CAMC Rip Off

[Spriddler]

I also wonder about the current ratio of members to pitches on Club sites. CMC have enjoyed a membership surge since the pandemic, but capacity hasn’t increased on anything like the same scale.

It's been said many times but the CAMC business model is still one that reflects the caravanners' style of long-planned holidays, setting up for a week or more, rather the itinerant motorhomers' habit of spending just a few or one or two spontaneous nights in the same place.
That's where the system of aires is so convenient for m/homers and I have never been refused a pitch abroad when just turning up at sites without booking. Luckily I live only a 20 mile drive from France (well, Newhaven ferry port - same thing ).

 

[sol725]

Same problem, a date change due having to juggle van bitz service booking on the same site. CAMC will not be getting my renewal unless they sharpen up.

Total Price
Payments Received Total Balance
Balance payment for each stay must be made on arrival at the campsite. If you wish to pay your balance in full before arrival you can visit camc.com/my-bookings or call
£42.20
£25.00 £17.20

Cancellation Charge
Total Price
Payments Received Total Balance
Quantity: 1
Price: £25.00
£67.20
£50.00 £17.20
As per your instructions, the balance payment for each stay will be debited the night before your arrival

 

[Brains]

There is a company that produce an app called Camp Manager
https://www.campmanager.com/
We have used this product, it works, its being continuously developed.
It's not cheap, but it's a product they could have rolled out to every site if they had wanted something that actually works.

The other option would have been to buy the licence for the product and then talorise it to what is needed, again not a cheap option, but it would have worked from the start.

Instead they get a product that was designed for ferry/cabin booking and try to make it into a campsite booking product.

Which will take a lot more time and cost a lot more and is likely to always be glitchy and clunky

 

[SpeedyDux]

Think you will find solicitors do the same they buy off the shelf contracts and tweak them for their customers. If you want a custom contract written from scratch it would be an eye watering cost and software is no different.

They use precedents. Sometimes they tweak an off-the-shelf one; mostly they don't need to buy in a precendent, because they can use one from the firm's precedent bank, that has evolved over many years to cover all their practice areas, and keeps being updated by experienced support staff. Evolution not revolution. Every new contract is a variation of something already in use. Apart from the PFI contracts, I can't think of examples of them being drafted from scratch. Of course PFI schemes were not one-offs so the investment in time was recouped handsomely.

Back on topic - I don't understand why the old CMC booking system wasn't developed to include a deposit payment system. I wonder why and how the Club's management were sold something completely new and perhaps unproven in this specific area of application. Might be some kind of risky fetish thing like bungee jumping with a blindfold.

Not too late to scrap this load of rubbish and go back to the old booking system and software.

 

[cyberyacht]

~The whole deposit thing wasn't needed. Just alter the cancellation period to something sensible like 14/21 days with a penalty for late cancellation/no show. Amount to be variable to ensure compliance. Could have kept the old website and saved £5m.

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[seasideBill]

~The whole deposit thing wasn't needed. Just alter the cancellation period to something sensible like 14/21 days with a penalty for late cancellation/no show. Amount to be variable to ensure compliance. Could have kept the old website and saved £5m.

Do you really think they could pull that off? New fangled arrangements for penalty collection and handling appeals? I can hear the cries of the malcontents on ‘Club Together’ already! Probably best if the current CMC management team stuck to more pressing matters like white pegs!

ps - is the cost at £5m verified? If so, holy shite!

 

[Gellyneck]

Do you really think they could pull that off? New fangled arrangements for penalty collection and handling appeals? I can hear the cries of the malcontents on ‘Club Together’ already! Probably best if the current CMC management team stuck to more pressing matters like white pegs!

ps - is the cost at £5m verified? If so, holy shite!

Given the Club now has to hold financial detail on the new system surely they could just have done something similar with existing systems and when booking the t&c's clearly stated cancellation within x days will result in a charge of £x to the card details held. Any member sneakily cancelling their credit card gets their membership cancelled.

Think this would have cost significantly less than £5m.

