The Basic Membership is beneficial to players who register for multiple events at a same time or play up. The cost of the basic membership Is $60 per year.
The membership gives you 25% discount of entry fees and play-up fees. The play-up fee information can be found here.

You can get credit for any tournament if you buy the pass on the same day. However, the pass gives a huge discount based on future commitment and can not factor in the past.

The Gold Pass is a $480 to $720 value as it allows you to play in up to $720 of tournaments without cash prizes or $480 per year of tournaments with cash prizes. The cost of the BayAreaChess Gold Pass is $365 for thirteen months. You may renew your gold (annual) pass if it runs out in the first year. Please note that you can't double dip by using both economy option and gold (annual) pass for the same entry. You must choose one discount. There is no limit on how much you spend each month and the pass for is valid for any tournament that Bay Area Chess organizes for running 12 months from the date of purchase. If you play in at least one BayAreaChess tournament or more every month, the Gold Pass pays off.
Note 1: Change from $540 to $480 effective January 1, 2012.
Note 2: No further discounts may be combined with this substantial discount.
Note 3: Play-up fee is discounted but not eliminated for Gold Pass members.

When we started the Gold pass, we were running quads and each section of Swiss generally once a month and by nature the tournament attendance was restructed to one location once a month. Lately, we have started running more tournaments and at different places. This includes additional tournaments are placed to fill voids in the CalChess calendar, quads in the Peninsula, and coming soon Swiss in the Peninsula. More options means more convenience for you and others. I believe the change is a good change and gives people more options. Now, if you are out for the summer or winter, you can use continue to register for each month and play twice as many tournaments when you are back. Or, if you have to miss one tournament, you can register for another.
The Gold Pass is a better value since you may decide that your kids prefer Quads or prefer Swiss and register them accordingly. Overall, the changes have been good and will get even better. We are already running tournaments 1-2 times a month and soon it will be 2-3 times. If we were to keep unlimited entries, we won't be able to offer more options and still be able to keep up with all the expenses in a tough economy with fewer entries in every tournament. I hope you will understand that you are part of the BayAreaChess community and if you have a better solution, I am willing to discuss it. This is a "labor of love" and giving the best facilities and experience for least expense.

The current discount structure is as follows... Members get double discounts.

Number of tournaments	Regular Discount	BayAreaChess Members & After-School Enrichment Students Discount
2	$2	$4
3	$5	$10
4	$9	$18
5	$14	$28
6	$20	$40
7	$27	$54