Taz&Tigger Posted August 13, 2006 Share Posted August 13, 2006 My wife and I are looking at getting a Premium Membership but don't really know if there is much point. Are the caches generally better? Is there a way of finding out if there are any member-only caches in the area before spending money on getting the details? Many thanks Taz&Tigger Quote Link to comment
lakeuk Posted August 13, 2006 Share Posted August 13, 2006 My wife and I are looking at getting a Premium Membership but don't really know if there is much point. Only yourself can answer whether a premium membership will be of value to yourself - many people on this forum will give their opinion on why you should or shouldn't be a Premium membership, whether it's to contribute to the running of gc.com or to use the extra services that premium members get. Even the owner of gc.com has the opinion that you shouldn't get a premium membership just for the members only cache I personal don't have Premium Membership because I've not got a need for the extra services at this moment in time. Are the caches generally better? No, MO caches quality will vary just like Non-MO caches Is there a way of finding out if there are any member-only caches in the area before spending money on getting the details? No, if there was then there'd be no point to a members only caches Dave Quote Link to comment
Taz&Tigger Posted August 13, 2006 Author Share Posted August 13, 2006 My wife and I are looking at getting a Premium Membership but don't really know if there is much point. Only yourself can answer whether a premium membership will be of value to yourself - many people on this forum will give their opinion on why you should or shouldn't be a Premium membership, whether it's to contribute to the running of gc.com or to use the extra services that premium members get. Even the owner of gc.com has the opinion that you shouldn't get a premium membership just for the members only cache I personal don't have Premium Membership because I've not got a need for the extra services at this moment in time. Are the caches generally better? No, MO caches quality will vary just like Non-MO caches Is there a way of finding out if there are any member-only caches in the area before spending money on getting the details? No, if there was then there'd be no point to a members only caches Dave You've missed the point. It would be a good idea to see if there were MO caches in the area (without details) in order to see what you're missing. Also, I would expect MO caches to be of a better quality simply because those who have set them and those who look for them have all spent money and noone likes to waste cash. Quote Link to comment
Deceangi Posted August 13, 2006 Share Posted August 13, 2006 Getting Premium Membership just for MO caches is not worth it. To see if there are any MO caches near by do a search for caches from your location using the search ability on your profile (you will have needed to have entered home coordinates for this to work) any MO caches will have the blacked out figure next to them. And lakeuk is correct MO caches does not guarantee quality caches, their just like any other cache except that there is restricted viewing of the details. What is worth spending the money on PM, is the ability to bulk download PQ's (Pocket Queries) which can be manipulated by 3 party software. PQ's give you the cache description and the last 5 logs on the page, they can be filtered before downloading by various category's. And can be displayed on PDA's or sent to mapping software on the PC/PDA/GPS The ability to create Bookmarks of caches, these allow you to add comments to each caches bookmark. The ability to ignore caches so that they do not show in your search results. The fact that PM's get to see new features to the site first, and because you get a warm fuzzie from knowing that your supporting the running of the site Quote Link to comment
+Pharisee Posted August 13, 2006 Share Posted August 13, 2006 I suspect that most Premium Members 'joined' for the additional benefits such as Pocket Queries rather than for members only caches. As a fully paid up member, I have the choice of whether to make my caches MO or open to the general hoi-poloi . What I usually do is make them MO for the first couple of weeks or so to give members a chance to be the first finder and then open them up to everybody once they've been found a time or two. Not every bodies way of doing it but it works for me. As has been said so many times, in so many different threads, "It's only a game... play it your way!" Quote Link to comment
+mikeswalks Posted August 13, 2006 Share Posted August 13, 2006 On the subject of premium membership, can anyone tell me how to renew an annual membership that has just expired by PAYPAL - i'm just going round in circles at the moment, getting brassed of to the point where I wonder if I can be bothered renewing or not ! Quote Link to comment
+tteggod trackers Posted August 13, 2006 Share Posted August 13, 2006 i went premium to go paperless,must've saved the money in paper and ink by now. Quote Link to comment
markandlynn Posted August 13, 2006 Share Posted August 13, 2006 On the subject of premium membership, can anyone tell me how to renew an annual membership that has just expired by PAYPAL - i'm just going round in circles at the moment, getting brassed of to the point where I wonder if I can be bothered renewing or not ! Use the Groundspeak shop to buy it they accept credit cards now. Link on the home page of gc Quote Link to comment
+Family Hodge Posted August 13, 2006 Share Posted August 13, 2006 On the subject of premium membership, can anyone tell me how to renew an annual membership that has just expired by PAYPAL - i'm just going round in circles at the moment, getting brassed of to the point where I wonder if I can be bothered renewing or not ! Use the Groundspeak shop to buy it they accept credit cards now. Link on the home page of gc I have just tryed to do this and this infernal invention of Beelzebub will not display the page when i go to check out. Will try later, well i will get the all knowing all seeing light of my life to do it for me [My Wife] .She has a way with this elastictrickery Quote Link to comment
