Any tips for getting National Trust membership discounted?

JulieM

A little tip for you Stan in Devon. Look out for National Trust greeting cards (widely available in card shops) with the red sticker 'free pot of tea for 2' which has a voucher inside. The cards cost around £2.69 which is similar to the cost of a pot of tea so pay for themselves. The current voucher expires on 1 January 2014 and can be used in most NT properties. Maybe consider using one for a birthday card for your wife!

qetu1357

Stan.In.Devon wrote: »

Hello again. Just planning where next to use the New Zealand Historic Places Trust ticket next week. Now have both the National Trust and the English Heritage handbooks courtesy of Ebay so they will help a lot. Will report back, briefly, with the moneysaving results as and when.

Suggestions welcome of course (preferably polite ones though :-)

And just happened to be reflecting on my having been given a good telling off about my low moral standing for using the NZHPT pass (see above)....when I happened to spot that the very same individual who has been castigating me for such dreadful immoral misbehaviour has been on here in October '10 (Towed away for parking on hydrant) telling us all that they parked, on a pavement, over a marked fire hydrant (both the "H" post plus the yellow paint on the cover being present and visible) and received two Parking Charge Notices and was subsequently towed away and charged £250 recovery fee.

AND THEN having admitted the offence on here, asked, on here, what grounds they might have to avoid the payment and shortly afterwards posted their enquiry on Pepipoo (the site which advises on the avoidance of payment of parking fees).

This is the individual who spent all that time telling myself and others above that our morals are so deplorable.

This was one of their quotes directed at me...."If you can live with yourself so be it, but I couldn't if I was you. Some of us obviously occupy the higher ground".

........"THE HIGHER GROUND" !!!

Ahem... I think not!

Moral high ground - NO
Moneysaving - NO!
Pot/Kettle/Black - YES!




Quote....
I think I will try my appeal based on

a) they could have contacted me to ask me to move the car
b) fire service would move the car if they needed to .

Are you serious? Your (or your neighbour's) house is on fire, they want to use the hydrant to supply water to put it out, your car is parked over the hydrant, and you want them to find you - by knocking on all the adjacent doors, maybe??....and then politely asking if you wouldn't mind, awfully, just moving your car sir? OR you want them to spend precious minutes dragging or bouncing your blessed car off the hydrant that you have parked over (not always as easy as you might think.....I speak from experience) - however I can further assure you that, if the need was great enough and you (or your neighbour) was hanging out of a window with their trousers alight, your car would have been shunted off the aforesaid hydrant with questions being asked later, not at the time.

So there's you asking for any loopholes to get out of paying your PCN's and towing fee having illegally parked over a fire hydrant...and then accusing myself and others in the way you did of low moral standing...........

One thinks one is having a laugh.

Wow, you are trawling through all my posts and the best you can find is nearly three years ago?

(Text removed by MSE Forum Team)

Anyway it is not the same.

First of all “they could have contacted me to ask me to move the car”. When they were about to lift my car a neighbour came out and told them which number I lived at. Why didn’t they then come to our house (10 doors away) and ask my wife to move it? Well they wouldn’t have got their £250 to move the car would they. Note also I had to have another car picked up and moved recently and it cost £80. Why does the council then charge £250?

Secondly ”fire service would move the car if they needed to”. I spoke to a fireman friend at the time and he said in the exceptional unlikely event that a car is blocking a fire hydrant they smash the window and move the car – takes seconds. And it would be an exceptional unlikely event as I do not recall a fire in our road in 13 years.

So is it not you and I who are the same.

It is you and the council – money grabbing with little morality.

And finally I appealed and got the £250 back – I had to, however and rightly, pay the 2 fines…………..

Itismehonest

grahamc2003 wrote: »

You seem very anxious to keep repeating the word 'charity' as an emotional support for your, imo, odd stance on this issue.

Were the NT a charity in the sense that say the Salvation Army is a charity, and a deprivation of twenty quid would likely lead to 20 unfortunate people not eating one evening, your stance would have some merit.

But, although a charity, I feel it is also an extremely ruthless business empire too, and far from providing roofs over the heads of the poorest in society - as most associate with a charity - the NT provides very exclusive expensive accommodation for generally the upper class who can live out their final years in the style to which they have been accustomed.

So perhaps in your argument you should stop pushing the emotional 'charity' word. Take that away though, and I don't think you have any valid points at all - moral or legal.

