New Booking System

Or you can just pay the deposit tonight and the rest on arrival.  

My bad, I seem to have introduced some ambiguity.  I did say the ability to amend our plans with as little as 3 days notice was very important to us.  It's the loss of flexibility we don't care for. 

During a tour, our plans often change and we could previously release a booking, 5 days ahead say, and amend it to a different site.  With the new system, any amendment within a ridiculous window of three whole weeks will now cost us a lost deposit. 

There was a good penalty system in use for those few bad apples who abused the previous system and didn't provide 72 hours notice of an amendment.  There was no need to move away from that system.   

Be advised, this new system isn't even safeguarding our personal data properly.  

I have just received a booking confirmation by email, with a PDF attachment quoting somebody else's registration number.  

It states that I am arriving by motorhome (correct), but the registration number quoted belongs to somebody else (it's actually assigned to somebody's - presumably another member's - white Jaguar XF).  Oh, and I'll apparently be towing a caravan...  Which is news to me, because we don't own a caravan.

I emailed straight back to point out this troubling turn of events - leaking personal data between members' records is a serious matter, after all - but obviously the auto-reply came back that they are too busy and will need 10 working days to investigate.

Do you think they'd make time for the Information Commissioner? 

Ah OK no worries, I think (but check) from what has been discussed, that changing to a different club site will not incur any loss of deposits.

Happy touring.

Why book at all unless you are travelling in peak season. We don't very often tour in the UK but this year we did a 30 day tour in June July and out of the 14 sites we used, only 6 were pre booked. We just turned up or phoned a day in advance for a pitch for the remainder. It is possible to tour freely in this country especially with a motorhome. You don't have to stick with Club sites and with more councils beginning to recognise the benefits of providing motorhome stopovers/parking, it can only get easier.

peedee

I know that it is now irrelevent, but what actually was the penalty for not providing 72 hours notice?

A slap on the wrist with threats of loss of forward bookings and, ultimately, to membership itself if the sin was repeated, or so I believe. The only time we cancelled within 72 hours due to mechanical breakdown, we heard nothing.

You can book and pay on line this evening for a site that you want to go to tomorrow - and have nothing more to pay when you arrive there tomorrow.

Sounds great - until you try to book this evening and there are no pitches available!

You can check availability up to night before. Simply start a dummy booking and it will tell you if there are less than five pitches available at your chosen site. 

I looked at a Club Site possible for us last night. The system is so clunky and user non friendly I gave it the boot, opted for search for sites instead and we have found a nice CL. Cheaper.

Ref deposits and late bookings.The balance of payment is taken out the night before so it's deposit plus any payments due. See the new booking T&Cs. You could opt for payment on arrival but if you don't turn up the full balance is still due.