Booking C&CC Sites

Am I alone in being frustrated with the clunky C&CC website booking system. I’d better not be too specific as I might get identified and drummed out the Brownies but  I wanted to book a site in mid October. I put all the details in the booking section only to be told nothing matches my requirements try changing dates etc. I did a bit of tweaking which required me to re enter various details of unit, numbers etc but to no avail. The irritating  part is you can never see what is available, only that it’s not. (I’m using an iPad maybe it's better on a PC?) The CMC have a calendar which shows various pitch options and availability. As an aside I raised this a few years ago at the club stand at one of the Birmingham shows….I’m sure they want customer feed back as it were.

Having said all that I phoned the site direct. They could not have been more helpful. I could hear a bit of discussion in the background with colleagues about switching some pitches and bingo I’m booked in. Mild rant over…don’t get me on panic buying of fuel and roads being blocked by queues though. Oh and while I think of it a positive with the booking….the first question I was asked was if I was a member which obviously got me an inside stack but then I don’t want to start yet another thread.

It's a useless website. If you're age concession you have to add that then it recalculates price before you'd had chance to delete the 2 adults that it starts with and then it recalculates again. 
Often the unavailability is because you haven't booked the required minimum number of nights, two night minimum at weekends, three at Bank Holidays, three or even five minimum at popular sites in high season. Unfortunately it often fails to tell you why you can't find availability.

I find it more annoying that people can book 101 club site pitches a year in advance then cancel five minutes before the due date with no penalty.

Not the exact numbers but you catch my drift.

Not with C&CC , you have to pay £25 deposit for each individual  booking. You can't cancel less than 14 days before arrival date without losing deposit.
You may be confusing with CAMC but even they require 72 hours notice of cancellation and if you cancel with less notice twice you get all advance bookings cancelled.
That's about to change though I'm led to believe, deposits will be required plus other new rules, all to be revealed in the next CAMC magazine.

I agree, it's a horrible site to use. Although it's not perfect, the Pitchup website is a million times easier to use. 
https://www.pitchup.com/

I do get your drift Roger but you are referring to the C&MC where you can book lots of sites in advance but there is a mechanism for blocking you if you cancel too many. A couple of years ago I got a very strong message because I cancelled at the last minute because of the weather…rain of biblical proportions. With the C&CC you have to stump up a deposit which you lose if cancel too near the date. There is a sort of sliding scale which is too complicated for me…a bear of little brain.

Paulmold wrote:That's about to change though I'm led to believe, deposits will be required plus other new rules, all to be revealed in the next CAMC magazine.

Didn’t know that Paul. You are a mine of information..

Bobskate wrote:

Paulmold wrote:That's about to change though I'm led to believe, deposits will be required plus other new rules, all to be revealed in the next CAMC magazine.

Didn’t know that Paul. You are a mine of information..

Recently revealed by a disgruntled warden on MotorhomeFun.  Maybe true, maybe not, we'll have to wait and see.

Edit - magazine just arrived minutes after posting above, can't see anything about it. I would think that such a big change in policy would need to be voted on at AGM.

I had the old (and better?) version of the app on my tablet but found it impossible to get info about a CS site on the app and had a similar issue finding information about the club discount scheme. I emailed the club and got a phone call back from a very pleasant individual who offered to help. In our conversation it was clear that they were able to do things on the system that I couldn't. I deleted the old app an installed the newer siteseeker app and.......it's just as difficult to navigate as the old one.

I have found though, if you use the late availability section without entering dates, it will let you access the booking calender and thus see what dates a site is full.  Having said that, it's still difficult to navigate and the search function must be the worst on the planet.

Askit wrote:Having said that, it's still difficult to navigate and the search function must be the worst on the planet.

Tony, I’m in no way an IT expert, far from it, but I suspect the problem is to that to bring it up to a more user friendly standard would cost lots of £££. I’d be interested to hear what others here think.  There are lots of tekkies on this forum.

