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.
