Camping cheque or Camping Card ACSI?
We will be travelling in Europe for the first time soon and are trying to decide whether to use Camping cheques or Camping Card ACSI. Any advice on which is better. We will be touring mainly Spain and Portugal.
Comments
-
Like Deleted User User, both have some good sites. Have a look at both websites, for the areas of Spain and Portugal you may be visiting, and see which sites you fancy.
www.campingcard.co.uk and www.campingcheque.co.uk
Both have their advantages - but limiting yourselves to one or the other will limit your choices, and as Deleted User User says, there are thousands of sites which are in neither scheme so don't miss out on visiting them just because you have a discount card/cheque
in your pocket.0 -
Depends on how long you are going for. ACSI gives you flexibilty with very little initial outlay. Camping Cheques (generally) have to be purchased ahead of your trip so you will feel obliged to use them. That is fine if any of the sites you particularly
want to visit accept the cheques. I think I would investigate which sites you are likely to use beforehand and then decide whether you need Camping Cheques. Might be worth also thinking about the Caravan Clubs European Guides as they have a lot of sites not
in either of the schemes.David
0 -
Agree with David that it is always worth having the Club's European Guide and you do not really need to buy a new one every year.
We tend to use the ACSI site book more than anything else although if you want to search a particular region it is best also to buy the ACSI app for tablet. The indexing of the books is poor. The tablet app works offline.
0 -
Our experience (and its just our experience) is that there is more flexibility with ACSI. We tended to have camping cheques left over at the end of a trip and didn't necessarily use them before they went out of date. For a first trip I would plan an itinerary
in detail mainly for the comfort factor including selecting sites. Actually you may well depart from the itinerary as you discover things and places or because you like a place and stay longer. You can often get good tips from fellow travellers.0 -
Remember that the ACSI guide that comes with the card only shows the sites offering discounts. There are many more sites which ACSI inspect so these are properly called ACSI sites as well. Note carefully when the discounts are on because some sites exclude
certain periods e.g. Easter. You can get data on both kinds of ACSI site in adifferent guide also from ACSI and available as a DVD or by online download (small cost) (downloadable to tablet or whatever) or paper. The Caravan Club Book now called "Touring
Europe" has very useful information about sites and more generally and have a look online at the specialist bookshop Vicarious Books.0 -
Yvonne and Perry, I saw some advice yesterday for a couple who are going to Verona in Italy. They can either pay full price at a campsite inside the city walls and walk ten minutes down into the city centre, or they can seek out a discount campsite several
miles away, use fuel to drive into the city, and then pay for parking. That might apply to wherever you are going in Spain and Portugal too. Especially with a motorhome like yours location is everything.0 -
Would agree with the comment but one of the key things is which route you are taking and how much of a saving you can get by getting a ferry and cheques deal,ITX, from the club? If you are using Brittany Ferries it can be easily £200 but almost nothing on
the short sea routes. As we are in Cornwall and tend to use the Plymouth to Roscoff route you will see the appeal to us.As you now need only buy three cheques to get the ITX deal, some have said that even if they dont use the cheques they are well in pocket, it is more likely to appeal than when you had to buy seven to get the deal.
As suggested above take alook at the websites and get some prices online from the club-you must ask for 7 cheques to get the ITX price on the quote pages-and enjoy the planning and the holiday.
0 -
To me it is a no brainier would only use ACSI having tried CCheques over two years not being able to find campsites where we want to be they were thrown away. Have never been stuck for an ACSI Site where we want to be and when we first had a Camping Card
in 2004, the first year it was introduced with under 200 sites we managed to find one. If you stay a few miles from a large city you want to visit there is 9 out of 10 times a service from the site to use to get there we have found.DianneT.
0 -
We use both schemes and like AD we have discovered sites that otherwise we would have not gone to. We don't tend to use the CC guide unless we are stuck or usually for a cross reference if we are not sure. We have a Silver CC card not paper ones but so far
have not had any problem using them on any of the holidays we've been on, we've even had to put more on the card while away.0 -
We used Camping Cheques for many years but found chains and sites were dropping out of the scheme so about 5 or 6 years ago changed our affections to the ACSI system which works out at a lower cost ( on possibly same sites ) and is more flexible than Camping
Cheques0
