Warned by CAMC for 2 hours

[Nanniemate]

I suspect also demand. I have on the rare occasions when we stay on a site often found it difficult to find a spot and I suspect a lot book in the thought that they might want to go knowing it's easy to cancel. I'm totally in favour with cutting that down. Whats the difference between a theatre seat booking and a campsite pitch booking that means they should have different cancellation charges?

Try doing that at a hotel , I pay extra to enable me to cancel late due to sharing schedule

 

[Langtoftlad]

Earlier this year we had booked three nights on a C&MC site.

On the second day we decided to cut short our stay and left at 3:00pm on the second day. As we were leaving we saw a warden by the barrier and decided to tell him that our pitch was now available. By the time I could tell him “We are leaving now……” he interrupted me with a diatribe that I should have left by 12:00 noon.

When I told him, in a totally pissed off tone, that we had payed until the next day, he didn’t even have the decency to apologise but simply walked off.

Just after lockdown, I went to the Barnard Castle CAMC site... but the weather was poor, and the town hadn't fully re-opened so I told them I'd be leaving a day early. A warden also came running out whilst I was at the barrier...
...but to inform me I was getting one day's refund of my pitch fee.

Just for balance

 

[robnchris]

Stayed at Burrs Country Park CC site more times than I care to remember over the last 20 years. Made great friendship with the long term Wardens who retired a number of years back and have been on friendly terms with many since.
Turned up yesterday to discover the new Winter Wardens have arrived. On pulling up at the office an irate woman arrived shouting we were too wide and should have called before we arrived, and would have been informed we are too wide. I explained we have been coming here for years and have spent hundreds of nights on the site. The other staff were horrible, just plain rude. As we pitched they were all outside the office watching as I parked the van easily between the two white sticks. As the day went on we could see people poping out the office looking at the van and gesticulating, obviously in conversation about us. It just felt uncomfortable, we both feel so sad as we have nothing but good memories of this site.
We won’t complain as we know the Caravan Club don’t care. We shall not return until summer when new Wardens will be in place.
We are not Warden bashers, but honesty, I wish my engine had still been running so my camera system could have recorded the rant. I would have sent it to the club.
Sun is shining so onwards and upwards, we are moving.

Sorry the read about your experience, though would urge you to complain about the reception you received, explaining you have been there many times with no problems.
If you don't the Club will never know and can't take steps to improve the attitude of this appalling behaviour of their site managers.

 

[Viennese]

Wrong thread!

 

[SpeedyDux]

We had to cancel a CMC booking this year, at less than 72 hour's notice, for reasons outside our reasonable control. When we did that via the Club's website, the drop-down list of reasons was rather short and simplistic, so we had to try to pick the one closest to our real reason. There was no facility for giving additional relevant information. If the Club's management have based their new deposit and cancellation policy on potentially misleading historic data regarding late cancellations, the new policy could be fundamentally flawed.

Furthermore, from a legal perspective, late cancellation outside our reasonable control amounts to force majeure. If a contract (the basis of the relationship between this Club and each member) doesn't provide a term that would allow the member to cancel a site booking at short notice without penalty in such circumstances, to my way of thinking that makes the membership contract an unfair consumer contract.

My understanding (correct me if I am wrong) is that the Club now requires 21 days' notice of cancellation without penalty, otherwise whether you lose your deposit is at the discretion of the central management, where the bar is set very high so the degree of discretion is very limited and probably won't cover enough situations of force majeure. Not good enough IMO.

It is a pity if the default response available is for dissatisfied members not to renew when renewal time comes round. Or, you grit your teeth and renew after having been penalised, because a sense of unfair treatment lasts a very long time. As we can see from the OP this forum is an outlet for dissatisfaction although I doubt if it reaches the attention of those in charge at the CMC. A better way to protest could be to use the forum on the Club's own website and start a similar thread. It would be interesting to see how the forum admin treats similar complaint threads.

Given the investment made in the new Club website and site booking system, I expect the Club's top management will bash on regardless, until either there is a significant drop in membership renewals, or site bookings, or both. Or, maybe the tuggers who want to book longer stays at a particular site (7 or 14 pitch nights) will see this as their Club's way to discourage its minority motorhome membership from booking multiple short stays of only 2 or 3 pitch nights that stops pitches being available for longer bookings by tuggers. There was always going to be some tension because of the conflicting requirements of each type of member and the most popular sites having a limited number of pitches available in high season. My theory is that the real reason behind this new deposit and booking system is an overreaction to a perceived problem of motorhomers' short stays, under sustained pressure from long stay tuggers.

Apologies for the length of this post. My 2d worth.

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[The Wino]

We had to cancel a CMC booking this year, at less than 72 hour's notice, for reasons outside our reasonable control. When we did that via the Club's website, the drop-down list of reasons was rather short and simplistic, so we had to try to pick the one closest to our real reason. There was no facility for giving additional relevant information. If the Club's management have based their new deposit and cancellation policy on potentially misleading historic data regarding late cancellations, the new policy could be fundamentally flawed.

Furthermore, from a legal perspective, late cancellation outside our reasonable control amounts to force majeure. If a contract (the basis of the relationship between this Club and each member) doesn't provide a term that would allow the member to cancel a site booking at short notice without penalty in such circumstances, to my way of thinking that makes the membership contract an unfair consumer contract.

My understanding (correct me if I am wrong) is that the Club now requires 21 days' notice of cancellation without penalty, otherwise whether you lose your deposit is at the discretion of the central management, where the bar is set very high so the degree of discretion is very limited and probably won't cover enough situations of force majeure. Not good enough IMO.

