AOPA membership

NBPD336

NBPD336

Pre-takeoff checklist
Joined
Mar 13, 2010
Messages
120
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Taxachusetts
Display Name
Display name:
Jett
Does anyone else get numerous notices about your membership expiring? I seem to get a notice every week yet my membership card clearly states an expiration of 8/31/11.
 
I get a couple of notice throughout that year. But I know when mine actually expires so I just through them out. Seems like a big waste of money to keep sending out those direct mailers, but I think they hope that some people will pay for several years of membership without realizing it.
 
Guess what... you'll get them almost monthly even when you aren't a member.

What a waste.
 
That is what I was thinking, how much are they wasting by sending out these multiple notices. I would think that money could be better spent. Or as Scott said maybe they do get enough people that renew that it does actually make them money.
 
NBPD336 said:
That is what I was thinking, how much are they wasting by sending out these multiple notices. I would think that money could be better spent. Or as Scott said maybe they do get enough people that renew that it does actually make them money.
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I calculated once, and determined that they spent more than my membership dues in sending me that kind of stuff. I demanded that they stop, and they never did. I eventually canceled for that and a few other reasons.

I just rejoined this year, and haven't gotten anything, but I was VERY clear when I talked to the lady on the phone that if it continued to happen, I'd walk away and never come back.
 
They sent me a new card with a new expiry date five months earlier. That provoked a phone call.
 
Ron Levy said:
As a Life Member, I don't get such notices.
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Aha! THAT's why they do it! :goofy: Sure would take a long life to make that $2,500 pay for itself though. :eek:

I've actually had my AOPA membership lapse because I got so many "renew now!" notices that I didn't even know when it really was time to renew.

I just got yet another one. I just looked on the AOPA site and my membership is good through the end of June. :incazzato:
 
In a similar inquiry, how many times a year does one need to receive communications of notification of "Your insurance will soon expire," when the notices don't come from the existing underwriting company?

HR
 
I allowed my membership lapse simply because I no longer use any of their services. Every thing they do can be found elsewhere free. ( or at least cheaper )
 
Speaking of AOPA, I just read this "guest editorial" at ANN. I'm wondering what the peanut gallery thinks about it.

http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?ContentBlockID=0535425c-a719-487a-a3af-4864dbcd8c0f&

What Is AOPA's REAL Agenda?

If I believed for a minute that AOPA was about safety rather than building membership numbers, I might be inclined to write that check. If I believed that by selling insurance, credit cards, and California wines that AOPA was creating revenues to promote regulatory reform to prevent, among other things, poorly trained pilots from getting into the national airspace system, I would have found my checkbook.

If I believed that AOPA was working hard to heighten the training and experience requirements to become a certificated flight instructor, I would have happily supported the cause. If I thought that AOPA was promoting regulatory reform that required low time pilots to undergo an annual, rather than biennial, flight review, I would have been there with my dollars.

But this is not what AOPA is about. Instead, AOPA is a membership organization. Like a labor union, its purpose is to support member interests, right or wrong. Highest among these interests is to block any legislation that potentially represents a burden on its membership and to support any legislation that benefits its membership.
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Everskyward said:
Speaking of AOPA, I just read this "guest editorial" at ANN. I'm wondering what the peanut gallery thinks about it.

http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?ContentBlockID=0535425c-a719-487a-a3af-4864dbcd8c0f&
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His third paragraph is spot on. His first two have some merit but I think the problem is that he may think that what he deems the member interests may only really be his interests or at least not yet the majority of the members.

I think there are also a great number of people in AOPA who are member because they love flying but may not actually get in an airplane on a regular basis but feel like they are part of the pilot community by joining. Their interest is to basically get the magazine and couch fly. Nothing wrong with that but it causes the organization to skew a bit towards serving those people as well.

My biggest complaint about AOPA is that they are seemingly doing far more fund raising than they do advocacy. The big miss last year on the revised FCC rules about ELTs is a perfect example. How many people does AOPA have watching NPRMs and the Federal Register? How many do they have handling direct mail offers of the wine club, legal protection services, medical services, etc? I am guess that the ratio is not 1:1 at all. Maybe 1:M with M being much greater than 1.
 
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ScottM said:
I think the problem is that he may think that what he deems the member interests may only really be his interests or at least not yet the majority of the members.
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I think that is true but it also can be true of any large organization. I haven't given this too much thought. I was just surprised to see that particular opinion expressed because in all the time I've heard people talk about AOPA I've never heard anything along those lines.
 
Everskyward said:
I think that is true but it also can be true of any large organization. I haven't given this too much thought. I was just surprised to see that particular opinion expresses because in all the time I've heard people talk about AOPA I've never heard anything along those lines.
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Oh absolutely. AOPA is not suffering from anything that any other large organization does. I am a life member of the ARRL. That is a ham radio organization and many of the same complaints that I see levied at AOPA are thrown at ARRL too. I think it really has to boil down to a basic question that each person has to ask themselves. That is, does the organization meet my needs better than any other organization? If the answer is no, then you should take your money elsewhere. Otherwise you should send in the check.
 
Automatic renewal, no multiple cards.
One before renewal that it is coming up, and one after with all the stuff that comes with the new card.
 
ScottM said:
His third paragraph is spot on. His first two have some merit but I think the problem is that he may think that what he deems the member interests may only really be his interests or at least not yet the majority of the members.

