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Caravan and Motorhome Club arrogance?


Wills Wagon

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How is this for the Caravan and Motorhome Club bureaucracy

We cancelled our trip to York Rowntree Park on Sunday because of the severe weather warnings from the Met Office and the advice of the police and motoring organisations not to travel. We had over four inches of snow here so were justified in not risking life and limb. Then this morning I get a letter from Peter Martin Head of Operations at the C&MC saying I am in contravention of the Club rules because we didn't give 72 hours notice. I don't think I have ever been so insulted by such arrogance and insensitivity before.

I wonder what that idiot is paid?

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I'd be impressed if the "Head of Operations" of our local campsite, let alone something the size of the C&MC, found the time to sit down and write a letter each and every time a customer didn't show up...

..are you sure it wasn't just an automatically spat-out notice?.

 

Either way, I can understand a degree of annoyance but - Quote " . I don't think I have ever been so insulted by such arrogance and insensitivity before." ?... really?...you've been very lucky if that's the worst you've had to deal with. :-D

 

'Could be worse, you could have lost a deposit ;-)

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i have a degree of sympathy here. back in the summer we turned up at rowntree park to be told we were thirty minutes too early and were made to back out and park elsewhere until twelve even though we could see lots of empty pitches. a first offence warning would seem a better approach.the reason given that the council would close the site and turn it into a car park.yer right,and lose a fortune in business rates and visitor spend ? i don't think so.anyway,it's not a club it's a business run by a load of old farts. ;-)
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It's a computerised letter triggered by the booking system. It was introduced in response to members' concerns at no-shows and has been in place for a number of years.

 

https://www.caravanclub.co.uk/uk-holidays/useful-information/how-to-book-a-site/cancellations-and-amendments/

 

I agree with the policy and the way it is applied so I guess I must be one of the arrogant, insensitive idiots but I do read the booking conditions. Also, having had a letter before when the CMC cancelled my booking [flooding] it can be annoying.

 

 

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tazdog6007 - 2017-12-11 11:45 AM

 

i have a degree of sympathy here. back in the summer we turned up at rowntree park to be told we were thirty minutes too early and were made to back out and park elsewhere until twelve even though we could see lots of empty pitches i don't think so.anyway,it's not a club it's a business run by a load of old farts. ;-)

 

And you may be right regarding the organisation but rules are set for a purpose to the benefit of all users. It may also be that there's a change of shift pattern at entry time. If your objection to the rules are that strong perhaps a period in said 'gate house' would adjust your views as it did mine many years ago.

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I thought this was the Season of goodwill to all men? :D

 

It is a waste of time contacting any of the clubs. I get automated emails regularly from the C&CC thanking me for sending in a letter for publication. After emailing them a number of times I was sent a sample of one of these 'letters'. It was rude and crude, obviously written by a nutter. I have changed both my email address and password yet I still get automated emails to the old email address. All the C&CC has to do is block the old email address but they seem incapable of this.

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Wills Wagon - 2017-12-12 4:49 AMStuartO: Its a heading idiot.

Don't you think I knew that?  Capitalising things, whether headings or not, is bad forum manners.  It's like shouting.  Take it from one who has a far higher posting count that you.  So, of course, is calling people an idiot. It suggest that the poster has no rational reponse to offer, so he resorts to personal abuse.  It makes him look like a bit of an intellectual minnow of course.

 

York Rowntree is a very popular site and it's full every weekend.  They didn't get any heavy snow in York, so the Site was presumably running normally.  The bad weather this last weekend was well forecast and you could have cancelled early enough to let someone else use your pitch if you had been a bit more considerate of others.  I suspect that you richly deserved the rebuke.

 

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Wills Wagon - 2017-12-11 10:48 AM

 

 

I wonder what that idiot is paid?

 

 

I suspect that - as others have said - it was computer produced by a system which does not have sensitivity built in.

 

So at least you can rest assured that it didn't get paid.

 

;-)

 

 

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Wills Wagon - 2017-12-11 10:48 AM

 

How is this for the Caravan and Motorhome Club bureaucracy

We cancelled our trip to York Rowntree Park on Sunday because of the severe weather warnings from the Met Office and the advice of the police and motoring organisations not to travel. We had over four inches of snow here so were justified in not risking life and limb. Then this morning I get a letter from Peter Martin Head of Operations at the C&MC saying I am in contravention of the Club rules because we didn't give 72 hours notice. I don't think I have ever been so insulted by such arrogance and insensitivity before.

