I'm actually in favor of high cancelation fees....

Maybe that's not the answer, but maybe it will help at least a little... Sorry for this upcoming rant, but I have a state park rant I must make to get off my chest ;-)

I've been tent and RV camping in state parks my whole life. Most here in PA but also surrounding states. Now that I have a 5 person family, state parks are the perfect balance of what I want (boondocking) and what the kids want (hookups and things to do), but getting a site with at least electric has become near impossible at most of our favorite parks without months and even a year in advance planning. My wife and I both work and we have 3 kids in sports and activities. Trying to plan long weekends a year in advance is not possible. Our full week vacations we rarely plan that far out let alone the weekend trips.

Anyway, my gripe is the games people play with booking. Here in PA, you can book 11 months to the day in advance and book up to 14 consecutive nights. What that causes people to do is book 11 extra days with their last day on a Sunday when they only intend to stay for the weekend / long weekend. Because the cancelation fee is only $10 they just wait the 30 day waiting period (or longer) and cancel the days they don't want. They also book multiple long weekends without knowing if they can make it and cancel when it gets closer, again it's only $10. So people like me that are looking too book 30-60 days out have to sit on the computer multiple times per day just hoping to get lucky. I would love it if they did what our PA state forrest does with Boondock permits and have a 30-90 day window (depending on the area), but I know people need more time to plan. So, I would be in full support of a 1/2 or even more loss for cancelation. Of course as always that means people with money can still play the game and others can't (like many things in life), but maybe it would discourage the "games". Another idea would be to make a new rule where EVERY day you plan to book must be at least 11 months out. So you now can't book until 11 months from the last day of your trip rather than your first.

Anyway, sorry for the rant. It has been getting harder every year but the past 2 years has been terrible. There are a few parks that we used to camp at least once every year that we have not visited in 3-4 years now simply because we can't get a site.

Anyway, back to your regularly schedule programs....

garyp4951
Explorer III
Sep 30, 2021
I agree Rec.gov could use some rule changes.
FWC
Explorer
Sep 30, 2021
I would strongly support a significant 'no-show' fee for public lands camping and other reservations (like backcountry and river permits).

When you reserve a campsite or backcountry permit, in addition to the camping/permit fee (which should remain low so as not to be a barrier to entry) you also authorize a much larger no-show fee. If you cancel the reservation more than a few days in advance, you still loose the permit fee, but they don't charge the no-show fee as the permit/site can be used by someone else. However, if you don't show up and haven't canceled a few days before, then you loose the permit fee and they charge the larger no-show fee.

I think it is important to keep the fees to use public lands low enough that they are not a realistic barrier to entry, but I am so tired of folks who reserve a $25 permit or a $50 camp site in February and then can't be bothered to cancel it later when it turns out they can't use it in August. In some cases, such as Rocky Mountain National Park, 30-40% of the back country campsites end up not being used on popular weekends because of this.

Make the no show fee $250, and then there is a motivation to be considerate about those permits booked months in advance.
austinjenna
Explorer
Oct 01, 2021
As long as you can just re-reserve immediately, you'll still have scammers.

Say I book for August 1-15 on Feb 1st to get past the 6 month out policy. Then in June, I cancel August 1-15 and then immediately reserve August 10-15.

It results in the same thing as if I just cancelled the August 1-9 portion.

You would need to establish some sort of time delay on the rebooking of that site by the cancellee.

That's how it works in Ohio, there is a delay before it gets posted as available. Also on their website if no sites are available they have a button where you can put in your email if anything becomes available, so that gets sent out to however many folks who wanted to be notified of an available site.

