Camping Cheques and online booking
Comments
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I didn't know anything about these new vouchers, so had a quick look. They cost £21.95 each, which is pretty steep I think. Having looked at some of the sites where they are accepted, I picked one at random - Pont de Bourgogne in Chalon-sur-Saone. This site also accepts the ACSI card, and their rate is €17, so quite a difference in price between the 2. Also, with ACSI there is an offer of 7=6 and 14=12, I haven't seen whether there is a similar offer with these new vouchers.
How did you calculate your price AD? You say that buying 4 vouchers reduced the cost by £52, but the cost of 4 vouchers is £87.80, so the difference is over £35. Or do you mean that you costed the crossing without vouchers, and buying the 4 reduced it by £52 in comparison with not buying vouchers?
One other thing I did notice on what the vouchers include (and this doesn't affect us as we haven't got one), is that it makes no mention of the inclusion of dogs, which ACSI and Camping Cheques do. An omission, or is it extra for dogs?
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Thanks for this info AD, not had chance to have a good look through the 'Venture Abroad' brochure that dropped door the other day, but I did notice on another thread someone mentioned the 'Overseas site night vouchers' the price is a bit high given the amount of sites that take Acsi now (or are willing to give you Acsi price) Hopefully I will have time to give it a good look.
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A bit late (busy yesterday!) but thanks for the explanation AD, all makes perfect sense how you arrived at those figures now.
The saving of £52 is still worthwhile on that crossing, and of course if you can use the vouchers will save even more on 4 nights' site fees.
I'm not sure how worthwhile these vouchers would be if purchased by themselves though, in high season you have to pay with 2 of them, don't you? Perhaps worth it for some of the "honeypot sites", but as we don't travel at that time, irrelevant to us anyway.
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David, do the 'ITX' crossings ypu refer to also apply to MH crossings?
...and how do you know (without much faffing) which 'special' crossings to check prices for....
when we go, i just pick a day and compare proces across the immediate 2/3 either side, and the comparable 'near' alternative ports.. (cherbourg/st malo/caen)...
thanks.
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It's easy enough, on the Caravan and Motorhome Club Overseas Holidays page (well as easy as this website makes it) to check dates and crossings at times and dates to suit, and then either add 'vouchers' or not, to see price comparisons. It certainly used to be a good saving - these days it seems not so much, but even £50 odd pounds off a crossing is worth playing around for an hour or so checking details.
Or, if you want to do it the 'old-fashioned way' and make it even simpler, ring up the CMC, give the nice lady your details, say you want the cheapest crossing during a particular date and time period, with or without 'vouchers' and leave it to her to 'faff' on your behalf!
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BoleroBoy, I just pester the ladies in the Club travel desk and ask them to find me the cheapest day, date, time and route with Brittany Ferries without vouchers - then I ask them to do it all over again with vouchers added in. Then I ask the ladies at Brittany Ferries for their version of events..... I like people who do things for me .
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ok, thanks all
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I hope that phoning is not the only to get ferry crossing using camping cheques, if so its going to take some planning for from me as I am deaf and cannot use the telephone. I have always done it on line. this year I was going to use Brittany ferries, Portsmouth to Caen. bugger. Dave
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Magnet, Email the C&MC and explain your problem. They shouldn't be able to discriminate against those with a disability such as yours by making these deals only available to those who can phone, so I imagine if you were to email your requirements they would be bound to honour any available deals.
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Hi everyone,
The Overseas Site Night Voucher is a new product launched by the Caravan & Motorhome Club Overseas Service. It is designed to be used in both the low and high seasons with one voucher per night being used in the low season and two vouchers required per night in the high season. The cost for each voucher is £21.95 which includes two adults and a car and caravan, motorhome, trailer or tent. Your pitch will include at a minimum an electrical hook up connection of 6 amps. You can use the vouchers across our overseas site network (apart from Duinrell and Beau Rivage) in the knowledge that the sites have been inspected and checked. You can also combine the Overseas Site Night Vouchers with a ferry crossing to make further savings. The Overseas Site Night Voucher scheme is a new product which is designed to run alongside other schemes such as Camping Cheque, ACSI and CKE offering more choice and flexibility for our members. Camping Cheque is still available to purchase through our contact centre, we cannot sell these on the website at present as we can only one voucher scheme online and we opted the exclusive member product.
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" Camping Cheque is still available to purchase through our contact centre, we cannot sell these on the website at present as we can only one voucher scheme online and we opted the exclusive member product."
This begs the question: "why can you only sell one scheme online?".
It does seem a way of directing people away from the better value product (camping cheques) and towards the worse value one. We've never paid more than £20 / night for any French site in all the years we've been going there. I can see that the phone lines are going to be very busy......
