C C BOOKING

[ProfAlGoogle]

Just been trawling through the caravan club sites in north Yorkshire with the hope of booking a break towards the end of March that takes in a weekend, not a cat in hells chance, been on to an affiliated cc site, booked paid my deposit £20 no problems, lots of free spaces, super pitches as well. So what does that tell us! I think it is about time that the caravan club started to take deposits, and put an end ti this lunacy.

Allan & Gill.

 

[DavidKlyne]

You are making an assumption that a lot of those booked pitches will become available? No doubt some might as do hotel rooms. However the CC are monitoring cancellations and seem to be willing to take action against the worst offenders as well as asking for cancellations to be made at least 72 hours before arrival date. Members wanting deposits on site bookings is just not an issue to the majority of Club members. When asked to make comments on the booking system only 1200 members bothered to reply out of what 300000+ members in total.
David

 

[ProfAlGoogle]

You are making an assumption that a lot of those booked pitches will become available

No not at all David, if affiliated sites are not booked way in advance there can only be one reason why IMO, and that is people are not fully committed to honouring there booking by way of a deposit. its all to easy for people to book site after site on line just because they can, bet they would not be so keen to book say half a dozen sites @ £20 deposit, if it works for affiliated sites, then whats the problem with main CC sites, I have stored my caravan on an affiliated site for a few years and they have very very few no shows and it is a very popular site, and at most all I need is a couple of weeks notice to secure a place.

Allan.

 

[jaffasdad]

The Caravan Club's deposit/cancellation/no shows/weekend-bookings issues have been aired long and hard many times with no satisfactory conclusion.
As David said, the CC gave its members the opportunity to voice their opinions and decided that the current system works but is not perfect. The club is trying to deal with persistent abuse of the system.
Personally, I have never had any trouble getting on a site in an area I wish to visit - but not always on a CC site. There are other sites and organisations! I also book sites and sometimes cancel or change them, but always with plenty of notice and for good reasons.
The situation is as it is and will remain so until the majority of the members decide that it needs to change.
One tip is to call the site direct as the website is not always accurate when showing that a site is full.

 

[Cruzer]

It's always worth giving a CC site you're interested in a ring as more often than not many sites don't do 100% of their booking online so may have spaces free.

 

[ProfAlGoogle]

Thanks for the advice, yes I do call the sites direct, with the same outcome, and I prefer cc sites to commercial, take a look at Chatsworth or Rowntree park, fully booked for almost a year in advance.I am making a comparison, large affiliated cc site no problems being able to book, similar cc sites, fully booked, why would that be? Take some one who has just joined the CC, unable to book a large percentage of sites, bet they feel hoodwinked.

Allan & Gill.

 

[SteveW77]

I certainly would not have joined If I had known it is almost impossible to book one of the more popular sites for more than 4 days ( Rowntree park, Chatsworth ect ) No point in driving 150-200 miles for less than 7 days, so now I use commercial sites virtually all the time and will not renew my membership next time.

Steve W

 

[Douglas_374404558]

have a look at lower wensleydale site just been on and it has w/end not fully booked. last w/end in march is free .if you care to have another look just looked at 20.40 and still free.
cheers Duggie

 

[Philspadders]

the problems with the CC booking system is routed in attitudes quite clearly shown by one poster. That is ,, they openly admit to booking sited knowing full well that they will cancel some of them.. this is clearly unfair and unsatisfactory.

The other issue is the day the booking open, on a working day. great if you dont work or work weekends or have access to PC during the day.
On Black Wednesday this time over 66000 pitches were booked between 9.0am and midnight with 80% of the more popular sites and bank holiday weekends booked before 6.0pm. ( figures from the CC , you only have to ask). I aksed what the pitch booking rate was for the folllowing Saturday but sadly the CC declined to offer this information, as i believe it clearly shows a massive to the opening booking day.
What t do about it ?
The CC asked a very weighted question in the survey " do you want to pay deposits" .Well the answer was hardly surprising was it.
No one wants to pay deposits for lots of weekends booked months in advance.
Whats the alternative ? Monitoring no shows and cancellors is one, but this clearly holds no fears for one poster who has already said they will cancel a number of pitches, but have justified this by stating they cancel in good time, or no less than 72 hours. Thats okay for you but still leaves the rest of the membership having to try fit trips away around you.
One poster suggested using commercial sites, but thats a bit silly when you pay a membership to use the CC sites and network.
Members should really think about wether they want to book the pitch if they know they may cancel later. I think that repeat cancellors should be either banned from booking more than 2 or 3 sites more than 2 months in advance or made to pay a heafty deposit.
Another poster suggested phoning the site the day before, but again this is not entirely satisfactory, as with young children and caravans in storage its not always possbile to wait, amd wait , and wait in the vain hope a pitch may be available.
I believe the season opening day should be on a weekend when its more fair for more members to have access to the booking site and not the priveledged few.
I woud like to ask members too show a little restraint when making mass bookings.