It is a pity if the default response available is for dissatisfied members not to renew when renewal time comes round. Or, you grit your teeth and renew after having been penalised, because a sense of unfair treatment lasts a very long time. As we can see from the OP this forum is an outlet for dissatisfaction although I doubt if it reaches the attention of those in charge at the CMC. A better way to protest could be to use the forum on the Club's own website and start a similar thread. It would be interesting to see how the forum admin treats similar complaint threads.

Given the investment made in the new Club website and site booking system, I expect the Club's top management will bash on regardless, until either there is a significant drop in membership renewals, or site bookings, or both. Or, maybe the tuggers who want to book longer stays at a particular site (7 or 14 pitch nights) will see this as their Club's way to discourage its minority motorhome membership from booking multiple short stays of only 2 or 3 pitch nights that stops pitches being available for longer bookings by tuggers. There was always going to be some tension because of the conflicting requirements of each type of member and the most popular sites having a limited number of pitches available in high season. My theory is that the real reason behind this new deposit and booking system is an overreaction to a perceived problem of motorhomers' short stays, under sustained pressure from long stay tuggers.

Apologies for the length of this post. My 2d worth.

I think at 3 weeks notice they're probably about the same as the rest of the travel industry and your travel insurance should cover any loss if people book without travel insurance thats their lookout. Whether it's fair in particular circumstances depends on your thoughts are on why you're not getting a refund . It could be it's a penalty because they think the reason isn't good enough or just represent the fact that they could have probably sold the pitch to someone else given longer notice. I think they ought to remove any record of the reason and just say it's 3 weeks notice or you lose a deposit/ the pitch fee.

 

[hja]

We had to cancel a CMC booking this year, at less than 72 hour's notice, for reasons outside our reasonable control. When we did that via the Club's website, the drop-down list of reasons was rather short and simplistic, so we had to try to pick the one closest to our real reason. There was no facility for giving additional relevant information. If the Club's management have based their new deposit and cancellation policy on potentially misleading historic data regarding late cancellations, the new policy could be fundamentally flawed.

Furthermore, from a legal perspective, late cancellation outside our reasonable control amounts to force majeure. If a contract (the basis of the relationship between this Club and each member) doesn't provide a term that would allow the member to cancel a site booking at short notice without penalty in such circumstances, to my way of thinking that makes the membership contract an unfair consumer contract.

My understanding (correct me if I am wrong) is that the Club now requires 21 days' notice of cancellation without penalty, otherwise whether you lose your deposit is at the discretion of the central management, where the bar is set very high so the degree of discretion is very limited and probably won't cover enough situations of force majeure. Not good enough IMO.

It is a pity if the default response available is for dissatisfied members not to renew when renewal time comes round. Or, you grit your teeth and renew after having been penalised, because a sense of unfair treatment lasts a very long time. As we can see from the OP this forum is an outlet for dissatisfaction although I doubt if it reaches the attention of those in charge at the CMC. A better way to protest could be to use the forum on the Club's own website and start a similar thread. It would be interesting to see how the forum admin treats similar complaint threads.

Given the investment made in the new Club website and site booking system, I expect the Club's top management will bash on regardless, until either there is a significant drop in membership renewals, or site bookings, or both. Or, maybe the tuggers who want to book longer stays at a particular site (7 or 14 pitch nights) will see this as their Club's way to discourage its minority motorhome membership from booking multiple short stays of only 2 or 3 pitch nights that stops pitches being available for longer bookings by tuggers. There was always going to be some tension because of the conflicting requirements of each type of member and the most popular sites having a limited number of pitches available in high season. My theory is that the real reason behind this new deposit and booking system is an overreaction to a perceived problem of motorhomers' short stays, under sustained pressure from long stay tuggers.

Apologies for the length of this post. My 2d worth.

There are a number of live threads on the CAMC forum, full of criticism of the new web site. The deposit situation has been debated endlessly over a period of time.
What is causing much consternation now is the payment of full fees if you have to leave a site early in certain circumstances. Also where you do get fees back it is minus deposit element. It’s all very complicated. I haven’t bothered to get my head round it because we use CLs and rarely club sites.

 

[Gellyneck]

Stayed at Burrs Country Park CC site more times than I care to remember over the last 20 years. Made great friendship with the long term Wardens who retired a number of years back and have been on friendly terms with many since.
Turned up yesterday to discover the new Winter Wardens have arrived. On pulling up at the office an irate woman arrived shouting we were too wide and should have called before we arrived, and would have been informed we are too wide. I explained we have been coming here for years and have spent hundreds of nights on the site. The other staff were horrible, just plain rude. As we pitched they were all outside the office watching as I parked the van easily between the two white sticks. As the day went on we could see people poping out the office looking at the van and gesticulating, obviously in conversation about us. It just felt uncomfortable, we both feel so sad as we have nothing but good memories of this site.
We won’t complain as we know the Caravan Club don’t care. We shall not return until summer when new Wardens will be in place.
We are not Warden bashers, but honesty, I wish my engine had still been running so my camera system could have recorded the rant. I would have sent it to the club.
Sun is shining so onwards and upwards, we are moving.

We're also a frequent stayer at Burrs (and The Brown Cow!) and have never had any issues with the Wardens. Last time was May this year.

We only go there to see if they've caught any vermin \ rodents as we reckon there'd be a fair amount of eating in them!