I think there are also a great number of people in AOPA who are member because they love flying but may not actually get in an airplane on a regular basis but feel like they are part of the pilot community by joining. Their interest is to basically get the magazine and couch fly. Nothing wrong with that but it causes the organization to skew a bit towards serving those people as well.

My biggest complaint about AOPA is that they are seemingly doing far more fund raising than they do advocacy. The big miss last year on the revised FCC rules about ELTs is a perfect example. How many people does AOPA have watching NPRMs and the Federal Register? How many do they have handling direct mail offers of the wine club, legal protection services, medical services, etc? I am guess that the ratio not 1:1 at all. Maybe 1:M with M being much greater than 1.
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I get the FCC Daily Digest in my e-mail every day. Only takes a few minutes to scan for items of interest. AOPA could do the same. I also get the table of contents of the Federal Register. FAA comes right before the FCC there. Hard to sneak something by if you take less than 10 minutes a day to check.

BillTIZ said:
Automatic renewal, no multiple cards.
One before renewal that it is coming up, and one after with all the stuff that comes with the new card.
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I do the same. I don't get reminders in the mail every week. :D
 
Ghery said:
I get the FCC Daily Digest in my e-mail every day. Only takes a few minutes to scan for items of interest. AOPA could do the same. I also get the table of contents of the Federal Register. FAA comes right before the FCC there. Hard to sneak something by if you take less than 10 minutes a day to check.



I do the same. I don't get reminders in the mail every week. :D
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Yeah that was what exactly what I was getting at. I knew you would know that it is something that is not that hard to track. To be fair it was not only the AOPA that missed it, other alphabet groups missed it too. But the point is that if your mission is to be one of advocacy to the government you have to remain vigilant and actually watch out. It used to be much harder to keep an eye on this stuff. One would actually have to read things like the federal register. Now one can easily put together alerts, rss feeds, focused email lists, etc. Often much of this is available from the agency or as a tool on one's computer.
 
I'm not an AOPA member, but that ANN author is a retard. Yeah AOPA has had organization goal creep, it happens. The author arguing that AOPA is bad, not because they are self interested in organizational growth, but because they stop more government limits:
If I believed that AOPA was working hard to heighten the training and experience requirements to become a certificated flight instructor, I would have happily supported the cause. If I thought that AOPA was promoting regulatory reform that required low time pilots to undergo an annual, rather than biennial, flight review
I wish nothing but icing, cfit, and night engine failures upon folks of that sort.
 
It's one of many reasons I am no longer a member.
 
pilot_dude said:
It's one of many reasons I am no longer a member.
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I've been an AOPA member for 11 years (I joined a week after I got my PPL).

Since I live in Israel, I cannot use any of their services (insurance / legal / flight planner / airport directory / etc.).

I can't participate in the AOPA Sweepstsakes - foreign members are excluded from this lottery...

So, why do I pay $ 66.00 Dollars every year ? (it's more expensive for members residing overseas).

Because I believe that pilots must be represented by a powerful organization that strives to defend our rights and protect our privileges.

Because I've seen what happened in Europe. GA pilots were not adequately represented and haven't managed to lobby their governments in order to positively influence decision takers.

The result ? Flying in Europe has become ridiculously expensive and incredibly over-regulated...it makes the whole thing very difficult to say the least.

When it comes to aviation, America leads the way and everybody else is taking note.

My country (like many others) adopts most of the FAA rules and regulations - so we're directly influenced by decisions taken many thousands of miles away.

Being an AOPA member is my small contribution towards strengthening our collective voice - each additional member makes a difference - when you meet a congressman or some other official - having 400,000 members behind you makes a huge difference in terms of bargaining power.

Is AOPA perfect ? Certainly not. Who is ?

And regarding the renewal notices, I solved that problem long ago when I joined the automatic renewal program.

Alon
 
I've kept my AOPA membership over the years, not because of anything AOPA has particularly done that's great, but because without AOPA, the AOPA Air Safety Foundation probably wouldn't have existed.

I've more than gotten my money back out of ASF's information, training, and seminars.

Mainline AOPA? It's just for another magazine in the pile here, that's usually way behind the Internet these days, anyway.
 
I've been a member for four years, and will probably continue despite the annoying phone calls (if you ever give them a dime, they will call you non stop looking for more) and "expiration/renewal notices" that come 7 months early.

Reasons: I like their online flight planner, forums, and magazine. I also like how well they organized and pushed back on user fees back in 2007/2008. They fought the Bush admin, FAA, and the airlines on that issue, and they managed to stalemate them, effectively ending it. They have also saved quite a few airports from being closed/annexed/ regulated out of existence by unfriendly cities and states.
 
I never really got them - then I paid for a membership earlier this year and I am getting them all the time now and have yet to get an actual membership card.
 
Calling or emailing AOPA and telling them to stop sending notices and/or calling works. Firmness and perhaps repeating oneself may be required but eventually they will stop.

The line that worked best for me was: "I renewed my membership, I didn't lose my mind. Stop all mail, calls, and emails regarding contributions or membership renewal."

It was firm to the point of possibly being rude but I didn't appreciate that the onslaught of spam restarted once I renewed membership. I haven't had any more AOPA spam since it was shut-off a couple years ago.
 
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