If you don't use it, don't join.
Like many organizations, clubs, member groups, etc the PADI Travel Society offers great discounts to active members with the emphasis on active.
It also keeps the involved diver up-to-date on everything scuba.
It's only junk mail if it doesn't apply to you. It may not be junk mail to many others. If you're not traveling to the Caribbean, a discount on a trip there is 'junk' mail to you. Send it to me!
There is more general and specific information in Sport Diver than you can read and absorb in one month not to mention lots more specials that are unique to that magazine.
Only PADI has a cert-based (not DAN) Diver Accident Insurance.
Only PADI has a real, kick-'em-out Quality Assurance program.
Only PADI tavels worldwide offering 'Get Into Scuba' events.
Only PADI has an worldwide Environmental Awareness program.
Only PADI has a worldwide computer certification check for divers and instructors.
Only PADI has a sport scuba research organization to make scuba safer.
AND
Only PADI spends thousands monthly on ads in dozens of non-scuba magazines to promote the sport of scuba!!
However, the decision to renew or join is easy - if you are active and involved you will benefit. If you are just having fun doing the odd dive locally, you'll not likely get a lot of benefit. As Norcal says, if you have to ask about the benefits, you're obviously not using them so don't join.
May I respectfully suggest that, if PADI didn't exist, the scuba world would be poorly served by the other 25+ disorganized, argumentative, uncooperative local certification agencies who do damn little for the diving community at large. Because PADI is run in a business-like manner and charges market rates for its services it grows and becomes stronger and more valuable to the sport of scuba each year.
PADI has it's faults but re-investment in the sport of scuba is not among them. The growth of scuba worldwide is largely thanks to PADI. Have you considered that the dozens of wanna-be cert agencies that have sprung up in the last 5 years would not exist if not for the interest & growth in scuba generated by PADI?
Like it or not, PADI is the current mover & shaker in scuba (see poll at
http://www.scubaboard.com/t6126/s.html .
I can't help but respond to Steeldiver. CMAS has been struggling to become a big player for almost 1/2 a century. Their claim to fame seems to be that they are cheap. You get what you pay for, which, in the case of CMAS, is nothing (I'm a CMAS 3 Star instructor). If you think that a French based certification card is going to give you access to diving around the world you clearly have not been keeping up with international news. The list of countries that will NOT respect your CMAS card grows longer daily. If you restrict your diving to Continental Europe and a few other small pockets around the world, CMAS will do nicely. Of course, no resort these days will refuse to take you diving if you have any 'C' card - and US dollars of course!
Personally I don't want a 'C' card that will 'get me by'! I don't want to have to slide my card across the counter so no one else will see it.
BTW, we have our annual trip to RSA coming up this fall. Do you accept francs there now or do you still prefer Uncle Sam greenbacks?
Seahunter
PADI 11374
NAUI 5224
ACUC 453EA
CMAS CDN00017
+ DAN, SSI, NASE, CURE and several other equally inconsequential certifications.
