Facebook  has allowed me to reconnect with many people from both grammer school, high school, college, and anything after that.  So what does this have to do with The New York Pass?  Bear with me, I'll get to that in a soon.

 A group of us from my college had decided to get a reunion going.  It wasn't an official decade reunion like the 10-year, 20-year etc.  It was a reunion of a group of us that used to hang out.   Then another group that my wife and I hung out with (she and I dated in college), got together back in July in New York City.  I looked into the New York Pass as a way of saving some money. 

I figured that if I am trying to sell something perhaps it would be best to really know something about the product that I am promoting.  I've been doing that a lot with many of the products I am attempting to sell and I believe it's making a difference.  So I purchased a New York Pass (http://www.newyorkpass.com) for myself and my wife.  I also tried to convince members of my group that I was meeting with to do the same.  One of the members of the group did decide to go for it and purchased passes for his whole family.  The others ignored the suggestion and did not.  This gave a great dynamic on whether it was worth doing.

We essentially had about half the group that had the New York Pass and half that didn't. What I discovered is that if you plan on trying to accomplish many of the paid events that are included in the New York Pass then it can definitely save you money.  But be forewarned.  Although there are a lot of events that are included, you can get stuck on a schedule of visiting the attractions just so you can get your money's worth.  There is plenty of free things to do in New York City (and all other cities as well) that are totally free.  As an example, visiting Central Park is a personal favorite of mine.  

I really believe that you can save some serious bucks when using the New York Pass but I also felt the group that purchased the card wanted to really make sure that they got their money's worth.  That could have made us do things in New York City thought we would not have done if we had to pay full price for it.  A perfect example of this is the New York City Skyride in the Empire State Building.  Now, it was kind of cool to experience it but I really am pretty convinced that I wouldn't have spent $35 if I hadn't had the New York Pass  So for me it's the whole contemplation of the opportunity costs of being able to be free to do what you want as opposed to doing what is "on the list" so that you can get make sure that you cover the cost of the pass.

 I don't know - I am on the fence.  I really believe that you can save some money if you are visiting New York City and decide to use the New York Pass.  My parents are avid travelers and they have always said that on the first day of your visit to your destination you should do a tour and learn everything you can about the place you are at.  Then, do the rest of the vacation on your own equipped with the knowledge from your tour.  That is some good advice.

But it made me wonder, is the New York Pass almost the same as doing a tour of New York City?  I had purchased a two-day pass for my wife and I and on the second day we were not with the group.  But we didn't really do much with the pass on that second day and we did save money overall.

This experience has taught me that you must, YOU MUST, use/buy/learn about the product you are trying to sell to others.  You have to be able to ask, "Do I feel good about purchasing this product or service myself?"  If you can't truthfully answer that, how can you possibly expect that message to come across to your customers?