New Booking System for Overseas Travel

Oh Tracy!

It's now mid December and I have been trying for the last three days to price up different ferry options for 2020. Rang the Travel Service for advice on booking the vouchers.The work-around hasn't worked for me. I completed the ferry options, clicked on the map as advised, which should have taken me to Sites and Site Vouchers, no Vouchers. Click Travel Tab to go back to ferry details, all gone, Deleted User. Fill it all in again and try again, and again.Then give up.

Also there is no options to "Go Back" or forward to "Next" page to make changes. If I back back tab on my computer I have to re-enter some of the other details.  

How anybody has got to the booking payment stage with vouchers bewilders me. 

I have now emailed Web team to register my disappointment with the utter failure of this project. The commissioning, if there was any, has been left to us the members and for us to have to waste our time trying to price up various route options.  

DawdyDave 

DD, not sure if you’d seen my earlier post...now copied below. This worked for me,

Started by clicking on ‘Book for 2020 travel’, then search for a location where there is no site. I used Calais (nothing to do with the crossing I eventually booked) but probably others would work. The search results one gets lists nearby sites BUT ALSO at the top of the list is ‘buy site night vouchers’, which I did. This time, when I went through to book ferry, the vouchers were still in the basket, and the ferry price displayed as I was going through the process, decreased at the final stage to give the combined package price with the benefit of the discount.

i think the difference, and source of the problem, is that option 1 above one is going into the new 2020 process AFTER  buying SNVs. Option 2 one is in 2020 process right from the onset. Doesn’t make sense but.....

Thanks Ian. I have in the past booked overnight trains across India on this I-pad, a rather nice hotel at Hua Hin in Thailand and a gite in France where all the instructions were in easy French - but although I have just followed your helpful advice about booking site night vouchers plus ferry to the letter I cannot get beyond the banner saying "Become a member, Join now".  It just sits there and blocks me making any further progress. 

Worked for me OK as Ian describes. Thing is, dont be in a rush, as the site is SLOW and sometimes you wonder if anything is happening

For me, it still  requires me  to enter the car length and height details twice before they stay in the box - anyone else have this?

Once you successfully get a ' combined deal' price, you can still change crossing choice, times and dates, without having to re-enter the outfit details again

Things are progressing - SLOWLY

One thing did surprise me - If I did not log-in, I still got the price as a member - perhaps it recognised my outfit details. On the Camping and Caravan Club website, theres a £20 surcharge for non members

 WelI, I have just spent an extremely frustrating hour looking at various options for ferries to Europe.

We haven't decided exactly when and where we are going so looking at various options.

Our outgoing ferry will be in early May with the return ferry mid - late June. 

 First search was for ferry going out Dover - Calais and returning Hook of Holland to Harwich.

"Second search was  for going out Poole - Roscoff and returning Cherbourg to Portsmouth 

OK, I know the website is slow but what is really frustrating is the number of times the results came back with " Sorry, we were unable to retrieve crossings for one or more providers. Please try again with different dates or a different route" 

It may be that there are no ferries for the dates I have chosen but shouldn't the system give me the dates that the ferries are running?

My first impression is the system is totally useless and needs to go back to the drawing board. Perhaps the Club need to approach TUI to find out how a holiday website should run.

So it looks like nothing has changed  I must admit I've given it a rest since my earlier posts, got too frustrated with it all!  Haven't booked anything as yet, as we're not sure about dates at the moment, but when we come to book, I think I'll just ring up and let the travel department go through all the options.  

I know that sometimes people are reluctant to accept changes, but I'm afraid in this case the changes aren't for the better; the old system was so much more user-friendly - now having to click multiple times on the map to get the Night Vouchers banner to appear is just ludicrous, surely that option should be there to begin with.  IMHO of course. 

MikeyA, The second search you mentioned would be difficult for any booking system. There are no ferries from Poole to Roscoff and the return from Cherbourg to Portsmouth is only by catamaran which doesn't carry caravans. So not surprising you drew a blank with those two 

May I suggest you look at Brittany Ferries own website where there is a 15% discount offer running at the moment. 

Apologies I meant Plymouth to Roscoff. 

I didn't know about the Catamaran - when we used that service 20 years ago it was definitely a ship!

Probably the same ship Mikey, still sailing, but it goes in and out of Poole not Portsmouth 

 Hi MikeyA, like you, and probably many others, I had become fed up trying to do comparisons of routes/prices, something that used to be a fairly easy task.

The last few posts have encouraged me to take a look again and do a comparison with BF direct prices.

For a June 2020 return overnight with a cabin going out from Plymouth to Roscoff and returning on a Sunday morning, both ways on the Pont Aven,, its £319.80 for a combined fare with the club, including 4 site vouchers, and £599 booked direct.

Even with a 15% discount that's still a saving of a minimum £190 and, if you use the vouchers, £278.

I believe, from previous experience, that Portsmouth-Caen, and possibly Poole-Cherbourg, would be even cheaper giving a reasonble choice of departure ports.