Fully booked. (1 Viewer)

[Eggs]

Janine, you may as well save your breath, you should realise that for some people, a healthy dose of hearsay, rumour and speculation will always trump facts.
I'm with you, the C&MC system suits me fine.

Try to look at it from someone who may use their van differently, I work nationwide and get a couple of weeks notice where I need to be. I look for the nearest site and it's fully booked, so I book a site 20 miles away from the job only to look at the late bookings/cancellations and find there are empty pitches, I've already paid my deposit on another site so I'm going with my second choice. Thanks very much for putting 40 miles a day on my journey to work. All because some folk can jack it with no cost.

 

[Spriddler]

Yes as you get NT & English Heritage but then we are Kiwi's so not gaming the system.

They all say that, Sir.
My DIL is a meeter and greeter at a NT property and never ceases to be amazed at how many New Zealanders visit.

 

[critch]

Most ridiculous situation, booking months in advance without deposits, don't think many hotels, package holidays, aeroplane operators will do the same, at my age it would be daft as I don't even know if I will be alive in 6 months time. If the EU opens up for July and August watch the stampede of pre bookers disappearing in the distance. I have also contacted the C&MCC with the same answer to any question about site management, such as dogs off leads, children playing in toilets , reminding folk to leave the toilets clean , with the same self satisfied reply.
As someone said this is why it is great to go over to Europe and their campsites

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[138go]

Most ridiculous situation, booking months in advance without deposits, don't think many hotels, package holidays, aeroplane operators will do the same, at my age it would be daft as I don't even know if I will be alive in 6 months time. If the EU opens up for July and August watch the stampede of pre bookers disappearing in the distance. I have also contacted the C&MCC with the same answer to any question about site management, such as dogs off leads, children playing in toilets , reminding folk to leave the toilets clean , with the same self satisfied reply.
As someone said this is why it is great to go over to Europe and their campsites

Ridiculous? Yet strangely it seems to work for so many members.

 

[TinaLes]

Jumping in here with some personal CMC experience over the last 4 years, now resigned ex CMC member.
Baltic Wharf Bristol site, (closing anytime soon for development) The site was ever popular to get onto, but almost impossible to get a pitch over the Xmas week. We booked in January for December 2018, luckily got a pitch, booked again for the following xmas as we left (apparently not officially allowed, but they took our booking), on arrival xmas eve, set up on pitch for our 5 night stay, sorry to see 6 empty pitches, 6 no shows, 6 pitches that could have been offered last minute if CMC had been informed.

Second point, CMC a couple of years back said that they would have to raise pitch fees to cover the increased cost of electric on all their sites. On the CMC website homepage, it suggested a good way of reducing your pitch fees for motor homers was to select a grass non electric pitch with a potential saving of a fiver a night.
Every club site that I looked at did not offer a non electric pitch, so I did a search at the time, only to discover that out of all their hundreds of sites there were only 11 that offered non electric pitches, so very little chance of finding a non electric pitch, but charged for it whether needed or not.

Every time I have sent an e mail to the CMC customer care team, suggesting an idea of improvement, like more non electric pitch offerings, or like The CCC offer a fill & dump facility to all members while touring for a nominal charge, or taking a pitch deposit for busy periods, inc bank holiday weekends. I have had the same response, why dont you attend our AGM and put your idea forward to the exec committee for their consideration IN Person.

Reading this thread, I know some like me would like to see a deposit taken, others on here wouldn't for their own reasons.
But can anyone tell me of any other site other than The CMC that allows bookings to be made without taking a deposit?, and if you were to run/own a site yourself, would you, could you afford to take the risk of late cancellation "No Shows", and would you refund their deposit, even if you could manage to fill the pitch with a late enquiry?
I dont think many would to be honest.
LES

 

[Ivory55]

I wonder how many of the club members don’t use the large sites but only the cl type.

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[Langtoftlad]

...and given the collapse of Thomas Cook, the business practices of package tour companies is nothing to be proud of...
They take deposits & full prepayment from their customers but don't pay their suppliers/hotels until months after.

I had a Thos Cook holiday to Greece paid for months in advance. Holiday taken weeks before their collapse ( ) but the hotel I stayed in was never paid.

If blocking was an issue for the CAMC or its members, then there are many simpler solutions than deposit taking.
But in truth, its not an issue for the majority of members.

 

[Billylyne5]

I have booked plenty of hotels where I’ve not had to pay until I’ve either arrived or checked out, and I’ve booked independent campsites where I’ve not been asked for a deposit so it’s not exclusive to the CAMC or that unusual in my experience. For us personally I like the flexibility as my other half’s job is very unpredictable so last minute delays and changes mean we sometimes have to change plans, whatever I book I intend to use but The RAF like to keep us on our toes.

