Camp and lap swim: common member questions and issues

A symptom-first lookup for questions and complaints about camp registrations and lap swim reservations. Match what the member says to a section below, confirm the mechanism, and use the suggested wording as a starting point. Adjust to the actual situation before sending.

What actually happened: Camp cancellation refunds follow a tiered schedule (deposit withheld, then full credit / partial credit / no credit depending on how many days before the week's start they cancelled) that's frozen onto the registration at booking time and measured against the week's start date, not the date they bought it. It is not a flat percentage and it is not based on how long ago they registered.

Resolution steps:

1. Open the household's registration on the Camp roster and read the cancellation quote shown there. That's the authoritative number, not an estimate.

2. If the number still looks wrong, check whether this is a pre-tiered-schedule registration (very old bookings keep the old binary full-credit/no-credit rule for life) or whether money was already returned via a transfer credit netted against this cancellation.

Suggested wording: "Camp cancellation refunds are based on how close to the week's start date you cancelled, not when you registered — I've confirmed the amount on your account matches our policy for that timing. Happy to walk through the breakdown if that's helpful."

Escalate to staff if: the member disputes the tier boundaries themselves (that's a Settings/policy question) or requests a cash refund exception.

What actually happened: This is expected, not an error. Free camp weeks (price = $0) still run through the same refund-schedule machinery as paid weeks — it just computes all-zero values. The confirmation email language ("full credit until X") can look strange next to a $0 charge, but nothing was actually charged and there is no real credit at stake.

Suggested wording: "That refund language is standard on every camp confirmation, even free weeks — since there was no charge, there's nothing to worry about there."

What actually happened: This is intended. Camp registration no longer re-collects safety info on every form. Emergency contact, allergies, authorized pickup, and medical notes now live once on the household profile, and the camp form shows them read-only ("Safety info comes from your household profile — edit it once on the Household page"). Whatever is on the profile is copied onto the registration when the parent submits, so a family enters it once instead of retyping it for every child, every week.

Resolution steps: Point the member to the Household page to edit safety info. An edit there flows into the next registration they submit — it does not rewrite registrations already placed (those keep the snapshot frozen at the time they registered).

Suggested wording: "Camp now pulls emergency contact, allergies, and pickup from your household profile so you only enter them once. Update them on the Household page and they'll be attached to your next registration automatically."

What actually happened: An emergency contact (name and phone) on the household profile is a hard requirement for camp — registration is refused without it ("Add an emergency contact on the Household page before registering for camp"). If a parent is registering several children at once, the whole submission is checked up front, so one missing emergency contact blocks the entire batch.

Resolution steps: Have the member add an emergency contact name and phone on the Household page, then retry. The pre-registration Camp checkup (below) flags this before they even start.

Suggested wording: "Camp requires an emergency contact on your household profile before you can register. Add a name and phone on the Household page and the registration will go through."

What actually happened: The Camp checkup is a pre-registration readiness card at the top of the camp page. It's report-only — it never blocks — and it flags the two things camp needs before a family can register: an emergency contact on the household profile, and a signed Camp waiver for each camper. Missing waivers can be signed right there in the checkup without starting a registration. A family that's all set sees "You're all set for camp registration." Close to the season rollover it can also flag next season's waiver so a parent can sign ahead of registration opening.

Suggested wording: "Camp checkup lists missing household details and camper waivers separately. Open each camper's Read and sign row, check the season, and read the waiver before signing. Each waiver is signed separately."

What actually happened: A lottery win does not mean the invoice is due immediately. The pay-by deadline is a configurable number of days from the draw (staff can confirm the exact number in Settings; it defaults to 7 days), not "due today."

Resolution steps: Check the invoice's actual due date before telling a member they're overdue.

Suggested wording: "You're not late — lottery winners get a set number of days from the draw to pay, and your invoice due date is [date]."

What actually happened: This is expected in most cases, not a processing failure. Credit from cancelling a lottery-won seat is withheld until the waitlist backfills that seat and the backfilling household pays their invoice — only then does the original canceller's credit post. This can take days or longer depending on waitlist activity. Non-lottery camp cancellations don't have this wait; only lottery-source ones do.

Suggested wording: "Because your spot was a lottery win, the credit is held until someone from the waitlist takes and pays for that seat — it's not stuck, just waiting on that backfill. I'll let you know if it's been unusually long."

Escalate to staff if: it's been well over a season's worth of waitlist activity with the seat clearly not backfilling, or the member wants to know the concrete status of the backfill.

What actually happened: "Must be together" sibling groups are honored both at the draw and on the waitlist — a group only wins a week (or gets offered a freed seat) if the whole group fits at once, and a group that can't be fully seated is skipped or loses together, never split by the system. If one sibling ended up with a seat and the other didn't, check the timeline first: each sibling still gets and must accept their own offer within its expiry window, so a missed or expired individual offer — not a togetherness bug — is the most likely explanation.