On the up side , i now enjoy the CLs, more than the CC sites and fine a much friendler camper on the CL's.
I also have just got a great car insurance deal through the CC.

 

[ProfAlGoogle]

cheers Duggie, but it is not in an area that we require, think you will find out of the thirteen sites in Yorkshire theres about two with vacancies. We were over at Chasworth this new year, and I purposely moniterd the availability of pitches month on month, Fully Booked, not quite so when we were there, must have been a dozen or more pitches free. we arrived on the 27th December, along with a lot of others, but a lot had to leave on the 31st, who would have liked to have stayed but could not because supposedly the site was fully booked.

Allan & Gill

 

[jaffasdad]

I take exception to a couple of comments in Philspadders post:

'they openly admit to booking sites knowing full well that they will cancel some of them'
'they will cancel a number of pitches'

I was honest in my post in saying that I have cancelled or altered bookings with the CC. At no point did I say that I booked knowing that I would not use them; whenever I make a booking I have every intention of honouring it.
How on earth does he know what I will cancel in the future? I was not attempting to justify anything - simply stating that on the RARE occasions I have cancelled a pitch it has always been for a good reason and in good time.

As I said in my first post, this is a subject that has been done to death in the past and I have now wish to prolong it. However, please get your facts right and do not claim to know what I will or won't do.

 

[ProfAlGoogle]

It would be nice to see the CC trial two most popular sites, using a deposit scheme to see if it reduced the amount of no shows, and an increase in the amount of availability.

By the way jaffa`s dad, not wishing to be offencive, but if it has been "done to death" why did you reply to this topic?

 

[jaffasdad]

Since you have asked me a direct question I will answer it although I had hoped for no further involvement.
The issues concerning CC deposits, cancellations, etc has been aired many times over the past few years. I doubt that there is anything new to add to this debate; I certainly can't think of anything.
My first post was then about the CC attempting to deal with some of the issues, pointing out that there are other sites to use and saying that some people have to cancel for good reasons, myself included. Finally, I offered the advice of ringing the sites direct to check that they are actually full.
My second post is about my annoyance that a groundless allegation was made that I have booked sites in the past knowing that I intended to cancel and will do so again in the future. To then use my 'attitude' as the ground for a diatribe about the failures of the booking system really beggars belief and is not a basis for any reasoned argument.
I hope this answers your question.
Incidently, I think your idea of trialling a deposit system to be worth cosideration. There could be a hard core of popular sites that require bookings at peak times.

 

[Mel]

Well done cookie for a good suggestion. Why don't CC trial a deposit system on popular sites. It would at least be a scientific trial, far better than a survey. I for one, did reply to the survey and "voted", (although it wasn't even a vote in that sense as it was all embedded in other questions), for a deposit system. We rarely have a problem getting on a C&CC site. I also agree that if they are going to open bookings on one day, why choose a Wednesday which discriminates against a large chunk of working members. Why do I still pay membership fees, dunno, perhaps in the hope that things will change.

BTW this subject has been done to death before but we've had new members on this forum since then and if we didn't discuss stuff more than once then we might as well shut the forum down and run it as an archive.
mel

 

[stevecw]

I would be more than happy to pay a deposit for booking one of the club sites. To be honest we prefer using the CL's but in December I was glued to my PC from 8 in the morning trying to book the Abbey Wood site for the London Marathon weekend as my wife will be doing her 3rd London marathon at the ripe old age of 56.
It took me 3 hours of constant refreshing before I was luckily able to log on to make a booking. Perhaps a way around some of the problems would also be to restrict how far forward you could make a booking, say 4 months. I just now have to hope the wife doesn't injure herself as she will have to pull the van there and back as I have just received a 6 month medical driving van. Better make sure our recovery package is up to scratch.
regards
Steve W

 

[SteveW77]

It would appear that someone has hi-jacked my name.

