Booking Fairness... Time for a Rethink??
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The release dates currently are on a Wednesday so am I supposed to take a Wed every month off work to book for the following year?
No idea what time they are released on a Wednesday - maybe book before work?
I may have children, so do I book every possible combination of possible school holiday?
Your choice.
There are sites that some members have never been able to get a booking for whilst others visit often.
I have always been able to book a honeyspot site but I suspect the rolling booking would make it harder. I don't know as not sites that interest me.
AND NO....I will not phone the site to see if the warden can fit me in on whatever is left over from the cancellation pool.
Entirely your choice.
As an equal member to you I deserve the right of the same choice of pitch type as you. But more than this my leisure time is very precious to me as I do not get much so I can not risk not getting a decent week or two because the weekends are choked by speculative bookers.
You get exactly the same opportunity as me and others. The fact that your personal circumstances may make booking holidays more difficult but that is not down to others.
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It’s easy peasy getting a honey pot Site now with rolling bookings. We had never stayed at YRP up to a couple of years ago. Wanted specific dates to go to theatre in July, booked it a few months in advance without a problem. We even added on two more nights while there, one of which was a weekend! And yes, it was that red hot Summer.
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Is there such a standard? Where can it be found? And has any other campsite provider ever published their figures?
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I see what PD did there-obfuscation👍🏻, clever but not clever enough eh😊
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I agree PD, although that’s you & I into the ether too🤷🏻♂️.
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My experience is that CLs and some family run farm sites were great with young kids. I remember things like the kids collecting eggs, feeding chickens, a gentle tap on the caravan door for the farmers wife to ask if our 8 year old was asleep and if not would she like to see a lambing or two. She had just dropped off but was up and dressed in 5 minutes. Many things that I could think of. There were also plenty of CC sites that had room to play though. As the kids got older though the site activities were less import as we spent most of the day off site.
There were a couple of family run farm sites and CLs that I remember with great affection.
Off topic but a reminiscence of kindness. We were staying on a CL on the Llŷn Peninsula. (I had borrowed my dad's caravan) we had a 3 or 4 month daughter. My wife had a bad reaction to some tablets and I had brought the knobbly car mat in for her to rub her feet on which were itching badly and she was running I high temperature. I phoned a local(ish) GP who said he would be there in 15 mins. I could hear him a couple of minutes before he arrived in his open topped sports car. My wife was in bed when he arrived after seeing my wife he asked if I could cope with my wife and baby.
He then went off and was back in 30 mins with some tablets and invited us to stay with him if we wished, no charge, and his housekeeper would do the cooking etc.. Again free of charge. Do they still make doctors like that?
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I think the poster I was responding to wanted far more information than just percentage of cancellations. He wanted the complete breakdown of figures. I am all for the club providing more information but past experience suggests that is unlikely unless there is a major change in booking procedure which requires some explanation/justification?
David
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The problem is the club has taken on more and more members, but not increased pitch capacity to match , so a supply and demand problem has arose
The present system of booking is bias ,and quite substantially ,in favor of those, who are not in work, retired etc
As yet i have seen no other constructive suggestions to make the system more balanced, and fair to those that can book when ever they want. and those that cannot
The main response has been from those that can book wherever they want , to keep the system as it is ,for obvious reasons .
As i posted. though no perfect a cap on forward booking. say 3 to 5 could be a way forward. or maybe a 3 to 5 cap on bookings that include weekends0 -
School holiday dates are generally available for 2 years ahead, and are rarely changed, so having a child at school need not be a problem!
If you really want/need a particular site, refusing to ring to see if there are additional pitches being released is "shooting yourself in the foot" IMO. You will still be able to choose on arrival from what is available at the time, and if a "better" pitch becomes available after a couple of days there is no problem with asking to move if you wish.
Honeypot sites? We avoid them! Far too expensive for most of the year. We also leave the school holidays to families for much the same reasons.
Been there ourselves, and survived the process, and booking these days is much easier than when you had to do it by post or phone and pay a deposit!
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The present system of booking is bias ,and quite substantially ,in favor of those, who are not in work, retired etc
Can't say that I agree particularly. Theoretically they have more times during the day to book but do you really think that we old fogeys spend all the day trying to book sites?
As i posted. though no perfect a cap on forward booking. say 3 to 5 could be a way forward. or maybe a 3 to 5 cap on bookings that include weekends.
Just as 'maybe' minimum 3 nights if the booking include a Friday or a Saturday. I say that as Friday and Saturday are obviously the days most likely to 'bottleneck' bookings. I certainly would not advocate for either. Some of C&CC's most popular sites at popular months have 5 night minimums. Suits me fine as that is my normal length of stay before moving on
Your option disenfranchises those that want to book a series of sites for a tour - largely retired folk but not exclusively. My tongue in cheek option disenfranchises those who want just weekends, mainly working folk.
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Just booked the whole of Sept 2021 at the site we are currently on, just in case Corvid is still running riot over there and Staycations become difficult to book.
this site for 2021 is running reasonably full , but they do have a lot of people returning year on year. Had to place a £35 deposit which i will loose if we cxl, but £35 seems a reasonable price to pay for some sort of surety, and the site has character, not like most of the club sites, e.g. Southport, not stayed but did poke my nose in sometime ago whilst up North, not for us thank you.