 

[Arnside037]

Just got a reply from CMHC on Trustpilot:

Thank you for your review. We’re continually listening to members feedback, and we would like to thank all our members for their patience with the new booking system. We know some of you may have experienced some initial issues when making a booking but we are continuing to refine and improve the new system.
If you are experiencing any issues, please use our feedback form which when submitted is sent directly to our technical team. We are prioritising and dedicated to fixing these issues to improve your experience.
Our feedback form can be located via the following link (just copy and paste the web address into your browser):
https://survey.alchemer.eu/s3/90487485/Booking-Capability-feedback
Thanks - Steve

Some 'initial issues' my ar...e. The whole thing needs binning.
As to 'If you are experiencing any issues... it's you mate who has the issues.
The TrustPilot review scored 3.9, but this high score reflects the work done by the whole CMHC, and to be fair, the staff at the Travel Service as well as others at head office do a good job. (Well they did for me when DFDF stopped covering P&O booking while I was in France) Just sack the web team.
I hear there will be plenty of IT professionals available from Meta and Twitter to replace them.

 

[seasideBill]

Given the Club now has to hold financial detail on the new system surely they could just have done something similar with existing systems and when booking the t&c's clearly stated cancellation within x days will result in a charge of £x to the card details held. Any member sneakily cancelling their credit card gets their membership cancelled.

Think this would have cost significantly less than £5m.

Yes, maybe so, but it would have been very boring. What you now have is a “booking experience”. I smell the whiff of marketing consultants?

 

[Gellyneck]

................................ What you now have is a “booking experience”. I smell the whiff of marketing consultants?

Is that the new name for one of these?

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[seasideBill]

The TrustPilot review scored 3.9, but this high score reflects the work done by the whole CMHC, and to be fair, the staff at the Travel Service as well as others at head office do a good job. (Well they did for me when DFDF stopped covering P&O booking while I was in France) Just sack the web team.
I hear there will be plenty of IT professionals available from Meta and Twitter to replace them.

I think the current score is 3.6 which puts them in the ‘average’ category. Before all the current nonsense they were in the ‘great’ category. The only reason they’re not currently graded ‘poor’ or ‘bad’ is because the score is balanced by positive site reviews and historical feedback. Just about all recent comments are universally negative.

 

[Swifter]

Response from management? Have you considered a career in stand up comedy?

They do occasionally reply to complaints. Normally they completely cover up the problem and if needed will accuse members of telling lies rather than admit to any operational and communication errors on their behalf.

ps - is the cost at £5m verified? If so, holy shite!

If really true , I predict this will be the end of the club as we know it .

 

[Otter Spotter]

They do occasionally reply to complaints. Normally they completely cover up the problem and if needed will accuse members of telling lies rather than admit to an an operational errors on their behalf.

If really true , I predict this will be the end of the club as we know it .

Very unlikely, they are sat on a large amount of land which they supply lodges and static caravans which they could sell on and get at least 100% return on investment and much less hassle and reduced staffing levels in head office.

 

[Swifter]

Very unlikely, they are sat on a large amount of land which they supply lodges and static caravans which they could sell on and get at least 100% return on investment and much less hassle and reduced staffing levels in head office.

I was suggesting that kind of investment of “ the clubs “ money for a clownshoe software system might be enough for people to start cancelling membership on mass . Now I’ve actually thought about it ,I know that will never really happen

 

[Brains]

Do you really think they could pull that off? New fangled arrangements for penalty collection and handling appeals? I can hear the cries of the malcontents on ‘Club Together’ already! Probably best if the current CMC management team stuck to more pressing matters like white pegs!

ps - is the cost at £5m verified? If so, holy shite!

To be honest £5m is the sort of cost a good booking system would cost in the fist 18-24 months.

Once the system was developed and working, then cost to keep maintaining it at a reasonable level, would be in the order of a million quid per year thereafter.

If they actually paid £5 for the existing system and hope "that's it" once its working, then after the head of IT has been sacked then the offshore bank accounts of the directors need to be closely looked at

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[Coolcats]

Very pleased for you, but as they say ‘one swallow doesn’t make a summer…” I don’t think your single occasion negates the experience of hundreds of frustrated and disappointed members who deserve better.