 

[Langtoftlad]

Restaurants tend not to take deposits for reservations

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[Caggsie1]

block booking, what is this - because someone happen to book dates before you and beat you to the dates you wanted? In that case I block book. I know when I want to go away, if I can I will book them all on the same day, that doesn’t mean I book several sites for same dates, and go to the one that takes my fancy or isn’t raining or has too many kids, dogs, cats, oldies, which ever reason puts you off certain sites, the system does not allow that, I can not physically book two sites for same time period. How will a deposit help?

 

[DelMar]

Pembrey site, has every weekend booked until September. That is not good planning, that is just being selfish. This is block booking at its worst. If the club was run like a club, instead of a commercial company, maybe that would not be allowed.
This is a very popular site with so much to do there. Also remember, those living outside Wales, are not allowed to make a booking here at the moment. When you do and find that weekends are not included, you may think differently.

 

[138go]

Caravan Club Sites are popular and do get booked up. If there is somewhere we especially want to go to, we plan ahead. This year it’s even more difficult, for obvious reasons.

What you are finding DelMar is not surprising. It’s a popular site in a year where going abroad is looking unlikely.

I can’t see anything selfish going on here.

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[NorthernSoul]

Pembrey site, has every weekend booked until September. That is not good planning, that is just being selfish. This is block booking at its worst. If the club was run like a club, instead of a commercial company, maybe that would not be allowed.
This is a very popular site with so much to do there. Also remember, those living outside Wales, are not allowed to make a booking here at the moment. When you do and find that weekends are not included, you may think differently.

Is it the same set of people booking every weekend from now until September? Of course not. It's hundreds of individual people booking separate weekends. And if someone does want to go to the site every weekend from now until September, why shouldn't they provided that there's availability and they use their booking? If you know it's very popular perhaps you need to do a bit of the 'good planning' that you deride.

 

[TheMachMan]

What’s concerned me is the price of some private sites.
There’s a couple we’ve used that seem to have significantly increased their rates compared with last year.
Such as paying £30 per night for grass non electric pitches.
in fact the Club sites have become cheaper by comparison in our experience.
Appreciate they may have increased costs, but no different to when we used them last year.

 

[lorger]

I thought it was only possible to book a year in advance from the start of the month, example come 1st of March I should be able to book March next year. I’ve never done this so might be mistaken, we had a look at a few sites for next year and noticed that some are fully booked every weekend up to the end of May.

Ive had a read at the booking T&Cs and definitely says a year in advance, just to make sure I then tried a less popular site and was able to book that for April.
I’ve emailed asking them to explain.

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[Caggsie1]

Pembrey site, has every weekend booked until September. That is not good planning, that is just being selfish. This is block booking at its worst. If the club was run like a club, instead of a commercial company, maybe that would not be allowed.
This is a very popular site with so much to do there. Also remember, those living outside Wales, are not allowed to make a booking here at the moment. When you do and find that weekends are not included, you may think differently.

That isn’t block booking, you will undoubtedly find that those are individual bookings, unlikely made by the same member. I still can’t see how making a successful booking or several bookings for when I want to go can be construed as selfish because it happens to coincide with another member wanting to book?

 

[NorthernSoul]

With the CAMC no deposit booking system, a few pitches get released for those who want to take their chance and book at the last minute. If people paid deposits and were then more likely to use the pitches whatever the weather or their situation, then those pitches wouldn't come available to late bookers at all.

 

[EzeeRider]

The whole problem is the CAMC booking system is open to abuse. While the majority may not abuse it there are elements that admit to doing so and by the very fact you can pick up cancellations indicates all bookings are not being honoured. In spite of requests, the Club has persistently refused to reveal the cancellation rates and while this situation continues there will always be complaints about it.
ezee

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[M-J]

Does abuse of the no deposit booking system annoy me... yes

Would I want the CAMC to change it... no

Is it the CAMC at fault... no

Are the selfish, thoughtless members that abuse the system at fault... yes

 

[Nirvanauk]

Well, I do agree with your first and last sentence.

 

[Theonlysue]

People will cancel within the 5 days of arrival.so if you phone campsite within the 5 days usually a cancellation available.