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it has put me off and as a deaf person I was able to sit on my laptop and view the ferry/tunnel prices with added camping cheque's. and find the crossing I want now its is going to take so planning i have to have someone beside me on the telephone while we try and sort out the crossing when i want to go when we wish to go and time etc. its put me off going next year .perhaps the other club could be a better. Magnet
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Can you not just send an email, and give the C&MC details of (say) the week when you want to travel, and ask them to price a variety of crossings, with and without Camping Cheques, and then to email you the prices. If you explain in your email that you are deaf and unable to telephone surely they should be able to help you.
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I hope you get them to sort things out!!! And if not, then just book a really cheap Dover/Calais ferry (where there are no discounts anyway) and go without Camping Cheques, buying an ACSI Card......................! If you shop at Tesco then use your vouchers towards the cost of a Eurotunnel crossing and save a lot of money.
Head south, instead of west, and you'll find the better weather anyway........ and some lovely areas of France.
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hi Valda that was the way I was thinking of going. get ferry or tunnel cheaper with the club? and buy a ACSI card they have more site. going to Normandy for the Bayeux tapestry and world war two sites plus visit some friends in Normandy.then Brittany Loire valley or Dordogne.depending on the weather.
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I have never heard of this scheme until this post.
I would be interested to know how the club came up with the price of £21.95 to offer members. They know the price of Camping Cheques and ACSI prices and yet come up with something around £5 dearer
Is that a members benefit? I think not.
They will obviously not sell Site Vouchers and Camping Cheques alongside each other because on the face of it there is only one winner. Looking at this year’s Venture Abroad brochure of the club sites in France, page after page of sites are pounds less than £21.95
This doesn't seem a logical move to me.
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You don't get any significant discount by purchasing Camping Cheques on a short crossing. On the shorter crossings you may get a very small discount from the Club on the ferry alone, but adding Camping Cheques won't change this discount. The offers for discounts with Camping Cheques was only on the longer western crossings, in particular Portsmouth/Caen on certain crossings, and Plymouth/Roscoff. At one time worthwhile discounts were offered if you bought a package of Camping Cheques and a ferry. The discounts offered for next year seems much less generous according to other posters who have either checked prices or booked already.
Cost out P and O and DFDS on line, then check the C&MC price on line - and you'll see then what actual discount you get, and buying or not buying Camping Cheques won't change this on short crossings.
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BB, I've never found the savings that great for motorhomes.
When we had the caravan it was worth it, however the C&MC say that a motorhome will travel for the price of a car on the discounted crossings, I've yet to find them.
Wouldn't it be good if the club issued a list of the crossings that are discounted
but of course that would be useful so can't see that happening. I tend to play around with different companies/clubs etc. I found one last year that knocked socks off the club, the only issue with it is that the booking cannot be amended. However as I knew we wouldn't be changing the booking I took it.
I seem to remember last year there was some very good deals with the club on the Plymouth to Roscoff return sailings if you added cheques, I checked it out but didn't get the discounts for a m/h that a member was quoting for a car and caravan
Next year will have to be on hold for us as waiting for OH to get his shoulder op, could be anytime between January and April
with 6 weeks recovery time if its the latter then I guess we won't be going abroad in the Spring.
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Hi TG, We often travel on BF Plymouth-Roscoff and get good savings with an ITX. This year we saved over £300 but this is with a caravan. Our travel buddies have a MH so while we can look for a ‘Caravans go free’ ITX deal they can’t and, as they are 50% longer than our car, and also higher, they pay more.
We have not booked yet for next year but as I will need to buy 4 of the new vouchers as opposed to 5 Cheques that is a difference of just £8.05 so so long as the savings are greater than this the vouchers are still worth getting.
It may be that the crossing/outfit/date combine to get the savings I have made but, as we are in Cornwall, other routes are always less attractive anyway and a BF crossing from Plymouth is the usual starting point in the trip planning but as others have said it’s not too hard to do the homework and you may be surprised at what you can get if you keep an open mind.
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We had to cancel our ferry crossing this August with C&M club , i re booked the other day for next year with the C&M Club, even though they tried to tell me i had to book direct with BF. I was told they could not give me any special offers ? the price i was quoted was slightly cheaper than BF. I mentioned about Camping Cheques she said that a lot of sites have stopped accepting Cheques so it was up to me if i wanted to buy them . She mentioned the new cheques at £21.95 per cheque which i thought was quite high she said these could be used all year so are good value . We have ACSI that is what we will use .. So maybe Camping Cheques are going to be withdrawn in the future ,
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Funnily enough we've just booked a ferry. We'll be holidaying mostly in Germany and The Netherlands and we've gone with Camping Cheques as there are far more sites that accept those in the 2 countries mentioned than the new vouchers. The difference in fares between the 2 was less than £2 and we get 1 more cheque than voucher.
The ITX saved us over £80 plus we'll use the cheques so worth the membership fee alone. We'll also carry an ACSI card and a Best Deal card.
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Dover/Calais is inexpensive but it simply does not work for those of us who live in the far South West as the drive to Dover makes it far more expensive and time consuming. We have to accept the monopoly of Brittany Ferries and get the best deal we can. We have always done it with Camping Cheques in the past but never used them all.
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