Reserve America policies

I personally like Reserve America, I do not think their cancellation price is that bad and i have had to use it twice. as far s the park service people being lazy, what I have seen is understaffed people doing the best they can, and the volunteers are really an asset, just looking at the trashy condition of some of the sites I have seen and the mess people leave the sites in in takes up a lot of time just cleaning up. There are other campgrounds to stay at..

Different states have different canx policies. Georgia, you can make one change at no cost. Canx I think might be $10. Florida canx is I think $17(ish) as someone pointed out.

The cancellation policies are very clearly stated, several times through the process. You have ample opportunity to decide not to complete the reservation.

Mike

Like some previous posters, I don't mind ReserveAmerica. We're used to dealing with them after many years of their handling Wisconsin state parks, where we used to do a lot of camping. The $10 cancellation fee is fairly standard; a lot of private CGs use the same policy. I don't find it unfair, and you'd probably pay a similar cost (whether for cancellation or just built into the campsite fee) if the state were running things. One can always choose not to make reservations, if one doesn't like the cancellation fee policy - but there are tradeoffs in any decision, of course.

Cancellation policies are typically stated for ALL CG's...not just Reserve America or other State, Federal reservation sites but also include private cg's.

My goodness people deal with it...if you can't understand why a $10 or whatever cancellation charge is in place then don't make a reservation and take your chances.

Personally, as someone else stated, I think any cancellation should be higher than $10 as only $10 may not seem like a lot for taking advantage of any reservation system.

With all this thanks to those that do cancel which will open up a site for someone else.

phillyg wrote:

Durb wrote:
I wish the cancellation fee were higher. People get on line and reserve all their contingency spots in case they might want to go, thus filling up the parks with unfulfilled reservations. Those who really want to stay are shut out even though sites will be ultimately available. They will cancel a few days in advance, pay a couple of bucks The site will go empty and a family that needs to plan ahead will stay home. Should be a $50 cancellation fee in my mind.

Except it appears the OP isn't one of those folks to whom you refer. He tried to cancel a month in advance! You do realize some folks have bona fide reasons to have to cancel, don't you?

Oregon used to have a reservation hold of $3.00 and you paid upon arrival. People got wise to the other people who were over booking and started to do the same. If you didn't have a reservation by January 2nd you were out of luck. It would cost $3.00 not to show. They are Reserve America now and you at least have a shot at getting a site.

I had a reservation at Grayland Beach in WA last October and a 7" rain storm was due to blow in. Didn't want to deal with it so cancelled. Cost me $38.00 and I was glad to pay it.

The bottom line is that company, and it's employees, expended time and effort to make your initial reservation. How do you unpay the employees just because you want to cancel ?

fla-gypsy wrote:
You could always try to camp without a reservation and see how that works out for you.

That's what we did for 16 years of full-timing and it worked just fine. :)

2gypsies wrote:

fla-gypsy wrote:
You could always try to camp without a reservation and see how that works out for you.

That's what we did for 16 years of full-timing and it worked just fine. :)

With respect for your ability to live in that manner for 16 years yet assuming most of your no reserve camping was done outside of the east coast during the summer. Or you volunteered/work-camped/stayed at casinos/rest stops or similar.
Which still takes pre-planning.

I like ReserveAmerica, it's a centralized place to make reservations when traveling from one place to another. At one time, we had to call each State Park ahead of time to reserve a spot and each SP had different policies.

Some SP would not even take reservations and it was all "first come first serve" which sucked when you were 200 miles away and arrive late in the day.

Now I log onto RA - see what is available for that night and book online. I no longer have any anxiety worrying if we will find a place.

The cancellation fee is a small price to pay for the convenience.

phillyg wrote:

Durb wrote:
I wish the cancellation fee were higher. People get on line and reserve all their contingency spots in case they might want to go, thus filling up the parks with unfulfilled reservations. Those who really want to stay are shut out even though sites will be ultimately available. They will cancel a few days in advance, pay a couple of bucks The site will go empty and a family that needs to plan ahead will stay home. Should be a $50 cancellation fee in my mind.

Except it appears the OP isn't one of those folks to whom you refer. He tried to cancel a month in advance! You do realize some folks have bona fide reasons to have to cancel, don't you?

Doesn't matter if reason is legit or just silly the fees still applies.
There is someone out there that lost out because they believed the site was being used.
The fees are there to maintain the integrity of the system. Without the fees and penalties people would constantly game the system.
In short there would be a lot of chaos and abuse of the policies.
Penalty fees are a good thing. I also agree they could be higher