It's a bit unfair
I have been a club member for some years now and I am growing more and more frustrated with the ongoing situation of members block booking different sites for the same dates and failing to turn up. I know the club does not charge a booking fee and long may this continue but to block book sites on the same date and then fail to turn up at the site has seen an increase of fully booked sites when in reality they would have spare pitches. If only members would do the decent thing by cancelling any other bookings made for that date. This is especially evident around bank holidays and Easter. Now that the club is fully open and we all wish to get away from this awful lock down, I wish to ask all members to do the right thing and cancel any unused bookings that they do not need. I am sure that if the club were to start charging a booking (non refundable) fees this situation would end overnight. Thank you in advance.
Moderator Comment - Malc, posts like this should really be posted in the discussion area so I have moved it for you.
Comments
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Malc, you misunderstand. It is not possible to book more than one site for the same date. The system will not let you.
If you are finding sites booked ahead of you, it means others are beating you to booking.
If you are finding empty pitches on sites shown as full, it means people have cancelled for any number of reasons, or additional pitches have been released following repair etc.
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If you think some members block book the same site ,try doing a booking for the same dates on variable sites the system will not accept more than one booking for other sites from your membership number
And as posted there are many reasons pitches become available at short notice
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As I said, that could be for any number of reasons and we can’t read anything into it.
Incidentally, when the club stopped taking deposits, they said the number of no shows dropped.
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however, Malc, its perfectly possible when dates are released (a year in advance) for members to book the same (or different) site for several weeks in succession, covering (say) next years 'holiday period' and then dump all bar one once the 'family arrangements' have been agreed and weather forecast checked.
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Perfectly within the current rules BB as well you and the majority of members know. Why feel the need to highlight it?
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One Cl owner recently told me that she had 3 vacancies due to caravanners suddenly get a call to Hospital as their long awaited operation became unexpectedly available.
Long may the 12 month booking slots remain, after all one does have to plan the Spring, Summer or Autumn break and the relative sites..
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Let’s thank our lucky stars that the airline practice of deliberately overbooking places is not adopted. Can you imagine being ‘bumped down’ on arrival at a site even when a financial incentive is being offered.
Some apparently empty pitches I’m sure are unfortunately inevitable.
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Yes, it is a recognised practice and can happen in hotels too.
https://www.caa.co.uk/Passengers/Resolving-travel-problems/Delays-cancellations/Your-rights/Your-rights-when-you-are-bumped-from-a-flight/0 -
While it may be perfectly possible to 'block book' as suggested upthread, according to the club that does not happen in practice.
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Although it is not possible to block book different sites for the same period, the system will only allow one booking per membership no. it is possible to make multiple bookings for different dates. I see nothing wrong with this as long as people use or relinquish these in order that others may take advantage of the vacancy the latter creates. However, although within the ‘rules’ those perpetual booking and later cancellations should somehow be monitored and discouraged in my opinion as currently no shows are. I do appreciate though that this ability is welcomed by some and helps, in part, to drip feed vacancies back into the system at later dates.
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Shortage of facts so I can’t comment. How many “no shows” are there ? - those with reservations who simply don’t turn up. Restaurants are plagued with the problem. Are there any hard facts about this for Club sites?
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Don’t know the nos. but we know that a warning and, if repeated, suspension of future booking and, in extreme cases, cancellation of membership can follow. I suspect the percentages will be low as a result mind as the vast majority of us actually enjoy our days away and, dare I say, being ‘members’!😱👍
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I think we're at cross purposes here micky? yes I was saying it is possible to make multiple bookings for different dates, what is sometimes called block booking. But my post stated that according to the club while this is possible it does not happen in practice.
If they can say that then they must be monitoring that aspect in addition the three strikes rule as you said above?
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👍 Understood and we obviously are singing from same hymn sheet. Hopefully the OP now has his understanding of what is/what isn’t possible and associated issues refined. Which, I guess is the purpose of many posts on this forum. I know my understand of many issues have been helped by fellow members greatly over the years. There are many myths and ‘fake assumptions’ still out there.