+mikeswalks Posted August 13, 2006 Share Posted August 13, 2006 I have just tryed to do this and this infernal invention of Beelzebub will not display the page when i go to check out. Will try later, well i will get the all knowing all seeing light of my life to do it for me [My Wife] .She has a way with this elastictrickery I've been working with this elastrickery since Catweazle was a lad, and I can recognize poor usability when I see it. Quote Link to comment
+Family Hodge Posted August 13, 2006 Share Posted August 13, 2006 I have just tryed to do this and this infernal invention of Beelzebub will not display the page when i go to check out. Will try later, well i will get the all knowing all seeing light of my life to do it for me [My Wife] .She has a way with this elastictrickery I've been working with this elastrickery since Catweazle was a lad, and I can recognize poor usability when I see it. You may have hit the nail on the head, as i struggle to wire a plug. But never stop trying or get someone to do it for you. Should i really get a PDA and if not do i need to upgrade ? Quote Link to comment
+TheRoundings Posted August 13, 2006 Share Posted August 13, 2006 The greatest beneifit for me is probably the PQ's, which I find very useful, and the pdf 's of the caches. That aside I joined because I wanted to support the site that gives me so much interest and enjoyment. I thought it 'right' to contribute to the upkeep. Quote Link to comment
+Bill D (wwh) Posted August 13, 2006 Share Posted August 13, 2006 mikeswalks wrote:On the subject of premium membership, can anyone tell me how to renew an annual membership that has just expired by PAYPAL - i'm just going round in circles at the moment, getting brassed of to the point where I wonder if I can be bothered renewing or not ! In the reminder email you should have links to PayPal. Choose the appropriate one, according to whether you want to pay monthly or annually, etc. When you pay, your payment receipt will contain a code - it begins S-. If you've paid already, look in your PayPal account for the transaction details. Go to this page and enter the code. And that's it. Quote Link to comment
+John Stead Posted August 13, 2006 Share Posted August 13, 2006 Premium Membership is well worth it for me as I have a set of Personal Queries for the home area and others which I regularily visit. I run the home ones at regular intervals and the others just before a trip and load the whole lot into GSAK (Geocaching Swiss Army Knife) in which I can sort them as I wish, e.g. distance from a certain point, whether they are FTFs, if they have TBs etc etc. From the sorted list I can immediately download to the GPSr and to Memory Map to see where they are. The combination is invaluable. Quote Link to comment
+Arse&Hemi Posted August 13, 2006 Share Posted August 13, 2006 We became PM because we just knew we were hooked from the moment we found our very 1st cache! The extra benefits of what the PM offers were just that, extras! We take advantage of the extras every chance we have (going paperless and downloading PQ is the best). And most of all, it only costs 8 cents per day to support the Groundspeak website. That's just 2 recycle cans, or even just picking up the pennies you may see lying around in the parking lots. If you only cache a few times a year, we can understand why you would not become PM, but if you cache like us (nuts about it!), then it's worth all the benefits. Besides, you already own a GPS and a computer so why not spend the extra 8 cents! [] Quote Link to comment
+The Flying Boots Posted August 14, 2006 Share Posted August 14, 2006 Another Premium Menbership adavantage is "Find caches along a route". This has been a great advantage to us we're off to the U.S.A. soon and the normal PQ of an area just wouldn't work due to the distances being so vast and us not having the time to go "off route" for long. I created 9 routes in Google Earth which form a circuit from Las Vegas to Grand Cayon, Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park and then back to Las Vegas as Klm files. Then uploaded these to geocache.com which worked out the caches for a certain distance from the route. PQ's were then formed for each and we now have a list of about 400 caches to chose from whilst on holiday. Well worth the premium membership. Quote Link to comment
BWBlackett Posted August 14, 2006 Share Posted August 14, 2006 I'm new to Geocaching and not sure if it's for me. If I sign up for a year's Premium Membership and then don't renew it will I revert back to a normal membership - will it loose all my finds ? Quote Link to comment
+mikeswalks Posted August 14, 2006 Share Posted August 14, 2006 I'm new to Geocaching and not sure if it's for me. If I sign up for a year's Premium Membership and then don't renew it will I revert back to a normal membership - will it loose all my finds ? No - you just revert to 'normal' membership Quote Link to comment
+mikeswalks Posted August 14, 2006 Share Posted August 14, 2006 mikeswalks wrote:On the subject of premium membership, can anyone tell me how to renew an annual membership that has just expired by PAYPAL - i'm just going round in circles at the moment, getting brassed of to the point where I wonder if I can be bothered renewing or not ! In the reminder email you should have links to PayPal. Choose the appropriate one, according to whether you want to pay monthly or annually, etc. When you pay, your payment receipt will contain a code - it begins S-. If you've paid already, look in your PayPal account for the transaction details. Go to this page and enter the code. And that's it. Sorry Bill - I've checked the reminder emails, and none of them have links to Paypal. I have eventually found the links to paypal (on the subscription page that you linked to) and renewed, but it could be made easier thanks for everybodies advice Quote Link to comment
+Family Hodge Posted August 16, 2006 Share Posted August 16, 2006 I have just tryed to do this and this infernal invention of Beelzebub will not display the page when i go to check out. Will try later, well i will get the all knowing all seeing light of my life to do it for me [My Wife] .She has a way with this elastictrickery I've been working with this elastrickery since Catweazle was a lad, and I can recognize poor usability when I see it. Just done it all by myself,well nearly it was payed for on V's (wife) card so free upgrade for me. It may just be one small step for most of you but its a world of frustration to me. (but getting there Slowly) Quote Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.