We're currently in a campground in Canada visiting family.  We've stayed here before, like the place etc etc.  This time we're here for 2 months and 8 days.(the longest we've ever stayed at one place in 3.5 years) I went to settle up the bill expecting to pay for 2 months, 8 days at the monthly rate.  The campground charges 2 months at the monthly rate and 8 days at the higher daily rate.  No amount of discussion will change the way they are billing me.
Has anyone heard of such a practice?  It's a new one to me....Am I being overly critical?
The daily rate is about $7.50 more than the monthly rate divided by 30.
Howard...What do the places you have worked at do?

Yep... run in to it all the time here in California. One place we stayed at actually charged extra for July 4th, because they supplied entertainment and activities on the holiday. Eventhough we paid the monthly rate and didn't join in any of the activities, we still had to subsidize everyone else's fun. I do have to admit I watched the kids decorated bicycle parade go by our site. If you average the cost over all of the days and add in the fun you had while staying there, it makes the cost a little easier to swallow.

It sounds fair to me, Monthly rate is a monthly rate, Gene

OK I guess I am unreasonable. Thanx for the responses.

Yeah, I think you'd be lucky to find one that didn't do it that way. I only know of one, and it's in the San Antonio, TX area.

Jim

The Campground was well within their rights.I would do it the same way.

We've stayed in almost 300 campgrounds and that is the common practice all over. What some might do however, is charge you the weekly rate for 7 days and the daily rate for the 8th day.


-- Edited by Luvglass on Wednesday 30th of June 2010 08:02:00 PM

I rarely stay over 1 month but on the 2 or 3 times I have, I was charged the monthly rate for the entire stay. (Admiralty in San Antonio was one of the places) I thought it was the norm and common sense ( why charge more per day to extend your stay...larger qty purchase brings the unit cost down in most businesses) but now I see I was wrong. As much as I don't like your answers, thanks for the responses. I don't feel as hard done by as I did this morning.

Different campgrounds have different ways they process the final billing. Your cost of your stay should have been explained to you when you checked in or you should have inquired what the cost would be, based on your 2 months 8 day stay. This way you would not have any surprises when you checked out. Some campgrounds will prorate the 8 days at the monthly rate, some will charge you as they did or others will break it down to the 2 monthly, 1 weekly and 1 daily rate. Bottom line, you should never assume, but ask up front, that way you may have elected to vacate your site at exactly 2 months, instead of being charged for the daily rate for those 8 days.

I've had the same experence as Fred,  charged the weekly rate for the final days.  Good advice to check before hand.  I don't think the campground was unreasonable in it's charging policy but maybe the could have explained it better.

At least you'll know next time.

Best Regards!

We have seen it all on pricing. There are even campgrounds that define "monthly" as 30 days instead of calendar months (and one reportedly uses 28 days and says so on their price sheet). We have stayed at campgrounds that prorated the monthly rate for days that don't match, but many do what Fred says and go to weekly rates and then daily to total it all out.

We stayed at a small campground in Iowa City, IA for a week and paid weekly rate, then we decided to stay an extra 4 days. Because we had to change sites the lady divided the weekly charge by 7 and only charged us that times the 4 extra days we stayed. Made our day.

We, too, have had all the various ways to pay....our winter place pro-rates on the monthly divided by 30 for the extra....where we are now charges the daily rate for anything over a month, so we are leaving exactly at a month (they also have a service tech on staff who installed our new fridge cooling unit at a "low" hourly rate, so that was a plus).....the place we are going next charges a high weekly rate and we decided that if we were staying two weeks, we might as well stay a month.

Mary

I am finding that for long term (more than a week or a few days) you get stuck in the back of the park where you have less access to the amenities of the park. So far, the places we have gone, there are only a couple of parks available. Any suggestions?

Lots of places in Canada dont have weekly rates, only monthly rates.