It's a bit unfair

Spot on M. The Club won’t care if John Smith of Eccles, or Jane Doe of Dartmouth, books but then cancels a few dates, providing it is within the allotted cancellation timespan. What the Club is concerned with is simply getting A Member onto as many pitches as possible to maximise Site income. Doesn’t matter if A Member books a year in advance, or picks up a late cancellation two days before arrival, so long as A Member turns up on Site unless cancelled properly.

I don’t worry about seeing a few empty pitches during my visit. There will be a reason for it, one which the Club doesn’t have to impart to every single Member who feels that they should be informed. We have all heard the mainly anecdotal shenanigans that “a friend of a friend saw on TwitFace”.

If you want a particular date, place, particularly at these ultra busy times, you simply have to be very organised, fully understand how the Club’s very generous booking system works, and be grateful that it is such a good, no deposit, easy cancel system in these still difficult times.

Not criticising Malc’s opening post, just pointing out that understanding fully how the booking system operates is important.🙂

Yes there are +1. This block booking myth being one of them. At the AGM:

Can Club explore options to restrict block bookings eg, max number of pre-bookings, max of penalty free cancellations, etc as opposed to deposits.

Whilst there are many thousands of cancellations and amendments each year, the
vast majority of these are made by the vast majority of members, ie not simply made
by a minority of members making high volumes of bookings (so called block bookers).

I spent a working lifetime managing bookable finite resources. It’s simply impossible to micro manage each unit in terms of communication usage to each customer, no matter how aggrieved or upset they might be. The variables are many, even with computers it is quite an onerous task, and you quickly learn that no matter how much information is given to visitors, if that information doesn’t correspond to their thoughts, many will simply not believe it.
For any business, it’s not about who particularly is using that unit, it’s about how much income and value for money that unit is returning. Most businesses have some form of penalty for repeated no shows, or (as in the case of very, very busy restaurants) it might be you pay the price up front. The Club will know exactly how it needs to manage no shows, and hasn’t at this point chosen to impose deposits on the vast majority of its honourable customers, which is still a very popular unique selling point.

What the Club does not know is how many, on seeing a site fully booked, simply go elsewhere. I have done it three times so far this year which has resulted in the Club losing 17 days bookings from me.

peedee

I always got the impression that you were never that keen on booking club sites anyway, PD? 

I do use them if available but I am not wedded to them. As foreign travel is no longer safe in my eyes, I expect the majority of my days away this year to be on C&MC sites.

peedee

Do not fret some one will ring the site to inquire. and take your17days

They had better keep an eye on the two Cornish sites I have booked then, I may yet cancel them.

peedee

Understandable - it does seem that club sites seem to be the sites of choice for many unable to travel overseas this year! 

Oh no, don’t you cancel as well.  15 out of 20Devon and Cornwall sites have vacancies already for the full week ahead and it’s peak season.