Secure you summer holiday for just £5 deposit

Until we are told it is of course assumptions. However those assumptions are based on what has happened in the past, and what has been said in the past,  and I don't think it unreasonable to imagine that history might repeat itself? Even with a £5 deposit there will be many members, perhaps the majority, who are conscientious in telling the Club they can't make it. How many will cancel before the 21 day deadline we don't know. We don't know what is driving this change. Has there been a major change in the willingness of members to book so far in advance regardless of the deposit system, is the deposit system putting people off booking in advance. One imagines it is, otherwise the Club would not be changing it. Under the old system and despite the high number of late cancellations the Club had a good idea, going forward, what their likely revenue would be. We also know that under the old system the late cancellations actually worked in the favour of those looking for a last minute break or making a shorter break longer, I did that many times. OK we have got to give the change an opportunity to work and wait and see what the review shows us. However I can't help thinking unless the £5 deposit is tied to some sanction for late cancellation we may as well go back to the old system and save all those transaction charges on the £5?

David

I agree, and as I posted a possible scenario is that numbers have remained the same the income is not covering costs and either put prices up or get more on site.

Goldie it says standard T&C apply to this £5 deposit.

7. No Shows, late arrivals and Early Departures

No Shows

If you fail to arrive on your arrival day and fail to notify us during the arrival day (by 8pm), this will be treated as a ‘no-show’ cancellation of your entire stay by you, and you will not be entitled to be refunded any element which has been paid, including the full deposit, any interim payments and / or the automatic balancing payment taken before arrival (if applicable).

So it looks like you would lose your £5 and if you opt to pay befor arrival you'd lose that too, unless you informed them by 8pm.

As others have posted £5 isn't really that much to lose (we look at things as how many large coffees would that buy at Costa).

Agreed. If not paid in advance, they couldn’t force you to pay any money to cover the balance unless they took debt recovery measures which would include court action. I can’t see that happening!

Ah, so not as big a deterrent as I understood.

Personally I think the £5 deposit is more likely to work if linked to compulsory automatic payments and I find it difficult to understand why they didn’t use this opportunity to bring it in. All 10 of our recent stays had the balance paid at 2 /3am the morning before and it speeded up arrival considerably. This was particularly the case at Lady Margaret’s Park, where they have ANPR. This worked brilliantly, we were admitted straight onto the site a screen telling us our pitch type and to respond to a text with our pitch number once selected. What I found surprising was the number queuing in the other lane because they had not paid in advance.

Agreed. Payment in full before you arrive and ANPR has to be the way forward.

This may have been covered, but I cannot track it down.

My query is that if you pay the £5 deposit for a site next year and opt to pay on arrival, do you pay the cost as it is then on arrival, or the cost it was when you secured the booking with your £5 deposit? It can obviously go any way with dynamic pricing, but does that deposit means you enter a contract on the price?

Usually it is the cost when you booked and paid the deposit. I say usually as there was one tine when all prices when up (two/three years ago due to increased energy costs?) and people were advised of this in advance and were given the option to cancel and there was one time when the late change of the May bank holiday when some prices went up and some went down. But aside from that it's the booked price.

I certainly have always paid the booked price even if it has gone up to dynamic pricing. I don't check but I think others has posted (was you SteveL?) to say the on the day price was higher.

Yes have always paid the booked price and it has almost always been higher on the day when there have been spaces free. This was also the case for the one time I didn’t tick pay in advance because I had a free site night voucher code. If they didn’t fix the prices they couldn’t operate the limited time offers, our four night stay with the granddaughter is £24 less than if we booked now.