Site Deposit

[JoannaLesley]

Hi all,

Advice, please! I am trying to book for August in a fairly popular area. My chosen campsite has vacancies, but wants a 25% deposit. Their suggested method of payment is by international money transfer through a bank. However, my bank (Santander) charges £25 for the "priviledge" of doing this and the deposit is only just over 50 euros.
I had a similar issue with a different campsite last year, but overcame that by sending some spare euros I already had. However, this year, I don't have enough to do that.
For some reason, French campsites don't like taking credit card payments over the internet or by phone (not sure my French is up to that one, anyway). As far as I can tell, this one doesn't use PayPal either.
My local post office suggested (other than sending the cash) that I could use their service at a cost of £12 or so, but the campsite owner then needs to go to his local office to collect the payment. Why should he do that, I ask myself???
Any suggestions? What do other people do?
Incidentally, this seems to only be a high season requirement - we've only started going in August since my daughter became a teacher. previously, we just took pot luck and never had a problem.

Jo

 

[DavidKlyne]

Why not send it in cash! Not sure if there is recorded delivery service you can used but on the Post Office website it suggests a cost of around a fiver for signed for Airmail.

David

 

[Wanderer1]

Hi Jo,
Also have encountered this on two occasions, our solution which was happily accepted was to post a £20 note which the site held and then refunded when we arrived and paid the full charge.
Not usually happy to send cash in the mail but reckon the odds of it going astray are quite small ( I hope )

 

[ValA.]

From my limited experience of the French postal system, I think anything which has to be signed for has to be picked up from a depot somewhere - and this tends to be the largest post office in the area, sometimes several miles from the recipient's address.
I'm not honestly sure if this applies to everything, but when our passports were sent to France for us to collect (when we had the interesting, though never to be repeated incident of turning up for the Norfolk Lines ferry without them - AND being allowed to travel) - they were sent to a village, and had to be picked up about ten miles away in Olonzac. Another time we posted something to our friend in the Aude, and he had to drive to Couiza to sign for the packet.

 

[JoannaLesley]

Thank you for the help. In fact, I had just decided to send cash and had been to the Post Office to buy Euros (so THAT's how they make their money!). However, we have dug up a relative with a house in France who has a French bank account and has agreed to send a cheque for us.
Luckily, I needed to buy Euros anyway as we are off to the Canaries next week.
When we get back from France at the end of August, I will try to make sure that I hang on to 60 or 70 euros, as this is bound to happen again next year!

Jo

 

[NickinFrance]

I think anything which has to be signed for has to be picked up from a depot somewhere - and this tends to be the largest post office in the area, sometimes several miles from the recipient's address.

No, the system is exactly the same as the UK, it's delivered to the door for 2 days & then taken to the local Post Office if there is no-one in to sign for it.
The only problem with 'Signed for' mail from the UK is that it seems to take 4 times longer than regular mail.