Steve W

 

[Barry Doran]

I have tried to book a week at Easter in Brown Moor Hawes Yorkshire and could not get Easter Weekend but got on from Easter Monday and we are staying on a commercial site for Easter and then moving to Hawes a bit disappointed. Surely at peak and Bank Holiday Weekends a deposit or payment in full would be more appropriate to deal with the obvious cancellation with 72 hours notice or no shows. As we are travelling from Ireland ferries must be booked well in advance for a Bank Holiday period so waiting for somebody to cancel at the last minute is not an option. When we booked the commercial site payment in full was required.It seems to me and I am not referring to any previous posts here some members of the club are just selfish by booking pitches that will never be taken up surely against the whole spirit of a club.
We again plan to holiday in August in Dorset and have the same problem. As I have only recently joined the club I am very disappointed with the current booking system.

Barry.

 

[Tony_5041742]

I've been a CC member for 30 + years, and bookings/deposits etc does come up from time to time. Personally I think the CC have the balance about right. It is a club, not a commercial organisation, so there is perhaps an element of trusting members to not abuse the system. The CC have actually tightened their booking conditions a little for 2011, ie the minimum 3 days notice period for cancellations, plus warnings that persistent abuse of the process will lead to potential disciplinary action. There has clearly been a massive increase recently in demand for club sites at peak times such as bank holidays, perhaps more people are looking at UK holidays due to the economy, and the reality is that popular sites get booked incredibly early. I'm not sure this is so much about the booking process, it's about demand.

 

[DavidKlyne]

People either forget or perhaps don't realise that the Caravan Club used to take deposits, if I recall correctly it was £10 a booking. What they found was that rather than ringing he site to say they could not make a particular booking they would just not turn up, thus denying someone else the opportunity of taking the pitch. This was before the time when things could be more easily monitored via computer. Clearly a £10 deposit is likely to be even less of a deterrent now which suggests it would have to be much larger. As Tony says the CC is a members Club and one of the reasons we don't pay a deposit, as opposed to commercial sites, is that it is one of the benefits of being a member.
David

 

[ProfAlGoogle]

Yes it is a club for it`s members, but I fear it is becoming oversubscribed, and it is getting to the point where they cannot cater for a large number of it`s members, we are all paying for a service and they cant deliver, and still new members are joining which will only compound the situation. Is it time to limit the numbers?

Allan & Gill.

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

As I see it it might seem to some that it's getting over subscribed but when you see most of the complaints regarding this problem it's usually the same sites which are mentioned, Chatsworth, Hillside, Rowntree Park, Clumber Park etc. and it's usually complaining of the weekends. Now you don't need to be an egg head to realise that our summers are short hence the number of weekends are just as few. Something has to give and it's simply because people want weekends at the most popular sites. As a couple who no longer work we never book weekends, only weeks, and don't even book weeks at the popular sites during school holidays. Also our choice is increased because we don't insist on shower blocks, preferring to use the one on the caravan that we paid all that money for. This year we are making more use of the CLs as long as they have EHU because of the rise in club prices. Due to this we never have a problem booking club sites. I have been to Chatsworth and Clumber, once each, but although they are ok sites I fail to see the mad drooling that some see in them. Give me Brown Moor, Marazion, Slinfold and the late lamented Doldowlod any day. Admitted none of the above have toilets blocks but it simply isn't true that by using your own depreciates the resale value of your caravan

At least that's the reason some aquaintances of ours told us why they don't use theirs

 

[kopite]

i`m no genius as you all but there seems to be more and more people taking up this lifestyle myself included.So pitches will become harder to come by.so i have my own solution during january i`m going round the sites i want and putting down my unused spanish sunbed towells then at easter hey presto pitch with my name on it happy days

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

i`m going round the sites i want and putting down my unused spanish sunbed towells

Totally waste of time. Get some towels with the German flag on them. They carry far more weight and authority

 

[waffler]

In 2009 we went to Scotland for a month. I failed to get a booking on any CC site- all full for at least some of the nights. Used CCC and got in where we wanted. Cost me a deposit though. Also cheaper as they give codgers a discount. We only stay in the CC for the centre rallies and the CLs.

 

[ProfAlGoogle]

Used CCC and got in where we wanted. Cost me a deposit though

Another example of a deposit system that would appear to be working for another big club, must be worth a trial period for CC.