had no idea they offered lifetime membership

$1000. $50/yr, so will be worth it in 20+ years.

I just hope I'm still mobile in 20 years.

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

yes I did but I am only 33 so seemed like a good deal :)

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Follow me on Twitter @CK21TRHC
I use what I love: ISM, Blue70, Trek, FLO

At that price it's not worth it for most people.....

It's like when I went to register my dogs the 1 yr and 3 yr were the same price per year. Then you look at the life of the dog and it would take like 13 yrs to save any money. While dogs can live longer then that, not only are you banking on the fact that your dog will live longer, your also banking on the fact that you won't move.

Of course with both you gotta wonder about price changes in the future

I just hope I'm still mobile in 20 years.
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I hope to stI'll have a pulse.

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Train safe & smart
Bob

Some quant could prob calc the expected return but $1,000 upfront versus invested in something else. I dunno, sounds a little steep for a lifetime membership to me. Maybe $500 or 10x the current price.

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I wish I had known about this 6 years ago.....

I agree it is kind of steep, but sometimes you pay for convenience. For instance, I would pay the $1,000 just so that when I go to sign up for an IM brand race, I know that my membership won't expire before race day.

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Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.

...still gonna need you to bring a valid USAT card on race morning, though.


edit: athlete check-in, whatever.

I've done 8 IM brand races and going off memory, I think they are 50/50 asking for it at athlete check in. I know for a fact that at IM 70.3 Raleigh last month they DID NOT ask for it.......could just be they forgot or could be dependent on which volunteer you get.

Easy to fix this.......take a picture of your card with your phone. Always have your phone with you, so you always have your card with you. I also like the little ID cards that you put on you key ring.

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Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.

But the life will go up over time... Still I wouldn't do it

So, I'm not a quant anymore and am very rusty at this stuff. But, if I've done the math right, $50/yr, paid at the first of the year, discounted at 5% will take 62 years to have a present value of $1000. Discounted at 2.5%, it still takes a bit over 27 years.

The above assumes no annual increases. I'd put the $1000 in a decent S&P500 fund and draw it down every year at license time.

Exactly, $1K invested vs. long term membership plan.. not even close.

^^^Sort of this.

Many times I register for a race that is months away. If my current membership has not yet expired, but will expire before that race, I have to re-up my membership just to provide a valid membership number that will not have expired before that race. Today is July 2016. Membership expires December 2016. Register for a May 2017 race and the system says my membership number is not valid. I re-up to get a December 2017 card.

As a result, I have two cards with two different expirations and get duplicate mailings from USAT because I assume they have two accounts for me. Add to that my wife and daughter have memberships and we get four copies of all their mailings.

I've tried to straighten them out before but that endeavor ended with my wife's (yes, wife's) membership somehow getting cancelled. The only way they could reinstate her was to open a new membership so now she and I have different expiration dates (which sucks because we do all the same races and we have to be careful to be sure we both have a valid renewal.)

So, yeah, I'd pay $4,000 for an annual membership. At $1,000 it would be a steal.

Completely agree. Paying $1000 up front is effectively giving them a loan for free. I'd be curious what they do with that money (invest in IT systems/doping program/etc?). On a purely financial perspective it makes zero sense, but if they said something like "$400 of that $1000 will go towards X" then I might be more inclined if I thought X was a good idea

I just renewed my membership yesterday and saw the option and I think they are trying to get people who can (read: choose to) afford to pay the $1k upfront so that:

1. USAT has Better cash flow - This would actaully worry me if a large percentage would do it but I assume the number of people who sign up is small
2. Keep People involved - The idea that having the $1k invested will make people continue to want to race at least once a year
3. Try and fundraise from the people who sign up for the lifetime membership to double dip. Really I think the reason the option exists is to weed out people who have a higher affinity/ capacity to make additional appeals and essentially double dip to get donations from the lifetime members again.

#2 seems off to me. If someone only wants to race once year, a $15 one day license makes a lot more sense

You're probably right. And don't get me wrong #3 to me is the overwhelming reason why it exists - and if they aren't planning on doing it someone at USAT needs some fundraising lessons.