March 14, 2023 K2 Release

PIN Debit for Tenerum

As we continue with the migration to Tenerum Payment Systems for our credit card solution, we’ve reached a new milestone with the addition of PIN Debit capability. Now guests will be able to use their cards with their PIN numbers from the credit card device. No additional setup is needed for this functionality up and there is nothing for the front desk staff to do differently. It’s all up to the guest.

Note: This functionality is not available with existing Chase Paymentech accounts. Watch for communications regarding all KOAs converting to Tenerum by season 2023.

For card-present transactions, like checking someone in or a KampStore transaction, the front desk staff chooses the “Credit Card” payment button and selects their PIN Pad device.

On the PIN Pad, if the guest is using a debit card, they will be given the option to run the transaction as a Credit or Debit.

Once they’ve selected the debit option, they will need to enter their PIN number and press the green button.

Other Development

Reports with Truncated Site Numbers

While it’s not very common to have long site numbers, some campgrounds have chosen to. A minor issue was discovered with certain reports where long site numbers were being truncated (cut off). For example, the site number may have been “Cottonwood” but was listed on the report as “Cottonwo”. This has been corrected in the following reports:

1. Arrivals Report
2. Census Report
3. Guest Activity Report
   

KOA Rewards Refund on Receipts

Another minor bug was addressed – in some rare cases, the KOA Rewards refund information was not showing on the receipt. This has been corrected.

Coming Soon – Guest Notification

With the work completed on the guest database in 2021, the foundation for the guest to be involved in their own guest information was laid. Having the guest involved will increase overall accuracy of their information and provide a better view into the camping habits of our guests.

Within the next couple of months, we will be taking a couple of small but crucial next steps for our guest database. First, we will require a guest to have a unique email address. A recent analysis of our reservations at the system level shows that 70% of our reservations are made on KOA.com. A unique email address is already required there. By adding this requirement to the remaining 30% of incoming reservations, we bring consistency between KOA.com and the front desk. Among other things, this small step sets the stage for us to be able to provide the guest the ability to manage their own reservations online in the future.

Additionally, we will be adding Guest Notification to K2. Like many other companies in the business world today, KOA will notify a guest when their information has changed and allow them the opportunity through their KOA.com account to manage that information. Below is a real-world example to illustrate this kind of notification.

Credit Cards
Progress is being made on switching over to our new credit card provider – Tenerum Payment Systems. To date, most of our OAK properties have converted and are processing payments. The system is very stable and quick for card-present transactions. We are monitoring the performance with the integration and the speed of the transactions and are currently doing some load testing. Once we’re satisfied with the results, we will begin to work with the franchise system to complete conversion.

The transition will be facilitated and managed by our service partner – Chosen Payments of Utah – who will guide KOA Franchisees through obtaining a new merchant account and purchasing new PIN Pad devices. We will push to have the entire system on by the start of camping season 2023. More information will be available on eKamp.