Think there were a few hundred on site here so probably I’m not the only swallow

 

[seasideBill]

To be honest £5m is the sort of cost a good booking system would cost in the fist 18-24 months.

Once the system was developed and working, then cost to keep maintaining it at a reasonable level, would be in the order of a million quid per year thereafter.

If they actually paid £5 for the existing system and hope "that's it" once its working, then after the head of IT has been sacked then the offshore bank accounts of the directors need to be closely looked at8

If so, that would require about 90,000 membership subscriptions to cover the purchase. That’s a lot of paying members and all they’ve got at the end of the day is a half-arsed system that doesn’t work for all members.

 

[Coolcats]

They use precedents. Sometimes they tweak an off-the-shelf one; mostly they don't need to buy in a precendent, because they can use one from the firm's precedent bank, that has evolved over many years to cover all their practice areas, and keeps being updated by experienced support staff. Evolution not revolution. Every new contract is a variation of something already in use. Apart from the PFI contracts, I can't think of examples of them being drafted from scratch. Of course PFI schemes were not one-offs so the investment in time was recouped handsomely.

Back on topic - I don't understand why the old CMC booking system wasn't developed to include a deposit payment system. I wonder why and how the Club's management were sold something completely new and perhaps unproven in this specific area of application. Might be some kind of risky fetish thing like bungee jumping with a blindfold.

Not too late to scrap this load of rubbish and go back to the old booking system and software.

You may find the old CAMC web site was based on old software which would make it difficult to include the changes desired.

 

[seasideBill]

Think there were a few hundred on site here so probably I’m not the only swallow

Probably not, but 239 pages of negative feedback on the Club’s own forum tells its own story! Maybe some aren’t swallows but ostriches?

 

[seasideBill]

duplicate

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[Coolcats]

Probably not, but 239 pages of negative feedback on the Club’s own forum tells its own story! Maybe some aren’t swallows but ostriches?

Lol at no point have I said the software or the changes are perfect. Far from it but on the other side something must be working if sites can be booked and are full.

 

[VXman]

Have you an insight on how many \ percentage of members were actively seeking this change, revised booking process, deposits, etc, as I asked on a number of occasions but with no response?

This was an interesting respnse from CAMC to a complaint on Trustpilot.....


Back in 2018, to improve availability for all members, we changed the way we put pitches on sale to enable you to always book at least a year ahead, all year round. This new system has proven very popular.
We’ve now introduced deposits coupled with cancellation terms and conditions as the next step to improving availability. This helps address the rise in cancellations, which has been a growing problem that has increased in recent years.
In a normal year, we were seeing over 25% of all bookings being cancelled (that’s over 950,000 cancelled nights every year) Of those cancelled nights, over 25% were made within four days of arrival, so it was very difficult for other members to take advantage of the newly vacant pitches, especially in the case of a last minute cancellation or no show).
It wasn’t just a small minority of ‘block bookers’ who were cancelling, almost half of all members who made a booking each year made at least one amendment or cancellation too. As you can imagine, a lot of members all cancelling a few times a year soon added up.
After reviewing the market, speaking to members (100,000 members, new and longstanding, were surveyed) and looking at other campsite providers, the best solution to reduce speculative bookings was to introduce a deposit system. This reduces the number of speculative bookings and creates more availability for members such as yourself who, due to your work schedule may wish to book somewhere nearer to a specific date.
We know plans sometimes do have to change, so if you cancel or amend your booking at least 21 days before arrival, your deposit will be fully refunded. This will give other members enough time to make a new booking and take advantage of the newly available pitch.
We will continue to address all cancellations and amendments on a case by case basis and there will be times where a forfeit of deposit would not apply; for example if you are keeping the same dates but amending the location of the stay.

Don't have ACSI and it wasn't worth paying a whole year for three weeks in Nov/Dec.

Actually you'd be surprised. You van recoup the cost of the ACSI card with just a few nights at some campsites as the savings are so substantial. We only spent 6 days in campsites on our trip to Spain last Autumn but it was well worth the cost of the card.

 

[SpeedyDux]

You may find the old CAMC web site was based on old software which would make it difficult to include the changes desired.