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As far as I am aware the membership of the Club has been around the 350000 households for several years now. The Club just seem to manage to recruit enough new members to stem the losses from non renewals. It will be interesting to see what the figure is for this year. Whilst I have seen figures quoted here of an extra 30000 members what never seems to be mentioned is the loss of members so we always seem to arrive at that 350000 total figure!
The Club has increased pitch capacity by the purchase of Bingham Grange and Cayton Village. OK there have been a loss of a couple of less used sites and the figures for CL's continue to be downward but even the Club don't know the occupancy figures for those CL's that are no longer open and perhaps one of the reasons they no longer exist is that they have become sites in their own right or that there was not sufficient business for them to continue.
It is the older demographic that keeps the Club going so I suspect the Club will want to tread carefully in making changes to anything that would disrupt that large element of the customer base? So soon as you start talking about putting caps on the number of sites that can be booked at anyone time you disadvantage those of us that like to tour, spending 3/5 nights on a site before moving on. An imposition of such a cap could result in a large loss of members which would be counter productive. Whilst I like the system as it is and am not convinced it needs changing the only way to ration people would be to introduce a deposit system but even then the better off would circumnavigate it as the loss of the of £25/30 deposit wouldn't bother them particularly. It could also work against the working families who would find themselves having to find deposits so far in advance, especially if a deposit system was based on a percentage of total charges.
In conclusion there is no easy option over what we have already. Booking ahead to get what you want is a way of life. If you want to attend a particular concert by a favourite band you have to be prepared to book ahead. If you want to book a favourite cruise you have to book ahead and there are many such incidences where booking ahead is required with no help from the promoters if you can't be sure you can get the time off to attend.
David
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Not only do most of we "old fogeys" have better things to do than sit around all day trying to book sites, many of us still have obligations even though no longer working.
We care for our grandson 2-3 days per week, the other grandparents do the other weekdays, so organising a trip means first consulting with the other grandparents on their plans, then checking school holidays to see when Daddy will be available for childcare, and then looking at how we can fit in 30 days away without having to pay the dreaded peak prices.
This is only possible by using the fact that school holidays are different in England and Scotland, realising that the CCC have shorter/different peak periods, and using CLs where possible.
We also have to work round some voluntary sector obligations, and be mindful of hospital and dental checks. And then hope we live long enough to use the bookings!
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David klyne
You postAs far as I am aware the membership of the Club has been around the 350000 households for several years now
your information mat be out of date Wikipedia saysThe Caravan and Motorhome Club is an organisation representing caravan and motorhome users in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was founded in 1907[1] and now represents nearly one million members
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Back in mid August, we booked 8 sites, 1 in Scotland and 7 in England, for September/October, without any problem, all the sites we wanted had availability on the dates we needed.
Unfortunately we had to cancel the trip, for a number of reasons, and did so about 2 weeks before we were due to travel.
Only one site, Kendal, was fully booked for one night, a Saturday towards the end of September, OH checked the availability just out of interest, at the time of cancellation. So at that time there was still availability on several sites at fairly short notice.
We must be using less popular sites to those that are apparently all fully booked.
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They are counting all the members of the family in that.
Look at membership subs income in the accounts and divide by the membership cost for a rough idea. This will not of course include JVB and other vintage members who receive free membership.
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I cannot see how the present system is unfair to some members.
Everyone can book ahead.
Everyone can wait and look at late availability.
No one loses any money if they cancel - even on the day of travel.
Everyone has some sort of constraints on when they can take holidays.
Everyone one, I hope, has a life away from caravanning.
Life is not perfect - but it is what we make it. So are our holidays.
And sometimes you have to take a chance that your plans will fall into place, while expecting that they may not.
We've been members since 1976, and coped with booking holidays through the child raising years, my working years with rota'ed days off, and most pernicious of all throughout this - farming and the weather. The only phase we've not yet experienced is retirement. Maybe when that happens, I'll have time to complain. For now, I'm content.
Please stop trying to alter the system to suit you. Remember the club is "for the many, not the few".
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You will have to take that up with Wikipedia
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I agree with most of what you you say, especially your point on Demographics , not sure if it would lead to a net lose of members, as members will leave due to this issue, Ie whats the point of paying a membership fee if for what ever reason ,they then can not get bookings
However the O/P was about fairness, and the system as it is. is far more favorable to those not in work, then families and those in work
So applying fairness to the system as it is now, the system fails that criteria0 -
Yes it can be annoying when you want to book two weeks on site and you can't because the weekend or part of it is full on site. Also possible loss of revenue for the Club. If, and that is an if, some are booking lots of holidays/weekends and then cancelling regularly then surely the Club has a way of knowing who these members are and could deal with this. Other than that I would agree, first come first served. Just get organised. Where else can you book a year in advance, pay no deposit, cancel up to 72 hours beforehand? And still some people moan!
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I was very careful to quote official figures from the Club based on figures issued at recent AGM's. The 350000 figure actually indicates the subscriptions paid. The use of one million is more of publicity figure as it represents the paid subscriptions multiplied by the average family within each subscription.
David
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Indeed!
Strange how all that free time I wondered how I was going to fill has mysteriously been filled with.......
looking after grand child/children
doing projects at their homes for our children
doing stuff for other family members
helping OH with her voluntary work for our local Guides
new hobbies
repairs and projects in and around our own house
doing my share of the cleaning and cooking
even going on extended holidays 🙂
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