New Caravan Club booking website working for you?

[GrannyJen]

I've just booked 4 nights in Cherry Hinton, Cambridge, with the CAMC. 4 nights to use my honorary membership of the IWM and visit Duxford.

The booking system worked fine for me, although very laborious and clunky.

So, having booked my camper in I then went to book Jo's caravan. A new feature. "what car is towing".... so I put in my camper. "Sorry, tow car too big for this pitch".....

no where to say "but the tow car will be on it's own pitch"

A complete load of junk.

 

[66tim99]

I never use these club sites. I use a wonderful website called Pitchup.com. You can input your requirements and it finds a list of sites to choose from, even in August I had no trouble booking something. I really can't imagine paying through the nose for the privilege of struggling to book and then being bossed around by the little hitlers known as 'wardens' (for very good reason!)
Oh and you don't have to pay anything to join the site, just register.

Is it true there is no Pitchup app?

 

[Hawthorn37]

When looking at your ‘Upcoming Bookings’ the the My Profile section, it lists the booking ref., number of nights, unit type, cost, BUT not the site name ! Another glitch. Also, so far as I can find, once you open the booking details, nowhere to print a copy. Also, since the change I’m not getting a booking confirmation email.

 

[ArunAlec]

So far my experience of the new system that it’s not an improvement. Basic functions like looking for late availability sites are now long winded. Searching for sites in “Cornwall uk” offers results in Wales, Somerset and Cornwall.
As with most updates we will get used to it as it becomes the new “norm” but it doesn’t appear to offer any improvement over the old website.

 

[couplands]

Does anyone use the app on an iPad..?

On mine, it only works in portrait mode and lots of the text and graphics overwrites other parts of the page.

 

[ArunAlec]

Does anyone use the app on an iPad..?

On mine, it only works in portrait mode and lots of the text and graphics overwrites other parts of the page.

I try! But the overwriting makes it a waste of time. Hopefully it will be sorted.

 

[Hawthorn37]

I know it’s been said already, but any website developer or client manager who know what they’re doing would test the pages on multiple formats and multiple browsers. Perfectly good pages on a PC or Mac can appear terrible on a tablet. Likewise running on IOS or Android as opposed to Edge or Safari. It annoys me when the tester is the customer.

 

[ArunAlec]

I know it’s been said already, but any website developer or client manager who know what they’re doing would test the pages on multiple formats and multiple browsers. Perfectly good pages on a PC or Mac can appear terrible on a tablet. Likewise running on IOS or Android as opposed to Edge or Safari. It annoys me when the tester is the customer.

The App‘s reviews on Apple App Store are pretty damning….. 1.1 out of 5!

 

[Hawthorn37]

It’s not getting any better I’m afraid. I’ve just ‘booked’ a 2 night stay. The web page hung for ages after the credit card payment authorisation was done, but eventually I got a “transaction complete” message, with a booking reference - momentarily on screen. Then the page went off and I’ve got “403 An unexpected error has occurred”. The booking isn’t shown on My Bookings page, no confirmation email, but the £25 deposit has been paid on my credit card. To top that off, now the website reports the site is full for the dates we want to book. I’ll be phoning tomorrow morning when the office is open. Compared even to the semi working state prior to the so called upgrade, this is now a truly awful website!

 

[Drpps]

I was unable to pay on the iphone app as it didn’t seen to be able to cope with 2 factor authentication. It worked fine on my PC.

 

[Trevor Brown]

In my experience they offer platitudes but don’t wish to hear criticism

 

[GrannyJen]

In my experience they offer platitudes but don’t wish to hear criticism

The trust pilot reviews have tanked their previous 5* rating and sunk it to 3.8 (and mine didn't help either)....

The replies to a lot of the 1* reviews have been plastic, patronising and pathetic. The best was the bloke who gave them a 1* for giving stupid patronising replies and got a stupid, patronising reply to his review

 

[andyinluton]

I've just been trying it, am somewhat bemused with the site search, looking for a site in Edinburgh, after typing the first five letters it comes up with a number of suggestions, the first is in Minnesota, 2nd is in Texas and the 3rd is Hong Kong. Unless there are massive expansion plans in place I can't see why it cant be restricted to UK place names - especially when searching under the banner of UK sites.

A more important concern is the response the Club gave to someone on Trust Pilot trying to argue the advantages of the new website. To me it reads that they are considering Flexi pricing along the lines of easyJet with basically the more desperate you are & the closer to capacity the site is, the higher the fee.
This smacks of favouritism for the book a year ahead for a static fortnight for the caravaners & penalty charges for the leave it till the day before, see where we end up, laid back campervanners.

The text is copied & pasted below:


The new system allows the Club to offer more flexible prices to members - in future this will allow the Club to potentially set lower annual price increases than it currently does to pitch, adult and child prices; and allows prices to increase by a small amount where booking volumes are higher than expected, or, for later bookings.

