Handcuffs to Camping Cheque today for spoiling what was supposedly an ingenius present for my folks to get them on their big European campervan adventure with a little help from their devoted son.
Haven’t heard of Camping Cheque? It’s a company that dishes out, well, cheques that you can exchange for a pitch and electricity at a range of campsites across Europe. You can use these cheques off-season to enjoy discounts on standard pitch and ‘leccy fees.
If you’re rich and eccentric you can buy a gold card that gets you a magazine sometimes and a way of receiving your cheques electronically, which can be dished out via the beauty of a gold microchip on the card.
This is all great, and I doff my cap to the boys and girls at alanrogers.com who make Camping Cheque possible for UK caravanners, campists and that, because in principle it’s an awesome idea.
It costs me £13.95 for a Camping Cheque. I’m happy with that.
But it doesn’t stop there. Oh no. In addition to the cost of the cheque you have a choice of administration charges:
- £6.50 when you buy them on the internet
- £7.50 when you phone them
I’m quite understanding of the premium model for buying over the phone; it’s business sense to look for cost reductions (but at the same time if noone books on the phone what does the kid with the headset do with their time, apart from see how much admin costs have been made this month?). But I’m ever so antsy about such a high cost of funding the business.
It would seem like sage advice to absorb the admin costs into the cost of the cheques. Or perhaps elaborate on why we have to pay such a massive levy.
As a small business you have to make sure you cover all your bases, and optimise your communications. When I queried the admin costs I got an email back, perhaps from a French woman, that regurgitated the exact same spiel I got in my first email. As if to underscore the nonplussedness of the staffer, the familiar font and colour aberrations you get when you copy and paste were there for all to see.
I’m sure you’re bursting to hear more about this whole sorry scenario: I decided to buy a top box for the van instead.