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im just posting to Malc who may have misunderstood the combinations that the booking system allows or doesnt allow, and what might be causing the 'effect' he is posting about.
the ability to hold and then dump bookings (without deposits) at the drop of a hat is oft regarded as a club USP...and doing this for a 'honeypot' over a few weeks will certainly help someone get there when they've organised diaries nearer the time.
weve seen many 'complaining' posts where folk have waitied untill they've been able to agree work rotas before looking for a specific location but by which time all the popular sites get booked...
having a few pitches come back on the system a couple of days ahead of the original date is no good at all for someone who will have had to choose another site or date.
agreed, no problem (as usual) for us retired folk who can pick up a cancellation at short notice...not so useful for those who have to get working diaries sorted well in advance.
are you saying its off limits to 'highlight' how the system works?
i dont see the reason for your 'chastising' post.
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Over the years of CT there have been a number of posts suggesting that friends of friends of members have heard them openly admitting to book site after site after site for the year ahead and then "dumping" unwanted ones.
The club say this is monitored, relatively uncommon, less than when deposits were taken (when there were also more complete "no shows") and action taken on the small number of occasions when the system was clearly being abused.
Without actual figures, none of us can say for certain, but I think we have to assume that the business managers at the club are savvy enough to regard this as at an "acceptable" level.
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...its easy say one is 'monitoring bookings' (or however the club describe what they do) but id think it was not an easy task to check every cancelled booking against the original member holding to see if they had (how many?) other bookings.....for the same site on different dates?....
a) we already know that the system doesnt allow multiple bookings at the same time for different sites...
b) we also know that holding bookings for the same site (or others) for consecutive (or not) weeks is perfectly possible...
so what possible criteria can the club use to 'monitor' this situation and, more to the point, how can this monitoring produce anything meaningful if a) cant be done and b) is within the rules?
its certainly relatively easy to report on the number of bookings and cancellations are made by each member each year....but what is level could be construed as 'playing the system'...?
....booked 10 sites, cancelled two, rebooked one?
...booked 5 sites, cancelled them all, rebooked them all?
without knowing each member's circumstances, whats 'normal' for one member might be exceptional for another...but in either case, provided the bookings are managed within the system and its rules, why should anyone need 'monitoring'.
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Spot on M. The Club won’t care if John Smith of Eccles, or Jane Doe of Dartmouth, books but then cancels a few dates, providing it is within the allotted cancellation timespan. What the Club is concerned with is simply getting A Member onto as many pitches as possible to maximise Site income. Doesn’t matter if A Member books a year in advance, or picks up a late cancellation two days before arrival, so long as A Member turns up on Site unless cancelled properly.
I don’t worry about seeing a few empty pitches during my visit. There will be a reason for it, one which the Club doesn’t have to impart to every single Member who feels that they should be informed. We have all heard the mainly anecdotal shenanigans that “a friend of a friend saw on TwitFace”.
If you want a particular date, place, particularly at these ultra busy times, you simply have to be very organised, fully understand how the Club’s very generous booking system works, and be grateful that it is such a good, no deposit, easy cancel system in these still difficult times.
Not criticising Malc’s opening post, just pointing out that understanding fully how the booking system operates is important.🙂
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Yes there are +1. This block booking myth being one of them. At the AGM:
Can Club explore options to restrict block bookings eg, max number of pre-bookings, max of penalty free cancellations, etc as opposed to deposits.
Whilst there are many thousands of cancellations and amendments each year, the
vast majority of these are made by the vast majority of members, ie not simply made
by a minority of members making high volumes of bookings (so called block bookers).0 -
I spent a working lifetime managing bookable finite resources. It’s simply impossible to micro manage each unit in terms of communication usage to each customer, no matter how aggrieved or upset they might be. The variables are many, even with computers it is quite an onerous task, and you quickly learn that no matter how much information is given to visitors, if that information doesn’t correspond to their thoughts, many will simply not believe it.
For any business, it’s not about who particularly is using that unit, it’s about how much income and value for money that unit is returning. Most businesses have some form of penalty for repeated no shows, or (as in the case of very, very busy restaurants) it might be you pay the price up front. The Club will know exactly how it needs to manage no shows, and hasn’t at this point chosen to impose deposits on the vast majority of its honourable customers, which is still a very popular unique selling point.0 -
Oh no, don’t you cancel as well. 15 out of 20Devon and Cornwall sites have vacancies already for the full week ahead and it’s peak season.
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