 

[Hawthorn37]

I've just been trying it, am somewhat bemused with the site search, looking for a site in Edinburgh, after typing the first five letters it comes up with a number of suggestions, the first is in Minnesota, 2nd is in Texas and the 3rd is Hong Kong. Unless there are massive expansion plans in place I can't see why it cant be restricted to UK place names - especially when searching under the banner of UK sites.

A more important concern is the response the Club gave to someone on Trust Pilot trying to argue the advantages of the new website. To me it reads that they are considering Flexi pricing along the lines of easyJet with basically the more desperate you are & the closer to capacity the site is, the higher the fee.
This smacks of favouritism for the book a year ahead for a static fortnight for the caravaners & penalty charges for the leave it till the day before, see where we end up, laid back campervanners.

The text is copied & pasted below:


The new system allows the Club to offer more flexible prices to members - in future this will allow the Club to potentially set lower annual price increases than it currently does to pitch, adult and child prices; and allows prices to increase by a small amount where booking volumes are higher than expected, or, for later bookings.

It will be a massive own goal if they try that! Members would leave in droves. There are many who move from site to site on a whim and good weather.

 

[Trevor Brown]

I toured in Scotland this year, and like leaving my direction flexible, and therefore usually make my bookings on the day … it was virtually impossible to book on the Caravan and Motorhome sites - apart from 1 night.

 

[Hawthorn37]

It’s not getting any better I’m afraid. I’ve just ‘booked’ a 2 night stay. The web page hung for ages after the credit card payment authorisation was done, but eventually I got a “transaction complete” message, with a booking reference - momentarily on screen. Then the page went off and I’ve got “403 An unexpected error has occurred”. The booking isn’t shown on My Bookings page, no confirmation email, but the £25 deposit has been paid on my credit card. To top that off, now the website reports the site is full for the dates we want to book. I’ll be phoning tomorrow morning when the office is open. Compared even to the semi working state prior to the so called upgrade, this is now a truly awful website!

To follow up on the above, I phoned the CAMC office and was told that the booking I’d made was ‘empty’ as there was no availability (there was when I was making the booking, but their payment hung), and that’s why they’d taken the deposit money, but no confirmation email was sent out (go figure that mumbo jumbo!). No apology. I asked when my £25 will be returned, and the response was ‘in the next few days, when the system rejects the deposit’. Not happy, and they were told so!

 

[Trevor Brown]

To follow up on the above, I phoned the CAMC office and was told that the booking I’d made was ‘empty’ as there was no availability (there was when I was making the booking, but their payment hung), and that’s why they’d taken the deposit money, but no confirmation email was sent out (go figure that mumbo jumbo!). No apology. I asked when my £25 will be returned, and the response was ‘in the next few days, when the system rejects the deposit’. Not happy, and they were told so!

I think they are complacent because of the huge increase of Covid induced users

 

[Hawthorn37]

Another thing that’s useless is the Club WiFi subscription. We tried to complete this on 4 club sites this year, initially to pay for the annual subscription, and in the last case, for just one night as 4G was absent. In every case the payment page hung, even though we’d approved the card payment. So that’s missed revenue for the club. I mentioned this today when on the phone to the club about my failed booking. The fob off here was ‘Oh that’s a third party supplier, but we like to have all feedback’. It was the Clubs payment page though!

Has something changed with CAMC in terms of their leadership and client facing approach or have they always been tone deaf?

EDIT - Had a missed call from a CAMC agent just before 5 saying they will pay the deposit back to us or we can use it for another booking. The explanation why my booking had failed, it had timed out before the deposit payment was completed.

We are going to the NEC show today, and will give them some direct feedback.

 

[andyinluton]

Another thing that’s useless is the Club WiFi subscription. We tried to complete this on 4 club sites this year, initially to pay for the annual subscription, and in the last case, for just one night as 4G was absent. In every case the payment page hung, even though we’d approved the card payment. S

You've dodged a bullet there, only one thing worse than not being able to sign up for, thats signing up & realising it like going back to the 80s with a dial up modem.
Their deal doesn't have enough bandwidth for the number of subscribers & you are only expected to use it for accessing text based apps etc, certainly don't bother trying to stream Netflix.
The other problem is that once you've paid you will find its not working / yet to be installed on the site you happen to be staying on.

 

[ArunAlec]

The trust pilot reviews have tanked their previous 5* rating and sunk it to 3.8 (and mine didn't help either)....

The replies to a lot of the 1* reviews have been plastic, patronising and pathetic. The best was the bloke who gave them a 1* for giving stupid patronising replies and got a stupid, patronising reply to his review

Just seen this post on the CMC Forum about the 5 star (ironic?) Trust Pilot review ….. it gets worse!

