Cancelling a CL booking at short notice.
Comments
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Totally agree with you, a very strange decision. Our favourite Cornish CL had probably a dozen none members call in per week, but they couldn't stay, always "sent up the Lane" to a private site a mile away. Much gritting of teeth by owner if he had any pitches spare, admittedly a rarity, but sometimes available.
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Is there anything actually stopping you signing them up, online, whilst they pitch up. A form for the details and a signature, there aren't that many needed. You would need their bank account details, which you would need to securely destroy. Join them on line using your computer and everybody's happy. If you balk at taking bank details then do everything else on your computer, and ask then to pop up and enter bank details themselves. It maybe a bit of hassle, but if you are saying you would lose the trade otherwise it must surely be worth it. You wouldn't gain any commission, but you would sell a pitch and probably a happy and loyal customer.
I would wonder personally if people would pay the extra £49 to join, when all they wanted was a pitch, but if you say they would be then why not try it.
Can you pitch up at a CAMC site and join at reception, I don't know that one ?
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Good heavens , do some CL owners actually send away visitors who want to come in pay them money? That is so virtuous. I bet they don't all do that. I wouldn't either.
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What, and take the risk of loosing their exemption certificate should a site inspector call?
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I am really struggling with the fact that the anti 'pay up front/pay deposit' section on here are against it because they want to retain the ability to not turn up without a loss to themselves
. The CL owners are trying to supply a service a lot of us appreciate, yet it seems to be-'no more than 5 LV's, no deposits, no paying up front' I question some 'customers' attitude to CL's & if they really do support them or just want them to be forced into closure. 1 -
I suspect because a lot of members like me would think twice about joining the club if I could get the main benefit that I use without doing so.
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Firstly we are big fans of CL's and they are the only reason I remain a club member.
I don't think many would or do object to paying a deposits, for me its down to the T&C's i.e. if the owner wants 50% or more for a deposit and won't refund for any reason then I will find somewhere else.. If you want to see how a successful non-deposit site is run have a look at Barleywood you will see they are nearly totally full from April to October next year.
http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/sites/cal.asp?revid=9664&y=1
PS never heard David complain about no shows etc I think he has a list of people he can call who might take on the booking at short notice, I've taken advantage of that system
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Unfortunately in my world occasionally things happen that cause me to change plans !!! Carvan stolen, MIL has a fall, van gets damp etc etc, ( all rather dramatic I know but you get my drift ) Under these circumstances I may change my plans, and if I do, I like the fact that I am able to cancel these plans. The flexibility of the van was one of these main reasons we bought it
I have only ever cancelled a CL once, can't remember the reason. It was an overnight stop on way to Cornwall. Phoned the owner, 'thanks for letting me know' he said, and that was that. Been back twice since, no problems. If I had lost a deposit or the full amount, I probably wouldn't have stayed there the next two times
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Personally I think the point of this thread is being missed. It's not about whether or not cancelling is fair. It's a CL owner trying to find out how much her trade would be affected if she started charging a deposit.
It doesn't matter if people think it is fair or not to cancel a booking.
Do people think her trade would be affected, and if so, significantly or slightly ?
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These things can happen and do, but must be rare within the 7 days period asked for by the OP which makes me think a lot of cancellations are by weather watchers. Caravan stolen or someone having a fall would not have me thinking about the loss of a deposit.
CL owners being limited to 5 vans cannot survive without booking commitments, and its only fair if cancelled at short notice and have small chance of filling that pitch they have recompense.
In summary I agree with the OP but the statement needs toning down.
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By the few-yes.
by the many-no.
I accept there are some that want the World to give them cast iron guarantees & never let them down but shy away from doing the same themselves. 'Tis life
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In August the CL Owners Group conducted some research on this topic. 90 CL owners took part..
65 CL’s reported that they had had cancellations or early departures where no compensation was forthcoming. Of those 65, 44 CL’s reported in detail on 71 different booking cancellations. Those 44 CL’s lost a total of £5,584 and in total 464 pitch nights.
43% of the 71 cancellations were attributed to Illness or bereavement, 13% due to mechanical breakdown, but 41% were because the Member had forgotten about the booking (see OP), or left early because they didn’t like the Pitch.
In most cases the Owners were left entirely out of pocket as the majority (67%) had not taken a deposit. Some attempted to recover some ££ through politely asking the member concerned, but had nil response.But Rocky, the last line of this suggests that actually people will not pay, if requested to do so by the CL.
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Cancelling at short notice isn't fair. Either on a Club Site, but especially not on a CL. Ok, I appreciate that unforeseen circumstances and serious emergencies can and do happen, we have had one as I stated earlier. But cancelling for weather? Oops, I forgot we had booked? Smacks of a total lack of commitment on the members part, so why should CL owners take a big hit on their income?