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[NorthernSoul]

The whole problem is the CAMC booking system is open to abuse. While the majority may not abuse it there are elements that admit to doing so and by the very fact you can pick up cancellations indicates all bookings are not being honoured. In spite of requests, the Club has persistently refused to reveal the cancellation rates and while this situation continues there will always be complaints about it.
ezee

There will be complaints about it even if the cancellation rates are revealed because some people seem to think that the CAMC should give them a special preference when booking. Anyway, it's the occupancy rate that's the important figure. My limited experience is of actual full occupancy at peak times at popular sites. The sites can't magic pitches out of thin air to satisfy more demand.

 

[SpeedyDux]

The CMC sanction for late cancellations (i.e. less than 72 hours in advance or no-shows) is 3 strikes and your membership gets suspended for 14 days and ALL your advance bookings are cancelled automatically. It seems a fair alternative to a deposit-based system. I expect that there would still be complaints about the unfairness of losing deposits because the dates booked became inconvenient for whatever reason.

Yesterday I wanted to amend a site booking in early May by shifting the dates to correspond with Phase 3 of the Roadmap out of lockdown. There was plenty of low season (May) availability during mid week, of standard pitches with awning, so I booked 4 consecutive nights. The more expensive fully-serviced pitches are the ones that have little or no availability left, so presumably they get booked a long time in advance by tuggers.

 

[marchie]

Okay,folks. - I have the perfect solution to all of this.

If you like paying a deposit, join the C&CC.
If you dont like paying a deposit, join the CAMC.

It would be interesting to know how many pitches are booked with each club.

We switched from C&CC to CAMC because the former insisted on 2 nights minimum stay for bookings, although you could 'chance it' and either just turn up or phone on the day to see if there is a vacancy. Far from ideal when you leave Scotland some 2 hours before the C&CC site opens! We were invariably on our way to the Newhaven-Dieppe Ferry, so losing 2 days killing time when we could be in Europe made no sense to us.

Steve & Elaine

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[The Dotties]

How about,
Get a 25% discount for booking greater than 8 weeks ahead, but non-refundable or changeable. Just a thought as I don’t use them, preferring CLs

 

[EzeeRider]

I don't moan about the system any more, I just play it like others do.
ezee

 

[Gellyneck]

I thought it was only possible to book a year in advance from the start of the month, example come 1st of March I should be able to book March next year. I’ve never done this so might be mistaken, we had a look at a few sites for next year and noticed that some are fully booked every weekend up to the end of May.

Ive had a read at the booking T&Cs and definitely says a year in advance, just to make sure I then tried a less popular site and was able to book that for April.
I’ve emailed asking them to explain.

I too may be wrong but I think that towards the latter period of the month, eg March, bookings for April are opened.
Would be interested if you could give a specific for weekends during May being booked as I too would like to discuss with them if that is the case! Every site I checked had the whole month of May 2022 showing as Full \ closed as that's how they seem to "stop" bookings outwith the 12 month timeframe.

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[Odd job]

One of the reasons I joined C&MC this year after many years with the other lot was their booking system, early or late in the season, I want a site with 16 amp hook up, so I can run the heating without worrying about running out of gas. Other times I book smaller sites without electric, used to be the cs's now cl's. We are still members of the CC and will decide at the end of the year which one to keep, or even if it's worth keeping both, but I don't like booking months in advance, and paying a deposit, especially now we have Covid lockdowns.
When we used to tour on the Harley I would book hotels through booking.com they don't take a deposit, and as long as cancellations are more than 24 hours before the booking, no charge. I don't see the C&MC as any different.

 

[Gellyneck]

I don't moan about the system any more, I just play it like others do.
ezee

Not sure if I'm reading your post correctly so apologies if I've got the wrong end of the stick.
If you're saying you block pre-book and then cancel on a whim are you not just exacerbating the alleged problem and then moaning about it on here that there's a problem?
Seems strange if you are as that's what could be driving the alleged issue where "unsubstantiated block bookings" are a result of members thinking there is an issue and adopting a policy of let's make sure we're alright.
Again, if I've misinterpreted your post, sincere apologies.

 

[lorger]

I too may be wrong but I think that towards the latter period of the month, eg March, bookings for April are opened.
Would be interested if you could give a specific for weekends during May being booked as I too would like to discuss with them if that is the case! Every site I checked had the whole month of May 2022 showing as Full \ closed as that's how they seem to "stop" bookings outwith the 12 month timeframe.

I did say I may be wrong and I’ve proved myself to be right on that occasion

Two site I checked are Melrose and York, I was correct regarding April and thought May was full but now realise it may not have opened for bookings yet. What fooled me was the Callander doesn’t go any further so I thought it was available to book until end of May, I still don’t understand why April is fully booked if you can only book a year in advance. As I said never done it before and unlikely to do it again so no major issue for me and apologies if I’ve gave wrong information.

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