We don't know if that was more than £5 million of difficulty. Or how much the Club will have to spend to fix its new system.

The next Club annual accounts may have some "interesting" footnotes about this.

 

[Otter Spotter]

We don't know if that was more than £5 million of difficulty. Or how much the Club will have to spend to fix its new system.

The next Club annual accounts may have some "interesting" footnotes about this.

Don’t expect it to be shown in black and white, more likely to be hidden in ‘toilet cleaning supplies’

 

[Clangers]

One thing we must all remember is, the club is there for one reason, to make more money, not to help anyone.

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[cyberyacht]

"In a normal year, we were seeing over 25% of all bookings being cancelled (that’s over 950,000 cancelled nights every year) Of those cancelled nights, over 25% were made within four days of arrival,"
That manipulation of the statistics tells you a lot. The cancellation period without a slapped hand was three days, so it is clear that cancellations were being made at the last minute. As I posted earlier, all they had to do was make the cancellation period a sensible length - 14/21 days - with a penalty charge thereafter. No deposits needed and even if a new booking system was required, it could have been a far simpler one to implement than the present omnishambles.

As for site occupancy, one of the CAMC forum regulars said that Black Knowle in the New Forest was much quieter than usual with about 25% occupancy.

 

[TheTwoOfUs]

"In a normal year, we were seeing over 25% of all bookings being cancelled (that’s over 950,000 cancelled nights every year) Of those cancelled nights, over 25% were made within four days of arrival,"
That manipulation of the statistics tells you a lot. The cancellation period without a slapped hand was three days, so it is clear that cancellations were being made at the last minute. As I posted earlier, all they had to do was make the cancellation period a sensible length - 14/21 days - with a penalty charge thereafter. No deposits needed and even if a new booking system was required, it could have been a far simpler one to implement than the present omnishambles.

As for site occupancy, one of the CAMC forum regulars said that Black Knowle in the New Forest was much quieter than usual with about 25% occupancy.

How would you implement the penalty charge and enforce it. With a deposit system you already have the money so no danger of it not being paid.

 

[VXman]

"In a normal year, we were seeing over 25% of all bookings being cancelled (that’s over 950,000 cancelled nights every year) Of those cancelled nights, over 25% were made within four days of arrival,"
That manipulation of the statistics tells you a lot. The cancellation period without a slapped hand was three days, so it is clear that cancellations were being made at the last minute. As I posted earlier, all they had to do was make the cancellation period a sensible length - 14/21 days - with a penalty charge thereafter. No deposits needed and even if a new booking system was required, it could have been a far simpler one to implement than the present omnishambles.

As for site occupancy, one of the CAMC forum regulars said that Black Knowle in the New Forest was much quieter than usual with about 25% occupancy.

Quite happy to put a deposit down for a holiday - it's quite normal in most situations. Allowing you to cancel 3 weeks and get all your money back is quite generous in my opinion. If you need more than this then take out holiday insurance for those emergency situations. The more the company/club give you/us you end up paying for in more expensive fees. I'd rather they ran tighter ship and kept costs (and therefore fees) down.

 

[cyberyacht]

Quite simple. Keep Credit Card details on file and charge appropriate penalty for late cancellation/no show. If member plays silly sods over a penalty charge, membership is cancelled.

 

[Gellyneck]

"In a normal year, we were seeing over 25% of all bookings being cancelled (that’s over 950,000 cancelled nights every year) Of those cancelled nights, over 25% were made within four days of arrival,"
That manipulation of the statistics tells you a lot. The cancellation period without a slapped hand was three days, so it is clear that cancellations were being made at the last minute. As I posted earlier, all they had to do was make the cancellation period a sensible length - 14/21 days - with a penalty charge thereafter. No deposits needed and even if a new booking system was required, it could have been a far simpler one to implement than the present omnishambles.

Yip.

Quite simple. Keep Credit Card details on file and charge appropriate penalty for late cancellation/no show. If member plays silly sods over a penalty charge, membership is cancelled.

As I said above.
Much simpler and delivers the same result except the bank interest gained on the deposits held.
What protection is in place for the funds held deposit?
Is there an, eg IATA / ABTA equivalent scheme? Doubt it!

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