Having met Nicola and stayed on her lovely CL twice, and having read of the number of times cancellations for two, three weeks have occurred at short notice, I can fully sympathise with how the group of CL owners are trying to cushion themselves from the unthinking behaviour of some members.
As I said earlier, popular CLs get booked quickly. On the whole, if someone books well in advance, for a long holiday, most will tend to turn up without any fuss. Putting in place a deposit scheme, maybe even a pay up front scheme, will weed out the small number of offenders. For anyone else who doesn't like such a set up, there are hundreds more CLs to choose from, or holiday insurance to consider.
Will it affect bookings? Possibly for a short while, but those who love the individual CLs will still visit. We do.
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Cancelling at short notice is fair, if it is allowed under their T&C's. They don't have to allow it, as we have seen with certain other CL's, but untill they change their policy it is perfectly fair.
If they don't like it, they should start taking a deposit, but one must presume they are worried about that having an affect on their bookings.
In fact you could argue that using the CC to build your business, and then altering a significant part of their policy to suit you, is unfair.
But that's business, and unless the CAMC decide to get involved, entirely the owners choice.
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Best get money up front or a decent deposit to negate financial losses then
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There is a difference between a booking of 25 days without deposit or payment and the usual 2/3 day booking, which is cancelled for a proper reason, or the site is not as expected by the booking person or description. Businesses do accept some possible loss of perceived income as part and parcel of being in business. As a regular Cl user I like the status quo. Book, turn up and pay, or just turn up and hope there is space (this could be bonus income). Never let a Cl down in all my years and find it difficult to recollect ever not finding a pitch just by turning up.
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CLs operate under the CC umbrella, they organise their rules, policies and payments independently, not as the CC sites do. Hence the diversity in booking and payment methods. Members switching from using (expensive) Club Sites to CLs need to understand this, and realise that the 72 hour cancellation policy doesn't apply to CLs. On the plus side, I know of no CL that operates the crazy Club booking type frenzy in December. We have happily committed to booking a CL pitch a full year in advance, and paying in full for 28 days, knowing we have a pitch on a fantastic site. This won't suit other CL users, and we don't do it for all CLs, most we ring up night before we set off!
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Hello again and thank you for your replies….I didn’t expect quite so many!
Firstly to those of you who have taken the time to comment specifically on our CL with so many compliments…it’s very much appreciated
.By posting I was trying to gauge member views on last minute (by that I mean within a few days to a week) cancellations, what you feel is appropriate to do in such circumstances and whether this view is widely held. The vast majority on here seem to be of the opinion that if you cancel it would be appropriate to at least offer some kind of recompense to the CL owner which is encouraging to hear.
I’m not necessarily thinking of changing my policy at the moment but that may alter the busier we get and therefore the more members I turn away who could have visited if someone cancelled last minute. I have had this situation on several occasions and when I received the 25 night cancellation I had turned a 9 night booking away a couple of days before. Unfortunately, when I contacted them to see if they would still like to book they’d (understandably) booked elsewhere.
At present I only charge a deposit for Bank Holidays and special events and then it is a 50% deposit. I don’t suffer greatly from cancellations but I know of other owners within our group who suffer many throughout the season and I understand that people’s plans change/illness etc. It does bother me however when members cancel a long stay last minute especially when they say they’d ‘forgotten’ about the booking. I also kindly ask for pitch fees on arrival day which has never elicited a negative comment from anyone.
We run two other businesses as well as our CL and we have never confused bookings with turnover! We are experienced in running our own businesses and that is what the CL is, a business. Unfortunately we do not have the luxury of calling it a hobby…it has to pay its way and we take the running of it very seriously and are continually thinking about ways to improve the site. We want all our visitors to enjoy their stay here. As they say….there’s no better form of advertising than personal recommendation.
I can see this topic from both sides as we are also active caravanners ourselves (though not very often due to work commitments…sigh) and generally stay on CLs. As we are running our CL our get-aways tend to be last minute bookings for which I’ve had to pay deposits, full amount up front or simply book and turn up….I don’t mind any of those choices as long as I can get away! If I were to cancel last minute and hadn’t paid anything I would always at least offer to pay. Whether that is accepted or declined is up to the CL owner….often the very act of ‘offering’ is all that’s needed…it acknowledges that you, the customer, have thought about it from the business owners point of view.
In my opinion I do think if a deposit/full upfront fee is charged then there should be a cancellation policy in place. I do not think it is right to accept a deposit for a booking in say 6 months’ time which is cancelled a month later and the CL owner to keep that deposit. If there was a cancellation policy in place owners and members would know what to expect and deposits should, in my opinion, only be lost if the booking is cancelled within a certain time frame…that may be a week, a month or 6 weeks….it’s up to the CL owner to set his/her own policy and make it clear. This then obviously means more admin on behalf of the owner which is one reason why I don’t currently charge deposits but I am considering doing so for bookings of say 5 nights or a week or more.
