Booking Abuse!

Ian while I agree members do make speculative bookings, it is the only way to get a booking sometimes, the cancellations seem to be gobbled up fairly quickly so the Club doesn't actually lose anything. It is just members like the one complaining in the March magazine letters pages that suffer and me who wanted a four day booking over a weekend in the northwest. It just couldn't be done 3 weeks in advance other than at the Wirral Country Park which I didn't want so I have booked a commercial site for my four days.

Did you see >this thread< I'll try and update it idc.

peedee

I have been monitoring the late availability for this weekend, I'll print the graph in >this thread<  idc but on the 6th March there were only 907 pitches available on the Saturday night in the network. This morning the 8th March, with only a few hours to go before the deadline where you can cancel without penalty there are 1000 pitches available on the Saturday night. i.e. 10.25 percent of booked pitches have been cancelled over 2 days with 8.3  percent of them being cancelled yesterday.

Do the Club and membership think this acceptable??????

peedee

p.s. at the site I wanted to book, 7 percent of the pitches are now free.

Figures cannot lie. Speculative booking is a reality. To address this the CC needs to implement one of the following:-

1. Non-returnable deposits

2. Extend the cancellation period to 5 days instead of 48 hours

3. Hold  credit card details and levy a fee for late cancellations/no show.

4. Only allow 'weekend only' bookings to be booked four weeks before the date.

Options 2 (actually 72 hours at present though isn't it?) & 3 would do for me CY!

Perhaps a bit controversial but why not an item 5, any booking of 2 nights or less has to be paid in full at time of booking. If cancelled, the fee would be forfeit. Although you would retain the right of appeal and could submit your reasons to the CC. 

It seems to me that the current system is working. If 93 extra pitches become available across a network of 200 campsites that is less than half a pitch per site. OK I appreciate that it will vary from site to site in terms of number of pitches becoming available. To me that figure suggests they are more likely to be  cancelations for genine reasons rather than speculative bookings simply because the figure is so low?

David

I agree with David K.  The present system seems to work well for most people.  The 72 hour cancellation policy releases a small number of pitches which gives folk the opportunity to book a site last minute if they are unable to book weeks in advance.

David

...david, put like that it sounds low, but turn it back to Peedees observation that over 10% of all pitches were cancelled in the 'just allowed' period and that cant be 'genuine' reasons like illness, car breakdown, family incident etc.....just too many.

some will definitely be for worse weather than was expected, when booked back in December

Perhaps a bit controversial but why not an item 5, any booking of 2 nights or less has to be paid in full at time of booking. If cancelled, the fee would be forfeit. Although you would retain the right of appeal and could submit your reasons to the CC. 

i sort of agree with this, but even better, if one/two night 'transit' breaks could be booked on the carpark/LNA or similar (where available) it would stop the majority of these tiny bookings stymying those who wish to take a full week (or longer) but find the odd day in the middle scuppers plans....

i realise this is a difficult thing for the club to implement (as are most things.....) but it might be a way of freeing up more contiguous nights for those who need them.

im sure there are many MHers (and some caravanners) who are just passing through and would be happy without the bells and whistles for a slightly reduced price knowing that they havent booked a one nighter right in the middle of someone elses plans...

Ian while I agree members do make speculative bookings, it is the only way to get a booking sometimes, the cancellations seem to be gobbled up fairly quickly so the Club doesn't actually lose anything. It is just members like the one complaining in the March magazine letters pages that suffer and me who wanted a four day booking over a weekend in the northwest. It just couldn't be done 3 weeks in advance other than at the Wirral Country Park which I didn't want so I have booked a commercial site for my four days.

Did you see >this thread< I'll try and update it idc.

peedee

I have been monitoring the late availability for this weekend, I'll print the graph in >this thread<  idc but on the 6th March there were only 907 pitches available on the Saturday night in the network. This morning the 8th March, with only a few hours to go before the deadline where you can cancel without penalty there are 1000 pitches available on the Saturday night. i.e. 10.25 percent of booked pitches have been cancelled over 2 days with 8.3  percent of them being cancelled yesterday.

Do the Club and membership think this acceptable??????

peedee

p.s. at the site I wanted to book, 7 percent of the pitches are now free.

...How many of the pitches that appeared on the 8th march were put back into the system by site staff,for what ever reason?

It seems to me that the current system is working. If 93 extra pitches become available across a network of 200 campsites that is less than half a pitch per site. OK I appreciate that it will vary from site to site in terms of number of pitches becoming available. To me that figure suggests they are more likely to be  cancelations for genine reasons rather than speculative bookings simply because the figure is so low?

David

I disagree. For a start less than a 100 sites are open and 8.3 percent cancellations in one day just before the deadline says a lot. At A time when the Club is trying to maximise site income to pay for the NLW, I think they need to rethink their cancellation policy. What nobody knows is how many like me have been and booked a non Club site because pitches were not available until 3 days before?

peedee

p.s. A quick count shows the actual number of sites open is 62.