We've used Reserve America numerous times for reservations without issue. I learned some things today. This is not a complaint, but some things that I wanted to pass on that I never dealt with before. Last week I made reservations for a campsite for this weekend (friday-sunday) at our favorite state park here in NC. When I made the reservations, the only few sites available were no hookup sites. I went ahead and reserve one for the weekend ($17 + $3 reserveation / per night). I was just on their site to see if any hook up sites came available and there was one. I saw that you loose the nightly reservation fee if you cancel. So I went ahead and reserved the new site online and then went to cancel the other. But there was no "cancel reservation" link on there. So I called the reserve america reservations number to cancel it. The nice lady reminded me of the loss of the reservation fee. I asked her a couple questions and thought I would share. Many probably already know some of this. Many may not. 1) Could I of saved money if I called and had them just switch sites? - Yes. She said as long as I was just switching sites and not dropping/adding days, then I wouldn't lose the reservation fee.2) Can I cancel online and not have to call? - Yes/No. Depends on the campground she says. Some will require you to call and others have it where you can cancel from your account , under your reservations. This campground only had the link "Change Reservation", but there was no way to cancel it. She said that those that allow you to cancel online will say "Change/Cancel Reservation". So I learned something today and maybe this may help out someone else out there.

Good to know, thanks for the updated.

Good info. As you point out clearly each entity they are reserving for has their own set of rules which you must navigate. No fault of theirs but it creates a challenge for those of us who use it.

I don't use RA if I can avoid it. They're not going to be up front on a lot of things. I don't like the fact that my cc gets handled outside of the USA either.

We have seen this before. Normally we stay away from RA as they tend to over charge for the site. Not talking about the reservation fee; talking about they had the wrong price. We use recreation.gov for federal sites the few times a year we make a reservation. Have had sites reserved out from under us with recreation.gov so none of the reservation systems are perfect.

Have known about RA's "switch a site or date" policy for a while. Have never had a problem with Reserve America overcharging either. We use it often, in fact, almost always, to reserve our sites.

Reserve America - Things learned | Good Sam Community

19 Replies

lazydays
Explorer
Apr 21, 2015
Been using RA for over 10 years and never a problem or complaint. We use them probably 95% of the time. I move dates around all the time due to scheduling conflicts.
bmet2000
Explorer
Apr 21, 2015
What I don't like is even if you pay cash to the ranger at the campground, RA still gets a $3 cut. He did that a couple of weeks ago and they had to enter it in the system and that's what they told me. I had hoping the state park would get the $3 fee per night, but no.
toedtoes
Explorer III
Apr 21, 2015
scrubjaysnest wrote:
We have seen this before. Normally we stay away from RA as they tend to over charge for the site. Not talking about the reservation fee; talking about they had the wrong price. We use recreation.gov for federal sites the few times a year we make a reservation. Have had sites reserved out from under us with recreation.gov so none of the reservation systems are perfect.

Recreation.gov - once you place the site in your cart, it will hold the site for approximately 15 minutes. If you don't complete the reservation within that time, it will release it. That's a fair system - you don't get to block a site (or multiple sites) for an unlimited amount of time. But you have plenty of time to get through the reservation process once you pick your site.
fla-gypsy
Explorer
Apr 21, 2015
2 Retired wrote:
Have known about RA's "switch a site or date" policy for a while. Have never had a problem with Reserve America overcharging either. We use it often, in fact, almost always, to reserve our sites.

X2 and any charges are established by the group they are reserving for not by them but we always get the inevitable "its all their fault" when all they do is what they were contracted to do using the rules given to them. No worries I will continue to use them to get the sites I want not what's left.
2_Retired
Explorer
Apr 21, 2015
Have known about RA's "switch a site or date" policy for a while. Have never had a problem with Reserve America overcharging either. We use it often, in fact, almost always, to reserve our sites.
scrubjaysnest
Explorer
Apr 21, 2015
We have seen this before. Normally we stay away from RA as they tend to over charge for the site. Not talking about the reservation fee; talking about they had the wrong price. We use recreation.gov for federal sites the few times a year we make a reservation. Have had sites reserved out from under us with recreation.gov so none of the reservation systems are perfect.
RayUSMC
Explorer
Apr 21, 2015
I don't use RA if I can avoid it. They're not going to be up front on a lot of things. I don't like the fact that my cc gets handled outside of the USA either.
fla-gypsy
Explorer
Apr 21, 2015
Good info. As you point out clearly each entity they are reserving for has their own set of rules which you must navigate. No fault of theirs but it creates a challenge for those of us who use it.
Calicajun
Explorer
Apr 21, 2015
Good to know, thanks for the updated.

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Reserve America - Things learned

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