The Great Join Up And Save Hunt

mhoc

As to wether NT and English Heritage memeberships are worthwhile it firstly depends on where you live. English Heritage only has Beeston Castle in Cheshire so we mainly use our membership when we are in Yorkshire on hoilday. Just visiting two or three places when we are away makes it worthwhile. NT has three places around here, Biddlup Grange, Little Moreton and Errdigg (excuse spelling!). Again we do better in Yorkshire so we tend to base our hoildays around our membership.

We also now face the problem that now ours are teenagers they moan about going to see yet another pile of rocks in Yorkshire!

Another disadvantage is if you spend far too much in the tea room or the gift shop your savings might not be as much.

We also have YHA membership so ideally we like to try and use all three cards when we are away

Mary

oramgepekoe

We bought National Trust life membership 11 years ago when it was much much cheaper.
A few years ago both my husband and I were jobless for 4 months. Money was tight but we could still visit National Trust places for free.

Middlestitch

If you're a fan of classical music, being a Friend of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (https://www.rpo.co.uk) is a great deal - two half price seats to their concerts means you can cover your annual subscription of £20 in just one visit. Lots of other benefits including two free rehearsal passes to concerts at the Royal Albert Hall and (if you pay more) some completely free tickets.

Middlestitch

Dance/opera fans might like to join the Friends of Sadlers Wells (https://www.sadlerswells.com). For £40 a year you get two vouchers each giving you two seats for the price of one, a voucher for a free programme, 20% of most ticket bookings and lots more. Again, one visit (if you use a 'two for one' voucher) can more than cover your sub.

slonik

If you are really in to art, it might be worth joining a gallery. Tate (https://www.tate.org.uk) has annual membership for £54 which is free entry to all exhibitions at both the London galleries, and the ones in Liverpool and St Ives too. It includes entrance for up to 6 kids, but if you want to bring a partner along you need to add another £20 to the membership price. I think there are about 5 major exhibitions a year at each of the London Tates, and they normally cost £7 to get in. So it is only worth it if you go to most exhibitions in London - or go to each more than once, or have lots of kids who are willing to go to galleries! But if you live/work near Tate Modern, it also has a very nice members' room/cafe overlooking the river. The Royal Academy also has a membership scheme - you get admission for two people and up to four kids for £70 a year to all its exhibitions. They also have a members room, a magazine and you get to see the exhibitions before they open to the public. For both, the cards don't have photos or anything on them, so you can probably lend them to friends too.

loopy_lou_6

when I was on holiday this year I met a lady with kids who told me about some membership scheme you could join whereby in the first year of joining you could send your kids on one of their hols for free, like a summer camp thing. I've forgotten who she said it was could it have been the yha or some churchy thing? Does anybody know?

girona002

xadoc wrote:

Same goes for NT for Scotland @ £1,110.00 which doesn't seem to mention reciprocal benefits abroad... only in Britain. I think we'd be highly likely to use NT benefits abroad so it'd be worth the extra money.


xadoc, my Dad works for the National Trust for Scotland and ALL National Trusts (Scotland, England, Australia, New Zealand, Canada etc) offer reciprocal benefits. The only difference is NTS is cheaper!!!!!!!!

xadoc

Fab, I shall re-investigate! :beer:

Cal_Culater

Sorry to sound boring, but the idea of spending a large amount upfront on a Life Membership to the National Trust or English Heritage or similar is not that good an idea.

If you invested the money instead at (say) 5% you get nearly enough each year to pay the annual membership, and still keep nearly all your capital. Using current NT published fees:

Savings interest rate 5 %

Life family £1,354.00
Lost interest £67.70
Annual family £73.00
Amount of profit from Life v annual £5.30

Life joint £1,190.00
Lost interest £59.50
Annual joint £68.00
Amount of profit from Life v annual £8.50

Life Individual £985.00
Lost interest £49.25
Annual Individual £40.50
Amount of profit from Life v annual -£8.75 !

In the case of the individual membership, it's actually cheaper to join annually (although individual life membership does give admission to 1 guest)

The amount of real profit from life membership is so small that it will take you a very long time to get your life membership fee back, even if the annual fees do inflate over the years.

sondheimsoc

For any of you who are into musical theatre: if you join the Stephen Sondheim Society you get the chance to buy CDs and DVDs at well below shop prices, plus sometimes discounts on theatre tickets.
Lynne

Lynne Chapman
Administrator
The Stephen Sondheim Society
http://www.sondheim.org
[EMAIL="sondheimsociety@sondheim.org"]sondheimsociety@sondheim.org[/EMAIL]