First I would like to say we had a nice stay at this campground. Very nice park andfriendly staff. That being said, a problem at checkin just doesn't sit well with me. We had made a reservation several months ago. Received confirmation with balance due upon arrival. I check in and as I am filling out their paperwork I give them my creditcard to pay balance. They ask if I would like my receipt emailed to me. Sure no problem. I should mention he did tell me balance due when he took my card and I should have caught it right there but didn't. My bad. We go to our site and get set up. I'm relaxing checking my mail and see receipt fromCampground. That's when I noticed the error. According to my confirmation letter I owedthree nights at $61 a night. They had charged me three nights at $90 a night! I hike back to the office and explain the situation to one of the clerks. She looks at theconfirmation letter I had saved on my phone and then checks her computer. She seemed a little confused and said she didn't know why the difference. She tells anotherstaff member my concern and she looks at computer and tells me that it is a holiday weekend and my site was $90 a night. I explain that my confirmation stated otherwise. Her response was " do you have that in writing". Well yes as a matter of fact I do and showed her my phone . She looks at it And said. " well lucky you saved this". She then tells me they will refund the overcharge. What gets me is shouldn't they have had a copy of the confirmation letter they sent me that shows balance due to begin with? If I would had come in with just my confirmationnumber I would have been SOL. Live and learn.

IF you made the reservation on the KOA corporate site it likely was their error and not the fault of the CG itself.

I think we as a society have just become to dependent on computers, and don't use enough common sense. Yep, its a good thing you saved the info. We do all most the same thing, but we print the conformation prior to leaving and have the hard copy with us when we check in. When we arrive back home we then delete it. Good Luck and Happy Camping !!!

sch911 wrote:IF you made the reservation on the KOA corporate site it likely was their error and not the fault of the CG itself.^^^^^ This. ^^^

Sounds to me the person making the reservation made a mistake and quoted you the non holiday price. Yes, without your letter, you would have paid the higher price. The campground cannot accept the pricing of whatever anyone at the counter says they should pay. Get real. I fail to see your complaint. For whatever reason you were charged a price higher than quoted. You showed them the quote and were refunded the difference.

Whenever I make a KOA reservation it is always on line through the Corporate website and I have never spoken to a person doing this. I confirm the reservation, pay by CC and KOA sends the confirmation letter. No actual person is involved in the transaction. Any confirmation letter received is sent by their reservation system. No person EVER looks at these letters.

KOA Petaluma....A mild rant | Good Sam Community

sch911
Explorer
Apr 21, 2017
IF you made the reservation on the KOA corporate site it likely was their error and not the fault of the CG itself.
md_procouple
Explorer
Apr 21, 2017
I think we as a society have just become to dependent on computers, and don't use enough common sense. Yep, its a good thing you saved the info. We do all most the same thing, but we print the conformation prior to leaving and have the hard copy with us when we check in. When we arrive back home we then delete it. Good Luck and Happy Camping !!!
BB_TX
Nomad
Apr 21, 2017
sch911 wrote:
IF you made the reservation on the KOA corporate site it likely was their error and not the fault of the CG itself.

^^^^^ This. ^^^
DownTheAvenue
Explorer
Apr 21, 2017
Sounds to me the person making the reservation made a mistake and quoted you the non holiday price. Yes, without your letter, you would have paid the higher price. The campground cannot accept the pricing of whatever anyone at the counter says they should pay. Get real. I fail to see your complaint. For whatever reason you were charged a price higher than quoted. You showed them the quote and were refunded the difference.
Jack_Diane_Free
Explorer
Apr 21, 2017
Whenever I make a KOA reservation it is always on line through the Corporate website and I have never spoken to a person doing this. I confirm the reservation, pay by CC and KOA sends the confirmation letter. No actual person is involved in the transaction. Any confirmation letter received is sent by their reservation system. No person EVER looks at these letters.
kalynzoo
Explorer
Apr 21, 2017
I understand your frustration. It bugs me to no end when employees challenge the customer. I was raised, and taught my employees, to know that the customer is always right until you can show that the customer is incorrect. When a product is mismarked at the grocery you expect to pay the marked price. With all this said, I do love Petaluma KOA, it is truly one of the gems in the KOA franchise.
Nunyadamn
Explorer
Apr 21, 2017
I will say I agree with you that you shouldn't have to have the confirmation - they should have access to it (whether its on the KOA reservation site or not). The one thing I could say is, there are people that will just say they were quoted a different price. There are others that will hear someone else say they paid a different price and then go back and try to get that other price. If the system was wrong, you should get the better price in my opinion. On the other hand, they have to make sure they don't lose thousands of dollars by having everyone in the park come back and ask for a refund. I still maintain that they should be able to check the confirmation letter themselves. Someone could just make an e-mail with the different price and show it to them to scam the system.
Old-Biscuit
Explorer III
Apr 21, 2017
EVERY Corporation makes errors/mistakes/screw ups

What matters is HOW those are handled.

Although I am NOT a fan of KOA I think that your issue was properly taken care of.

YES. If YOU did NOT have 'confirmation' it would have NOT been at lower rate...it would have been at HOLIDAY RATE.

But YOU being a thoughtful forward thinking individual that manages THEIR responsibility had proof-'confirmation' so all's well

Good for YOU
Kudos to KOA staff
westernrvparkow
Explorer
Apr 21, 2017
kalynzoo wrote:
I understand your frustration. It bugs me to no end when employees challenge the customer. I was raised, and taught my employees, to know that the customer is always right until you can show that the customer is incorrect. When a product is mismarked at the grocery you expect to pay the marked price. With all this said, I do love Petaluma KOA, it is truly one of the gems in the KOA franchise.
Actually, a mistake in advertised pricing does not obligate the retailer to that price. As for the customer always being right, again that is a myth. Using your rules, if a customer says I was quoted a price over the phone of $20.00 a night for the site would you honor that price since there would be no way to show the customer was incorrect and the actual price is $65.00 a night? Having a policy of honoring whatever a customer tells you as the gospel truth is a recipe for disaster as far as I am concerned.
Customers get confused all the time. Many times they have made multiple reservations at multiple places for their trip and each one of those reservations was at a different price. We have multiple, redundant quoting and confirmation safeguards, yet we still have guests refuse to accept what we tell them. Among our safeguards is we store every email and send each confirmation out with a request for a read receipt. When the read receipt comes back to us, it is stored as part of their reservation.
It is easy to confuse the rate for Monday's reservation at Grand Teton with the rate for Tuesday's reservation at the Grand Canyon. Some customers will dispute the rate even though their copy of the confirmation which they hand to us shows the correct rate in black and white. We even have had customers who were adamant they had a reservation at our parks even though the confirmation they bring in has a different park at a different location printed on it. It really isn't anything nefarious, it is just people being people.
rockhillmanor
Explorer
Apr 21, 2017
I stay at KOA CG's exclusively. All I can tell you is make a call to their corporate office and explain what happened and they will take 'real' good care of you. They appreciate feed back so they can resolve any problems with their franchise CG owners.

Your phone call will also help other campers in the future not have the same problem. :C