Booking a Specific Pitch
I know this is an old chestnut and I am personally not a fan of the concept. However, perhaps the CAMC are missing out big time by not offering a proportion of the pitches as specifically bookable. I noticed in the paper today that Thomas Cook are allowing folk to book sun beds at £22 per stay, and they expect it to be very popular. There is even an app so you can check how much sun your bed gets. Only a proportion of available sun beds will be bookable, leaving plenty for those who just want to pick and choose.
If folk are willing to pay £22 per person for a sun bed, I wonder what the going rate for a pitch would be.
If they made say 10% bookable, clearly there could be some losses as folk might not take up the odd days. However, if they could get £22 or more per week, it might be worth a try.
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If it was ever done I think it would have to be any pitch on the site, up to the agreed limit. Otherwise folk could not pick there favourite sunny pitch and would not be prepared to pay the premium. Often service pitches are in a very small area of the total site and are of couse bookable in any event, even if not to the specific pitch level.
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A specific sunbed for £22? That sounds like a wow of a holiday...........
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Or possibly good reasons. I can see minimum number of night's stay being included in such an idea, possibly a week or more. Then this would become quite expensive for some of us. No, keep as is for me, choose from all those vacant and available on arrival!
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I agree, and yet TC reckon they can get £22 for a sun bed. When this has been discussed before I was thinking £10 at most, for a week booking. Extra revenue in that manner, could potentially mean prices at least held static for a year. To the benifit of those like myself who are willing to take pot luck.
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And no one is saying ALL pitches can be prebooked. A trial might be for a third of all pitch types providing you were staying at least a week and booked at least a certain number of weeks in advance of the stay. Any unbooked released for anyone (say) 6 weeks beforehand on a rolling basis.
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But no one is saying anything, just discussing. If this idea was introduced folk would still have to book from what is available, just on booking, not arrival! Then we are back to possibly frenzy booking as minimum nights blocks may have to be included in the arrangement. These may be on specific start and finish days/ dates too.
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other half is disabled and when I ring the sites for booking I ask if possible to have pitch close to disabled toilet and on nearly all occasions they have obliged and that is with both clubs. I would say that if you are regular to a site and like a certain pitch they would try and reserve it for you but could be difficult at busy times.
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I see nothing wrong with the disabled being close to the toilet block, they in effect have their choose of pitch somewhat limited by this and possible allocated rather than chosen. Not in favour of frequent visitors being given priledges though, afterall, the club is a network of sites, not one sîte and many of us are very frequent users, just not maybe on that one specific site mind.
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That’s a different kettle of fish, LL. All Wardens will try to reserve a pitch near facilities for the less abled. Generally the pitches are up for grabs by all and the blue sign only goes up when a pitch is needed and it won’t necessarily always be on the same pitch.
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For several years I used to phone the owner of a site we liked and say "May we have pitch 23 again please". She said yes it will be nice to see you again. No extra fee, no deposit.
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Just for a second, let's assume the club did go down this route, would you expect your booking fee back because your grass pitch was soggy after a rain storm,and you wanted to move to another pitch .?And would you get the hump when told "You booked it, you have it".
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It's difficult for the Club because there are just so many variables......length of stay, just how busy Site is, what is the weather doing, possible cancellations, less likely but possible, damage to pitch or pitch equipment, etc...
The chances of getting a favoured pitch at Chatsworth for three weeks, including either the Horse Trials or the Game Fair weekend are possibly akin to getting all the required numbers on the Euro Lottery.....and having to pay for the privilege!
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I'm surprised no-one has yet mentioned people booking adjacent pitch to the one their pal booked. We could have all the decent pitches out of play for those who didn't book a specific pitch in advance.
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Sounds like it works elsewhere AD, but suspect the site you used isn't perhaps prone to weekenders, nor booked solid for weeks on end as well. And of course you could book it virtually as you left!
We used to book our favourite CL twelve months in advance, and usually found a cone reserving our favoured pitch as well. One year we arrived, it wasn't the owners who had put it there, but fellow users who we used to meet up with once a year!
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There is a certain amount of tiering at the moment. Some sites are more expensive than others and out of the price range of some members. More and more service pitches are being introduced at a supliment of £3.90. Again out of the price range of some members. It has been mentioned on a recent thread that sites like York allocate a pitch if you happen to have a smaller van or MH. Isn't that discriminatory / tiered, just because you have a small van you get a pitch much smaller than someone else paying the same.
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It's no different to awning/non-awning or grass/HS, Steve. Personally, I think you're making too much of it and overcomplicating the issue and it's not even an issue really.
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