Resolution steps: Check the household's entries and offer history on that week's waitlist (staff can pull this) to see whether an offer to one sibling simply expired unanswered. If the group truly was split by a system error rather than an expired offer, escalate to staff — that would be unexpected behavior worth investigating.

Suggested wording: "Sibling groups are kept together both in the lottery draw and on the waitlist — an offer only goes out to your group when there's room for everyone. Let me check the timeline on your offers to see what happened here."

Escalate to staff if: the offer history shows the group was split by something other than an individually expired/declined offer — that would be a genuine bug, not expected behavior.

What actually happened: A waitlist offer doesn't reserve the seat — it just gives the household first crack at it. Accepting re-checks capacity live at that moment, so on rare occasions a same-moment staff registration or another acceptance can take the seat first.

Suggested wording: "I'm sorry — waitlist offers don't hold the seat until you actually accept, and in this case someone else's registration landed at nearly the same moment. I'm putting you at the front for the next opening."

Resolution steps: Confirm with staff that the household is re-prioritized appropriately for the next available seat.

What actually happened: Staff-initiated lap slot cancellations (weather, maintenance) do not automatically notify affected households today — the admin action only flips the slot's status. (Member-initiated cancellations and booking confirmations do send automatic email; staff weather/maintenance cancellations are the one path that doesn't.)

Resolution steps: Confirm with staff whether the slot was cancelled for weather/maintenance, then personally notify the member — this one needs a human follow-up, the system won't have sent it.

Suggested wording: "I'm sorry you weren't notified — that slot was cancelled for [pool closure/maintenance] and our system doesn't yet auto-email for staff-side cancellations. I wanted to let you know directly and apologize for the surprise."

Known issue: staff-side lap cancellation lacks automatic member notification; see Lap swim.

What actually happened: The booking horizon is an org Setting, not a fixed 2-week window — slots are always materialized at least 14 days ahead, but if the club's booking-horizon setting is raised past 14 days, more slots will show further out.

Resolution steps: Check the current booking-horizon value in Settings before telling a member slots "don't exist" that far out — the platform default is 14 days but this club's configured value may be higher.

Suggested wording: "Lap slots open up [X] days ahead here — if you don't see a date yet, it just hasn't been generated so far out yet; check back closer to the date."

What actually happened: Lap swim is now booked per swimmer. The reserve form has a "Who is swimming?" checklist of the household's people — the primary contact, other adults, and family members — and a member can book several of them into one slot at once (up to a per-reservation cap, configured in Settings, default 4). When a slot has more than one lane, they also pick a lane — "Any open lane" (the system puts them in the least-full one) or a specific lane showing how many spots are open. The whole group lands in one lane. A single-lane slot shows no lane picker.

Resolution steps: If a member says they can only book one person, confirm they're checking the boxes for each swimmer in "Who is swimming?" before hitting Reserve. If they can't add another family member, that person may not be on the household yet — send them to the Household page to add them.

Suggested wording: "Check the box next to each person swimming before you reserve — you can book several at once. If someone's missing from the list, add them on your Household page first."

What actually happened: Lane counts are live. If the specific lane a member picked fills between loading the page and submitting, the reservation is refused with a "pick another lane" message rather than overbooking the lane. Choosing Any open lane avoids this — the system assigns whichever lane has the most room at submit time.

Suggested wording: "That lane filled right as you submitted — try again with 'Any open lane' and you'll get whichever one has space."

What actually happened: Expected. The lap page refreshes availability on its own — after any booking or cancellation, and periodically while the tab is open — so per-lane counts move as other members book. It's not a glitch and it's not a live "push"; there can be a few seconds' lag before a change appears.

Suggested wording: "The lap page updates spots automatically as people book, so the numbers moving is normal — grab an open lane and reserve to lock it in."

What actually happened: This is expected close to slot time. Member self-cancellation is blocked inside a configured cutoff window before the slot starts (a Settings value). Staff aren't subject to that same cutoff.

Resolution steps: If the member is inside the cutoff and has a legitimate reason to cancel, a staff member can cancel it for them from the admin side — that bypasses the cutoff entirely.

Suggested wording: "Self-cancellation closes a short window before your slot starts, but I can cancel it for you from our side right now if you'd still like to free it up."

• Any request for a Stripe cash refund on a camp cancellation. It's staff-only, requires a reason, and can be refused by the system when the fee would eat the whole remaining payout (that refusal is expected behavior, not a bug).

• A part-paid unpaid camp seat. The automated release sweep never touches these; a human decision is required.

• Any transfer price or credit amount the member disputes.

• Any dispute about lottery pay-by deadlines, sibling-group handling, or backfill-credit timing beyond what's covered above.