So you could possibly rebook the same site and you could also get beat out as well.
wapiticountry
Explorer
Oct 01, 2021
Full payment at time of reservation. Cancellation fee equal to one night's stay. No refund if cancelled less than 30 days prior to arrival date. No refund for shortening stay. Must arrive on 1st day of reservation or reservation is cancelled and site made available to others. Only exception to policy is if the guest contacts the reservation office prior to arrival and moves arrival date back. They will get no refund for the day(s) they cancel but the remaining reservation will remain in place. This will accommodate people who have travel issues on the road.
toedtoes
Explorer III
Oct 01, 2021
wapiticountry wrote:
Full payment at time of reservation. Cancellation fee equal to one night's stay. No refund if cancelled less than 30 days prior to arrival date. No refund for shortening stay. Must arrive on 1st day of reservation or reservation is cancelled and site made available to others. Only exception to policy is if the guest contacts the reservation office prior to arrival and moves arrival date back. They will get no refund for the day(s) they cancel but the remaining reservation will remain in place. This will accommodate people who have travel issues on the road.

A one night's fee cancellation fee may only be $20.

There are some areas where folks will book every weekend for the season as soon as the window opens. Then as they get closer to the dates, they cancell what they don't want. A $20 cancellation fee won't bother them.
hotbyte
Explorer
Oct 01, 2021
It might be difficult to implement, but I really like the idea of a suspension period for those that habitually cancel reservations.
toedtoes
Explorer III
Oct 01, 2021
hotbyte wrote:
It might be difficult to implement, but I really like the idea of a suspension period for those that habitually cancel reservations.

I figure there will always be 5-15 percent who will always cheat the system regardless of the penalties. For the rest, once they are inconvenienced by the penalties, they will fall back in line - at least until a new easy way to cheat is discovered.

For the most part people are lazy and want instant gratification. They resort to cheating the system because it gives them fast results. They go in and make a bunch of reservations and cancel what they don't want - much easier than trying to book just what you need and constantly having to check for an opening. The money is nothing to them (buying $5+ coffees, $5000 shoes, etc, while working an entry level job is not money-smart).

By eliminating the instant gratification and ease of cheating, many will stop. So, even if the "suspension" only works 70 percent of the time, a high percentage of those people will stop the cheating. And that at least makes some difference.
hohenwald48
Explorer
Oct 03, 2021
None of these suggestions will ever come to pass. RV park owners and managers are only interested in filling the park and they make the park reservation rules. As long as they can get every spot paid for they don't care if anyone ever actually shows up. They don't really care about any inconvenience you might incur as a result of holes in their reservation systems.
toedtoes
Explorer III
Oct 03, 2021
hohenwald48 wrote:
None of these suggestions will ever come to pass. RV park owners and managers are only interested in filling the park and they make the park reservation rules. As long as they can get every spot paid for they don't care if anyone ever actually shows up. They don't really care about any inconvenience you might incur as a result of holes in their reservation systems.

It does and has changed with public campgrounds. Slowly, but things do change.
wing_zealot
Explorer
Oct 04, 2021
toedtoes wrote:
hotbyte wrote:
It might be difficult to implement, but I really like the idea of a suspension period for those that habitually cancel reservations.

I figure there will always be 5-15 percent who will always cheat the system regardless of the penalties. For the rest, once they are inconvenienced by the penalties, they will fall back in line - at least until a new easy way to cheat is discovered.

For the most part people are lazy and want instant gratification. They resort to cheating the system because it gives them fast results. They go in and make a bunch of reservations and cancel what they don't want - much easier than trying to book just what you need and constantly having to check for an opening. The money is nothing to them (buying $5+ coffees, $5000 shoes, etc, while working an entry level job is not money-smart).

By eliminating the instant gratification and ease of cheating, many will stop. So, even if the "suspension" only works 70 percent of the time, a high percentage of those people will stop the cheating. And that at least makes some difference.
7 or 8 different usernames and passwords and even if they suspend one account for a year I got plenty of other usernames to fall back on. In my opinion the best thing you can do is make canceling expensive, no exceptions. You'll piss off the guy with the true emergency cancellation (BTDT) but if the policy is up front, known, and agreed to by making a reservation, then they have no argument. Doesn't stop anyone from still gaming the system, just makes them pay high price to do it. Michigan does it that way but the cancellation fee could be a little steeper in my opinion; doubling or tripling them would cut out a lot of nonsense.

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I'm actually in favor of high cancelation fees....

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