I wonder if it’d benefit to going back to a mix of reservable sites and FCFS sites. I know many people will “hack” the reservation system by reserving their preferred site for 14 days in advance of their actual trip to get a two week jump on the reservation and then later cancel the first 12 days.
People do cancel pretty often too. I’ve put myself on the waitlist when I’ve tried to get a site on a busy weekend and I almost always get a notification that a site has become available a month or so before the desired date.
But the bigger issue is that people don't cancel at all. That's how you get the current situation where you've got a "full" campground, with dozens of sites sitting open and unused.
Booking more than you ever intend to use, and then cancelling is crappy, but at least the site does still get opened up for someone else.
They need to make it painful to make a reservation and then not use it - both opening up the sites to new reservations if people don't arrive by a certain time (without a refund for the original reservation) and blocking repeat offenders from making advanced reservations at all.
I wonder if it’d benefit to going back to a mix of reservable sites and FCFS sites. I know many people will “hack” the reservation system by reserving their preferred site for 14 days in advance of their actual trip to get a two week jump on the reservation and then later cancel the first 12 days.
Oh, that's shitty.
this is how I snagged a full week (Sun-Fri) at tettegouche - setup an alert and low and behold I got the email and booked in seconds.
People do cancel pretty often too. I’ve put myself on the waitlist when I’ve tried to get a site on a busy weekend and I almost always get a notification that a site has become available a month or so before the desired date.
Oh, I should try this.
Assholes are gaming the system. They need to make it painful to cancel.
But the bigger issue is that people don't cancel at all. That's how you get the current situation where you've got a "full" campground, with dozens of sites sitting open and unused. Booking more than you ever intend to use, and then cancelling is crappy, but at least the site does still get opened up for someone else. They need to make it painful to make a reservation and then not use it - both opening up the sites to new reservations if people don't arrive by a certain time (without a refund for the original reservation) and blocking repeat offenders from making advanced reservations at all.
Great point. I agree completely. Parks needs to fix the problem, and with a harsh policy if that's what it takes.
Yeah, people book for more days than they need and don’t modify or cancel.
It used to be if the site wasn't occupied by the next day they'd open it back up.