New Booking System

I’ve just had my first experience of trying out the new booking system, having been put off until now by the early teething problems. I’ve been staying instead at CL sites, mostly using the excellent CL Booking app set up by CL owners themselves.

But after reading assurances from CAMC leaders that things were now better after the outcry from disgruntled members, I decided to book one night for my camper van at Bromyard Downs. Everything was straightforward and speedy at first and I had no trouble checking availability, clicking on dates and confirming vehicle details. The trouble started when I tried to pay the £14.30 fee in full as it was just one night. The payment box directed me to my credit card app where I was asked to approve payment. I approved that but I received no notification email from the club that I had successfully booked and neither the club app nor website had updated the “my bookings” section to show Bromyard Downs. I waited a while to no avail so went through the same procedure again. Still no email and no updating of my upcoming bookings. Eventually my credit card app showed one payment of £14.30 to CAMC and another pending.

I phoned the club late afternoon on Friday and spoke to a very helpful adviser called Stuart who told me that other members had experienced the same issue as me. He confirmed that two payments had been made by me but the club had not registered any booking for me. Stuart manually booked me into Bromyard Downs and I was sent the normal confirmation email while my upcoming booking section was updated with my stay. He promised to get the pending payment stopped by the financial department after the weekend and to phone me on Monday to confirm this.

It would appear the new booking system still needs improvement.

The above post does highlight a significant problem. As the club does not have a weekend presence, anyone making a late booking for Saturday / Sunday, or Monday if a bank holiday,  has nobody to ring to sort out such an issue. They can’t really wait until after the weekend, as that would be after their booking.

This non weekend cover is by no means unique to the CAMC. I have just made a C&CC booking and noted that it said, if you do not receive a confirmation email in 30 minutes contact us and we’ll get your booking confirmed, open 9:30 to 4:00 Monday to Friday.

Just tried to extent a March booking. First thing, original booking (old system) is for 11 nights, but system says 10, but the dates quoted do add up to 12 (i.e. 11 night stay). Impossible to extend without payimg a deposit. Why? This is AN OLD SYSTEM BOOKING, i.e. before the disastrous idea to charge deposits. Also, is it really fair to increase the price by £11.70 per night just because it is approaching Easter? As someone else has said, no help available at weekends so Monday I will try to get someone to make the amendment for me.

Why? Because you wish to make an extra booking/extension under the new system, I guess. If you pay the deposit you'll not lose money and you'll have secured your stay.

As for price rises at peak times, twas ever thus and is the same throughout the industry.

We have our first experience of the new booking system and find there are some fundamental issues and issues.

There is a fundamental data security risk. The system requests, totally unnecessarily, dates of birth for all members of the party. All they really need to know is whether you are adults or children. In this day of cyber hacking and identity fraud this is totally superfluous. As a result I enter fictitious dates in the boxes requested.

My surprise to find on the morning of arrival that the balance of the site fee has automatically been taken from my debit card. This despite my booking confirmation stating balance of payment on arrival. Fortunately this payment did not cause me an embarrassment on my bank balance. I now realise there is a tick box on the booking page which one has to untick to stop automatic payment. It should be the other way around. 

Data we had previously been quite happy to have on file, caravan type and length and car details, now seems to have disappeared and be entered manually every time. 

As previously noted lack of weekend support has caused an issue this weekend. A medical issue meant we could not travel on the day and there is no way to amend the booking over the weekend. 

Overall the system is very clunky and needs refinement.

https://survey.alchemer.eu/s3/90487485/Booking-Capability-feedback

This is still available to use if needed regarding the new booking system.

So many people are still finding problems and I feel that link should be given greater prominence on the website. 

I and others had a similar problem at the start of the new system. I only needed a one night booking but two full payments  got taken and no email confirmation. I cancelled everything and waited for a response then rebooked. It was sorted after a flurry of emails from me as I was unhappy that any financial dealings should go awry. CAMC will undoubtedly clear this up for you but I'm wondering why this is still happening as I would expect financial dealings to be watertight. There is obviously a blip as payments go through, whether this is a timing issue or not it shouldn't happen. 

Kintad said "Overall the system is very clunky and needs refinement."

Refinement? A decent burial and start again from scratch would seem more appropriate.

However were they to do that it would cost even more of our "membership fees", reducing the amount that the "club" could spend on essential site refurbishment, and there would not be any guarantee of the new system being any better that the poor current one.