2 days ago
Congratulations
Congratulations, there is now lots more availability on club sites, probably because members cannot use the website or choose not to give child's date of births away. We found a non camc site 500m from the club site, same standard of facilities but 38 percent cheaper!, this site only needed to know if the children were between an age range. 1st time on a commercial site for us. £250 loss for camc.

Date of experience: 14 October 2022

You really couldn't make it up could you? The above is a trust pilot posting made a few days ago. Nothing unusual in that except that the poster misunderstood the star system and gave it 5*. It was obviously a mistake.

However the CAMC are using this posting in all it's glory as an advertisement on the front page of their website. Here is a post that berates the club for the new booking system and rejoices in the fact that they have found a better priced alternative. Currently found on membership page!!!

So which member of staff in the communication or membership section has not fully proof read the post?

Just about sums up the organisation as far as I'm concerned. Did give me a chuckle though.

 

[GrannyJen]

Just seen this post on the CMC Forum about the 5 star (ironic?) Trust Pilot review ….. it gets worse!

2 days ago
Congratulations
Congratulations, there is now lots more availability on club sites, probably because members cannot use the website or choose not to give child's date of births away. We found a non camc site 500m from the club site, same standard of facilities but 38 percent cheaper!, this site only needed to know if the children were between an age range. 1st time on a commercial site for us. £250 loss for camc.

Date of experience: 14 October 2022

You really couldn't make it up could you? The above is a trust pilot posting made a few days ago. Nothing unusual in that except that the poster misunderstood the star system and gave it 5*. It was obviously a mistake.

However the CAMC are using this posting in all it's glory as an advertisement on the front page of their website. Here is a post that berates the club for the new booking system and rejoices in the fact that they have found a better priced alternative. Currently found on membership page!!!

So which member of staff in the communication or membership section has not fully proof read the post?

Just about sums up the organisation as far as I'm concerned. Did give me a chuckle though.

I'm just replying to their reply to me. In an attempt to smooth my ruffled feathers they have directed me to a part of their site where they have links to 8 shiny new video's explaining how to make a booking and pages of FAQ's.

In response to their implied "aren't we clever, our consumer-orientated approach to customer satisfaction" I'm simply responding that with another big charity bike ride being planned in 2023 I'm booking 13 sites and only one of those 13 feel the need to produce a video on how to make a booking!!! Even dear old Granny camping and caravanning club don't do that.

 

[WelshGas]

I'm just replying to their reply to me. In an attempt to smooth my ruffled feathers they have directed me to a part of their site where they have links to 8 shiny new video's explaining how to make a booking and pages of FAQ's.

In response to their implied "aren't we clever, our consumer-orientated approach to customer satisfaction" I'm simply responding that with another big charity bike ride being planned in 2023 I'm booking 13 sites and only one of those 13 feel the need to produce a video on how to make a booking!!! Even dear old Granny camping and caravanning club don't do that.

There should be no need to produce such videos, it should be intuitive and self explanatory.
Amazon or John Lewis + numerous others don't feel the need for " How to buy " videos.

 

[GrannyJen]

There should be no need to produce such videos, it should be intuitive and self explanatory.
Amazon or John Lewis + numerous others don't feel the need for " How to buy " videos.

My reply:

-----------------------------
For the attention of staff member Jess.

Thank you for your reply to my critical review, I have given this review a generous two stars for at least you demonstrated that you had actually read my review and addressed the pertinent points.

One of your responses was to direct me to a part of your website containing links to lots of shiny new "How to" videos and reams of FAQ"s.

In the course of my need to book 13 sites for next year I have booked one with yourselves and 12 with others. Not one of the other 12 felt the need to produce a "how to " video for what was a clear, simple and intuitive process.

Whilst sorting out my 2023 leisure activities I also booked 2 museum visits, a stay in a hotel, three theatre bookings and a restaurant in Milton Keynes. Not one of those feel the need to produce "how to " video's.

I have also in the last week shopped online with John Lewis, Amazon, waitrose, Ocado and Dash4it, not one single "how to" video amongst them, although sadly Waitrose had no green peppers.

If an organisation I want to spend money with points me to a "How to spend money with us" video then I go somewhere else. In this modern world of slick websites, intuitive model building and a customer service orientation I do not need to spend my money with organisations that feel they need to educate me with "How to" video's. The fact that the club felt there was a need to produce all those video's says all that needs to be said about the miserable failure of your new booking system. I would suggest that rather than direct customers to them you should instead be working hard to eradicate the need for them.
Date of experience: 18 October 2022

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[ArunAlec]

The upcoming AGM should be a hoot!

 

[GrannyJen]

The upcoming AGM should be a hoot!

In their Wisdom the bright sparks, or dim embers, of the club are busy touting a "Come and meet the club" open forum day at the next caravan show. I have a feeling the event is going to be oversubscribed

There are also a lot of people reminding members on club together that there is a proxy vote facility for the AGM for those unable to attend. There could be a lot of lost seats at the next vote.