:T
I've lived in an area in which the NT has land & properties although most is still privately owned. You won't find anyone who has lived around here for any length of time who thinks any differently to the views you've expressed. The only thing I'd point out is that they also snap up ordinary properties if there's enough accompanying land to add to their acreage & increase their grants. Having seen what they're like on a daily basis (most of the land is neglected) not one of us would put a penny their way.
I'd rather visit a home which a family still own & pay to help them maintain it & stay there than to any of the NT's artificially staged museums.

zagfles

Stan.In.Devon wrote: »

For those that don't have the pass it was very apparent that they want you to pay the extra ten percent which they charge in order to Gift Aid your admission fee. The Gift Aid price of £9.60 was listed above the “standard” price of £8.70 on the information board price list outside the entrance office and after totalling up the bill of the people in front of us in the queue the assistant advised them “that’ll be £ **** sir, which is the Gift Aid price…if you want to pay a bit less for the non Gift Aided admission it’s £**** “ ..… which rather sounded to me as though it was designed to make customers feel guilty and mean for paying the ‘standard’ price and not the Gift Aid price…which theNational Trust have increased by ten percentover the standard price!! By all means offer a Gift Aid option, but they're charging you another ten percent more for the privilege of doing so? They further invited customers to pay even more than that in the form of a donation, should they so wish. The leaflet states:- “Including a voluntary donation of at least 10%. (my highlighting). Visitors can, however, choose to pay the standard admission prices which are displayed at the property….”

That's the rules for gift aid. Admission must be either 10% over the standard admission, or be an annual pass.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/charities/gift_aid/rules/admissions.htm

If you're a higher rate taxpayer, or claim tax credits, it's usually worth paying the extra 10% as you get more than that back in tax relief or extra tax credits - provided you remember to claim!

qetu1357

zagfles wrote: »

That's the rules for gift aid. Admission must be either 10% over the standard admission, or be an annual pass.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/charities/gift_aid/rules/admissions.htm

If you're a higher rate taxpayer, or claim tax credits, it's usually worth paying the extra 10% as you get more than that back in tax relief or extra tax credits - provided you remember to claim!

Stan seems to be on a mission to deny the NT income.........

First of all he wants to visit properties without paying the NT anything, now he wants to stop other visitors from gift aiding their admission fees.

Remember the less income the NT gets the less places they can preserve for us to all visit.

qetu1357

Stan.In.Devon wrote: »

Quick update to all those moneysavers who have asked about saving money on NT admission. Just visited our ninth property and achieved the moneysaving milestone of having now saved the entire cost of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust five years and six months membership. Five and a half years of NZHPT membership cost £137 for Joint Senior Citizen Membership (one of the couple has to be 60 or over....the other can be any age). The entry cost to those nine properties would have amounted to £143.40. Admittedly I've not been entirely consistent in calculating the saving insofar as I've used a mix of both 'Gift Aid' admission and 'Standard' admission prices....but eiither way we're now in the black and the remaining four and a bit years will be a bonus.

If we'd chosen to buy an annual ticket (at £92) then obviously we still haven't broken even and it would need next year's annual subscription to be taken in to account in order to get in the black.

Haven't been asked to pay for any car parks as yet (but would obviously pay if requested) and have met no resistance from staff...indeed, quite the opposite - all very friendly. Usually spend some money in the properties (cafe, handbook, overpriced trinkets etc) so they get something out of me...and I'm no trouble to them...quick look round the house and a stroll in the gardens.

Don't intend to be continuing the debate over ethics and morals as discussed in the previous nine pages. As has been noted, this is a moneysaving site not a moral debating forum. The standard annual joint cost was marked up on a board today at £92 but there always seems to be an offer of some sort online or wherever so those who don't want to subscribe to the NZHPT need to search for offers and/or use cashback sites or any of the other methods of getting a bargain as may or may not be at their disposal and as have been debated here.

Whatever you say money saving and morals are NOT mutually exclusive.

Stop ripping off a charity for heavens sake.

roar349

Typical...

Spent a lovely day out at an NT site yesterday and looked at an annual membership for the family when we got home. Had the offer of money off when you signed up for DD but only annual available online and would rather do it monthly, rang today as you can do monthly over the phone but the offer for 3 months free is no longer on (and no longer cashback at quidco either)

I'd rather give the places I visit my money but looks like I'll have to go with NTS for the cheaper price/ability to set up monthly DD online...

Cheesedoodles

The 9 for 12 discount seems to be back on for National Trust. It's not on their website yet by the looks of it.

Use code: F14001 when you check out.

I just signed up at got 25% off (when paying by Direct Debit)

AIOLOS

Cheesedoodles wrote: »

The 9 for 12 discount seems to be back on for National Trust. It's not on their website yet by the looks of it.

Use code: F14001 when you check out.

I just signed up at got 25% off (when paying by Direct Debit)

Using the above quote works...

Poolie

Cheesedoodles wrote: »

The 9 for 12 discount seems to be back on for National Trust. It's not on their website yet by the looks of it.

Use code: F14001 when you check out.

I just signed up at got 25% off (when paying by Direct Debit)

Certainly does work. Had been looking for a code.