Incremental cancellation penalty

CarnationSailor wrote:

westernrvparkowner wrote:

CarnationSailor wrote:
Washington state went to this system a couple of years ago and I have been burned by it twice already. If you want to get a site at a popular state park on a holiday weekend, you have to reserve it at 7:00 AM, 9 months before the date you want to arrive. Twice I made reservations 9 months in advance, and then 6 months later, I had to cancel due to circumstances beyond my control. It really PO'ed me to pay a 40 or 50% cancellation fee. Clearly, I wasn't trying to "game" the system. I guess it was just a situation where a rule meant to punish the guilty also punished the innocent. But I still don't like it.

There just isn't a definition of "beyond my control". Anyone with a wife and kid would agree that if they decided to go to Disneyland instead of Yosemite, that would indeed be a circumstance beyond their control. But most of us would argue that really doesn't justify getting refunded a non-refundable deposit. I don't know how many grandparents you have, but I can point you to a few people who have had a baker's dozen of them pass away, each time right before they were going on vacation, or so they say.

I think you are missing the point. Michigan and Washington didn't change their cancellation policies because people were giving them bogus reasons. They did it because people were tying up multiple campsites for months and then cancelling them just before the arrival date with only a $10 cancellation fee. (I think this was the reason, but I might be wrong.) In my case, I think it was unreasonable to charge me $100 (roughly 50 of the total cost) when I was cancelling 3 months before the arrival date.

I see the point very clearly. The point is, as soon as you start making exceptions people will start gaming those exceptions, just like they game the reservation system. If they only charged you $10 because you had "valid reason", then everyone will be charged $10 because everyone will say they have a "valid reason" and the policy will be a failure. If you don't want people to make reservations they plan on cancelling in the future if they change their plans, then you have to have a policy that makes doing that unpalatable. Experience has shown that only a stiff financial penalty has much impact. Exceptions will neuter that penalty.