I wonder what that idiot is paid?

In view of normal postal delays, I assume you cancelled you trip on Friday, and not, as you seem to imply, on Sunday?

 

You don't say how you cancelled. I assume by 'phone: but to the site, or to the Club HQ? If to the site I can understand that in confirming your cancellation, even though you may have stated your reason for cancelling, the pro-forma letter may have been triggered. If you cancelled to HQ, I would have thought you should have been warned that a letter may follow, or that whoever you spoke to would have understood your reasons and prevented the letter from going.

 

But, might it not have been a little more productive that venting your spleen on here, to have phoned the Club HQ (perhaps when in a better mood than when you wrote your post :-)) and asked why, under the circumstances, the letter had been sent? I'm sure they would have explained, and no doubt commiserated as well.

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StuartO

If you know capitals are bad why say it, it shows you intellectual level is about the same as mine. I can assure you that cancelling was not an easy decision as we were meeting friends in York for a meal on Sunday afternoon and also going out with friends on Tuesday so we not only missed out on those events but also disappointed our friends as well. .

We cancelled on Saturday at 9.00 as it was clear by then we were going to be snowed in. When I checked the web site for Rowntree Park at 18.00 on Saturday there were vacancies on both awning and non awning pitches from Sunday 10 to Thursday 14 December so we were not depriving anybody of pitches.

 

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Wills Wagon - 2017-12-12 6:54 AMStuartOIf you know capitals are bad why say it, it shows you intellectual level is about the same as mine. ....

 

Oh I do hope not.  But tell me, how does it show that then, logically speaking?  My intention was merely to drop a guiding hint; sorry if you can't take that sort of thing.

 

A brass-it-out, must-have-the-last-word approach to rejecting criticism on a forum only really works if you can deploy a genuinely sharp wit.  I fear you are but half equipped.

 

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To me, the salient point here seems to be the C&MC clubs use of a single standard letters. Yes,I know it saves time and money, but a poorly drafted 'standard' letter can do a lot of damage to your relationship with your customers and is often just a lazy way of interacting with them.

A range of carefully though out different 'standard letters' to cover different eventualities can often sort out many of the inherent problems associated with semi-automated reply systems.

 

As for the turning you away because you turned up 1/2 hour too early, that strikes me as amazing un-customer focussed. We had a similar thing a few weeks ago where a site tried to charge us an extra £5 for if we wanted to arrive at noon instead of their normal change over of 2:00pm. The hardstanding pitch was unused the night before. We won't be rebooking with them.

 

I like the old adage "Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools."

 

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Re; Arrival times

Whether they be for a "Club" or a Commercial campsite, they would've been set for a reason and not out of spite. ;-)

(possible to ease the movement of units pulling on and off the site at any one time?...that and reception manning levels?) and they would've also been known at the time of booking..

 

It may well (understandably) seem petty to the individual concerned but if everyone booked for that particular day turned up earlier than expected (and why shouldn't they, you have?), it could be chaotic...

 

..and unfortunately, people being what they are, if they start letting 'em routinely roll up 1/2hr before "time", it wouldn't be long before some folk pushed it further..

 

So, if 1/2hr is deemed okay, what should be considered as "too early" ? 35min?.... 45mins?...1hr?... ;-)

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Many years ago we left the then CC when they imposed ehu on everyone and as we never used ehu we resented the imposition and paying for it - so we left and joined the CCC and never returned.

Prior to that we had almost always found site wardens to be helpful and accommodating and I recall when we arrived early on a Scottish site many years ago a sign on the office door just asked any early arrivals to wait by the office as the wardens were doing other jobs and would be there when finished. No problem we just sat, had a brew up, had a wander and were booked in on time and with a smile when the warden was ready.

It would surely be just as difficult if 'everyone' arrived together regardless of time, as we too have been stuck in a book in tailback at sites on more than one occasion.

Then we discovered continental touring and Aires and Motorhoming suddenly became a lot easier, and cheaper, and much more like it used to be with the freedom to roam when we started 50 years ago!!

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