Bobskate wrote:

Askit wrote:Having said that, it's still difficult to navigate and the search function must be the worst on the planet.

Tony, I’m in no way an IT expert, far from it, but I suspect the problem is to that to bring it up to a more user friendly standard would cost lots of £££. I’d be interested to hear what others here think.  There are lots of tekkies on this forum.

Yes but, they have obviously spent money on the site because the search function has changed to allow offline access and there are now three separate apps, siteseeker, magazine and out and about. Amongst the many things that bug me about the site is having to put the same information about our vehicle in time after time. Surely it would be simple to link the info to a personal log in?

Askit wrote:
Amongst the many things that bug me about the site is having to put the same information about our vehicle in time after time. Surely it would be simple to link the info to a personal log in?

I agree….That info is available on line but not to mere mortals. When I was speaking to the site they knew all my details.

They need to invest some of the many £1000s of subscription fees in a decent IT team. Designing booking systems is hardly rocket science, and I speak as an ex-developer, but In Fact the whole website is very poorly designed. So many omissions, it makes the C&MC site look a paragon of excellence, and I’ve complained about that when I was a member.
A simple example - to see details of a CS you must be logged in, and yet the first screen you see is full of template text explaining what a CS actually is, requiring scrolling down to see anything meaningful. The booking system is beyond a joke.

I now realise that, before adding a post here, it would have been helpful to list the things that annoy me about the C&CC site. Another thing that 's a pain in the bahookie is the, "join now", or "reasons to join" or "benefits of membership for only £xx" on every page, even when you are logged in as a member. Grrrr 

I too was frustrated with the c&cc booking system. I have given up and left them. I now use CAMC and pitchup both easy to use.

Paulmold wrote:

Bobskate wrote:

Paulmold wrote:That's about to change though I'm led to believe, deposits will be required plus other new rules, all to be revealed in the next CAMC magazine.

Didn’t know that Paul. You are a mine of information..

Recently revealed by a disgruntled warden on MotorhomeFun.  Maybe true, maybe not, we'll have to wait and see.

Edit - magazine just arrived minutes after posting above, can't see anything about it. I would think that such a big change in policy would need to be voted on at AGM.

Just seen the first mention of possible change to CAMC booking procedures in the latest magazine that's just been delivered.  
I quote "we're reviewing how to make the booking system a simpler experience for all to help ease the availability issues that some of you may have experienced recently.  This includes reviewing the need for deposits and improving campsite choice and value".

I've noticed when making a booking that the words "no deposit is required at this moment" appear at confirmation.

It was announced at the AGM, apparently, that deposits and the ability to book by pitch surface type will come into force in the later part of next year. No other details were given.

PLOUGHLIN wrote:
Not before time. Might discourage these people who book dozens of weekends months in advance and then don't use them (because the weather is not right or other spurious reason).

I totally agree Peter!!

We tried to plan a get-away from our house refurbishment project at short notice in September and most sites (Chatsworth Park for example) we wanted to stay at showed full a week before hand! 

So we took a punt and went anyway - guess what - on the day we arrived there were plenty of pitches available at all of the sites in question.

It's a nonsense to allow people to block book (FOC) a year in advance on the off chance that they might wish to use that particular site without any financial commitment.

I have also just seen the item in the CAMC Mag which has just arrived. It’s good to see them actively reviewing to improve the system. Let’s see what comes out of it. Despite it’s shortcomings it’s still vastly more user friendly than the C&CC system.

I was cross to see how strongly they were recommending that folk should buy a complete package from CAMC if they want to go across the water. Far too much risk in not having ATOL protection .....!  . Or is it just that they want the commission?

Why do Motorhomers bother !!  there's an abundance of sites amid touring areas, surely Motorhoming is about "touring" well it was when I started.  Agree some sites should be closed down by the


 local Council.  Some proprietors must think we are  s..,. unimportant, but still expect  a disgusting amount to park !! .  Keep moving, move on.