And before someone points it out
no, I don’t currently have an advertised cancellation policy within my T&Cs because I only take limited deposits but it would change if I were to charge deposits for general bookings as opposed to just BHs and special events. A CL owner may choose to return/carry over pitch fees paid for cancelled bookings if the pitch is re-let (I did this last weekend and the member has booked again for later this month). Yes, this is a trust issue and for those of you who categorically won’t pay deposits because you ‘once’ lost one, please don’t assume all CL owners are the same!
Yes, we are affiliated to the CAMC but CLs are nothing like club sites so I think the comparison is unfair and suggesting we operate like a club site is unworkable. A no show on a club site is perhaps barely noticeable (in financial terms) but a no show on a CL is a loss of 20% of that night’s income. The issue of cancellations/no shows on CLs being ‘supported’ by the club is non-existent, they will offer us no support regarding this (and other things) and, as Cholsey Grange has stated, the club has no plans to offer CLs any support in the near future but they do still expect us to only accept their members and pay our membership fees.
For those of you who have commented on how fees/deposits are paid to CLs I believe things are and will continue to slowly change as younger generations who are more IT savvy take over or open new CL sites. More and more will gradually have websites, offer online availability and booking along with more up to date ways of paying.
Here at Skybarn we accept cash, cheques, paym (pay via mobile phone) and bank transfer. The fees for card payments are currently too great in comparison to our nightly fees to offer this facility.
We have a website with an online availability calendar as well as online booking. When someone books with us they receive an email confirmation of the booking including arrival and departure dates and the full cost. If and when a deposit is paid customers always receive an email receipt showing what has been paid and the balance still owing. If there is an error it is my fault (doh) and I won’t ask for more money than is confirmed in the emails. It happened recently with two bookings….one gentleman kindly pointed the error out and paid the difference (you know who you are
) and the other… I lost out on one night’s fee.We try to be here to answer calls, we really don't want to miss any bookings and if we're away we divert calls to a mobile which is with us all the time but not necessarily within mobile signal range
. If you leave a message (which we can understand) we WILL call you back . I appreciate not every CL takes the running of it quite as seriously but that is the wonderful diversity of the CL network.Nicola
www.skybarnfarm.co.uk
Telephone: 01522 681218
Email: enquiries@skybarnfarm.co.uk
Site 365, page 402 of the 2017/2018 Sites Directory
Read our many wonderful reviews!4 -
For those averse to deposits, how would they feel if CL owners began overbooking like airlines as a hedge against late cancellations and found upon arrival someone had taken their pitch? It would create more animosity than any deposit scheme.
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Thanks for that post, Nicola. It's good to hear a CL owners point of view. Sharing understanding of the various issues encountered when running a CL can only be a good thing.
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Hear Hear. Well said TW.
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Excellent post Nicola. Says everything you need to know about CLs, and outlines everything we understand about booking a CL, and how we try and see things from the CL owners point of view.
Even if the Club aren't able to give you much support, perhaps some better guidance for those members new to CLs might help any misunderstanding, and make folks realise that CLs operate very differently to Club Sites. Online and in handbook would be good. It all helps.
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I will start by saying that we have only ever cancelled CL bookings twice.
Once at an award winning site in Shropshire, for which I sent a cheque for the full fee (never did notice if they cashed it or not) when our car broke a few days before supposed arrival.
The other was, I believe, for a couple of nights at the OP's site for which we offered to pay, this was declined.
We have stayed at Skybarn once or twice and I have said to Nicola more than once "it is your site, your rules", be it deposits, cancellation policies or even how you pitch your unit. It is entirely the CL owners prerogative how they run their site. We, as visitors have the choice whether to use that site or not.
Nicola, you are not the only caravan site locally to suffer late cancellations. A nearby CS have now started insisting on deposits because of it. They also had someone cancel at the last minute for a lengthy stay. Said they couldn't remember which sites they had booked.
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They clearly must have remembered which site they booked as they knew where to cancel.
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My GP got so fed up with people not turning up for appointments booked in advance that he told people to phone in at 8.00am on the day instead. He says people make that phone call and some still don't turn up.
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Apparently the telephone conversation started "Hello, this is Mr ****, are we booked in with you for next week?"
When he was told he was, he then went on to cancel a 3 week stay. Said he had been phoning round as he couldn't remember which sites he had booked (notice the plural sites, so how many other sites has he cancelled)
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I owe Nicola an apology, as I attributed a post re lost money / confusing turnover with bookings, to her, when it was actually from another poster, sorry.
Nellies quote above re representative of CC membership is, in my opinion, the most accurate post made on this thread.
A CL owner talked about a survey on this thread, which involved CL owners asking for money from non showers, and said that the response to the request was nil !! and yet overwhelmingly the posters on here have supported paying in full, after a no show / cancellation.
It seems something doesn't add up !!
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