Connect. The $50/month Sprint plan (We’re waiting to see what they do with it going away in June) is the plan we use exclusively for entertainment when we have a decent signal which has been pretty good most of the time. Our ATT plan is for work.
Not all of your facts are right. Some of the problems we are working on changing perception. We do welcome towable and motor driven RVers are not better. I do admit we have some old fogies’ just leave them behind and socialize with someone else. We are all out to experience seeing this wonderful land we live in. We are fortunate we are getting the younger generation that want to get involved and are slowly turning this big ship around.
I save enough insuring my rig with FMCA Insurance (Progressive), to more than cover for annual membership. Then, every time I purchase a printer ink cartridge at Office Depot, using my FMCA discount number, I save again. Of course, there are savings when I buy Class A tires. We also belong to FMCA chapters, of which FMCA covers liability insurance for. FMCA Membership is a GREAT deal.
Talk about a biased piece!
Tire discount NOT JUST FOR CLASS As…I have purchased tires for two tow vehicles, Michelins saving just over $70 per tire…that is equal to 12 years of membership. They recently added a company that has special trailer tires for the towables. I haven’t used it but will check it out when I need new ones for my rig.
Membership was only raised for a year and currently back at $60 for the first year and $50 after that.
FMCAssist- No coverage for Covid-19!!! NO ONE HAD IT two years ago. But as a benefit it is at NO CHARGE, included in the membership. As a single traveler I wanted to join FMCA for this benefit alone even before they allowed towables.
Roadside…great service. The good sams plan is a three tiered system and if you get the wrong one you will be stuck on the side of the road. This has been an issue posted online several times. And if they weren’t running a 50% discount right now it would be higher than the FMCA plan…you get what you pay for. I have heard that they (good sam) have lower reimbursements to providers and are at the bottom of the list for responding to calls thus long waits on the road.
Snobs…I thought that at first, I was one of the first towables to attend a convention and felt out of place among those talking about their $100k to $1m dollar “coaches” but I got over it, volunteered at the next one and made some great friends.
Good Sam no longer supports their chapters but FMCA has a push on to absorb those abandoned groups and give them the support they need to grow.
I have Good Sams discount club but it isn’t worth it. I can buy supplies from Amazon just as cheap and get them delivered to me. Campground discounts from FMCA, Escapees, AAA, military and other orgs are the same. A few pennies off a gallon of gas would take a long time to add up to the annual membership cost (about 580 gallons) but Pilot FJ are often more expensive than the place next door.
Since I started RVing 5 years ago I’ve had FMCA, Escapees and Good Sam (which won’t be renewed next time). Each has it’s own perks.
Do your homework and don’t just rely on bloggers being paid to advertise for your RVing information.
My wife and I attended the FMCA International Convention & RV Expo for the first time in Perry, GA (March 2023). It was an outside event except for the exhibitors and classes, and it was very cold outside! We were thankful we brought two layers of coats! We couldn’t figure out where to park or how to get to the main attractions. The volunteers driving people around in golf carts were very friendly and helpful, suggested where to park, and took us to the ticket center!
We have been researching Class C and B+ gas RVs and are hoping to buy a used one, so we’ve been going to the local RV shows to walk through the models on display to help us decide what manufacturers, floor plans, and options are important to us. We were impressed by how many exhibitor booths were there, but we primarily came to see the RVs. We couldn’t figure out where to go based on the map, so we just started walking and finally figured it out. Clear and frequent signs pointing out public parking, ticketing center, and main attractions would have been helpful.
After walking over the whole RV exhibit, we found out that GREAT MAJORITY of RVs on display were Class A’s (maybe 60-70 of them, including some high dollar ones!). We saw TWO diesel Class C’s, ZERO gas Class C’s, maybe 5-6 Super C’s, ZERO Class B+’s, maybe 6-7 Class B’s, maybe 7-8 5th Wheel Trailers, and ZERO Travel Trailers. Although we enjoyed looking at the RVs on display, we were very disappointed that there were no Class B+’s or gas Class C’s AT ALL for us to see. We could not figure out a good reason for such an unbalanced RV selection on display. I emailed FMCA about the above, but I never heard anything back from them.
My wife and I attended the FMCA International Convention & RV Expo for the first time in Perry, GA last March (2023). It was an outside event except for the exhibitors and classes, and it was very cold outside! We were thankful we brought two layers of coats! We couldn’t figure out where to park or how to get to the main attractions. The volunteers driving around in golf carts were very friendly and helpful, suggested where to park, and took us to the ticket center!
We have been researching Class C and B+ gas RVs (planning to buy a used one), so we’ve been going to the local RV shows to walk through the models on display to help us decide which manufacturers, floor plans, and options are important to us. We were impressed by how many exhibitor booths were there, but we primarily came to see the RVs. We couldn’t figure out where to go based on the map, so we just started walking and finally figured it out. Clear and frequent signs pointing out public parking, ticketing center, and main attractions would have been helpful.
After walking over the whole RV exhibit, we found out that the great majority of RVs on display were Class A’s (maybe 60-70 of them, including some high dollar ones!). However, we saw only TWO diesel Class C’s, ZERO gas Class C’s, maybe 5-6 Super C’s, ZERO Class B+’s, maybe 6-7 Class B’s, maybe 7-8 5th Wheel Trailers, and ZERO Travel Trailers. Although we enjoyed looking at the RVs on display, we were very disappointed that there were no Class B+’s or gas Class C’s AT ALL for us to see. We could not figure out a good reason for such an unbalanced RV selection on display. I emailed FMCA and expressed our concerns (not to mention the additional concern of holding an outside event in the wintertime), but I never heard anything back from them.