OK, What's the trick to reserving on Reserve America?

[mchero]

Reserve America is just about the only was to grab a site these days sort of walking up praying for an available site.

I have herd from more than one person that the trick is to be on te site at EXACTLY 8:00AM & be redy to search & select your site. I hae herd from others that it's midnight!

Whats the real deal on reserving a site on Reserve America?

[RGar974417]

Here's a trick: don't try to book weekends.We typically go in on a Sunday and leave on a Wednesday or Thursday.I just reserved the site we wanted in a popular state park for the middle of August less than a month away by doing this. Even the most popular sites will have vacant spaces as long as you don't go on a weekend.

[bikendan]

We generally avoid the RA nonsense, by avoiding camping in the summer, weekends and holidays.
Which leaves us at least 2/3 of the year to camp.

[TXiceman]

Texas went to RA for the reservation system for a few years and due to the complaints dumped them for am in-house system. Works much better. I try to avoid RA as much as possible.

Ken

[noplace2]

There are thousands upon thousands upon thousands of sites available on ANY date and whatever climate is your pleasure. Take your blinders off, stop bothering with that RA nonsense, and LOOK!

Hint: it ain't here.

[Big_Katuna]

2gypsies wrote:
Perhaps everyone could complain to the park they're trying to reserve. They're the ones who contract to Reserve America.

Ourselves? We go to non-reservable campgrounds. Even in some national parks there are campgrounds that don't even accept reservations such as in Yellowstone, Grand Tetons.

I have written and called. Deaf ears. Thing is, occupancy went up when they signed on with RA as before, each park handled their own phones. The parks had one or two phones manned 8-5 and you could never get through. No cancellation rules so people would book more than they needed then cancel or just not show up.

And the slow parks didn't get much exposure. My complaints are $7 to book, $17 to change or cancel and you cant get a weekly site because the working folks grab all the weeknds.

In Florida, all the state parks use RA and we don't have many COE or Fed parks. A few county parks.

[2gypsies1]

Perhaps everyone could complain to the park they're trying to reserve. They're the ones who contract to Reserve America.

Ourselves? We go to non-reservable campgrounds. Even in some national parks there are campgrounds that don't even accept reservations such as in Yellowstone, Grand Tetons.

[marcsbigfoot20b]

It seems to be even worse this year I'm guessing due to low gas prices now more people can afford to drive to the campgrounds.

I noticed every single weekend is booked now in many campgrounds (fri-sat nights) for months to come.
I'm sure there are cancellations but you would have to surf RA every day.

[GMandJM]

Big Katuna wrote:
...RA (who I detest) gets paid half the first night booking so negative incentive to book less stays.

They make more money booking four weekends than they would one site for two two week reservations.

Kind of irks me as a taxpayer that many parks are half empty during the week.

Ya know, I always wondered if they had something like that built into their booking algorithm. Detecting which prospective customer wanted a site for 1 day vs. 14 so that they could get additional booking fees.

Like, if two people are trying to book at the exact same time, the one wanting fewer days would get preference, hence more first night booking fees for RA.

I'm probably giving RA too much credit for being an evil genius (instead of just evil) 😉

[NYCgrrl]

Big Katuna wrote:
snip

tcas01 wrote:
It sure would be nice if they would reserve some sites as "weekly only," maybe combine that with first come, first serve.

One of my pet peeves as well.

We owned a beachfront motel for ten years. We quickly learned that we could always fill the weekends up at the last minute so we would turn away weekend bookings that called months in advance and wait for the weeklies.

RA (who I detest) gets paid half the first night booking so negative incentive to book less stays.

They make more money booking four weekends than they would one site for two two week reservations.

Kind of irks me as a taxpayer that many parks are half empty during the week.

RA's payment structure is also based on the individual state's contract; there is no nationwide fee structure for them.

I can book a weekend and or/ weekdays with perfect ease as long as I follow the state's guidelines. It's been my experience that RA follows the individual state's requirements to the letter.Just back from a 21 day stay at a prime site located at a campground near several metropolitan areas. Made my reservation back in Aug or Sept 2014 when the window opened. And yes forethought is needed.

Sure there are empty spots from Monday to Wednesday but that's the norm in all segments of the lodging industry. The managers set an average price that allows them to meet their annual projected income accordingly which means your tax money is actually working well in this instance.
Knowing that, last Friday, I booked my annual Perseid viewing trip from August 10th-14th because it falls during the week; no way could I get a weekend since it was booked months ago. Since the best viewing time ends on the 14th no reason for me to want the weekend either. I'll buck the crowd and be back home while everyone else is heading out.

[tkcas01]

RAS43 wrote:

Artum Snowbird wrote:
It is in the morning, not midnight.

The trick is to see what is available, look at the pictures and description and decide if it is for you. Have alternatives as well.

As others have said it depends on the state. Colorado changes at midnight and if you want a popular site in some state parks you better be ready at midnight, not 12:01am.

Can't believe they have us all acting like teenage girls trying to get tickets to a Justin Bieber concert. Something is just not right there. As a result, I just seldom even try to get in state parks.

[RAS43]

Artum Snowbird wrote:
It is in the morning, not midnight.

The trick is to see what is available, look at the pictures and description and decide if it is for you. Have alternatives as well.

As others have said it depends on the state. Colorado changes at midnight and if you want a popular site in some state parks you better be ready at midnight, not 12:01am.

[Big_Katuna]

snip

tcas01 wrote:
It sure would be nice if they would reserve some sites as "weekly only," maybe combine that with first come, first serve.

One of my pet peeves as well.

We owned a beachfront motel for ten years. We quickly learned that we could always fill the weekends up at the last minute so we would turn away weekend bookings that called months in advance and wait for the weeklies.

RA (who I detest) gets paid half the first night booking so negative incentive to book less stays.

They make more money booking four weekends than they would one site for two two week reservations.

Kind of irks me as a taxpayer that many parks are half empty during the week.

[jrp]

the only trick to Reserve America, is not to rely on it. go for the non-reservable sites. as long as your schedule is flexible and you're willing to show up before the crowds, you'll almost always get a site, except Holiday weekends.

[tkcas01]

As a fulltimer, I seldom expect to be able to get a site on RA for any length of time. Seems to me locals go in and reserve up all the weekends for months in advance, so as I ramble around and decide where to go visit there is little available. It sure would be nice if they would reserve some sites as "weekly only," maybe combine that with first come, first serve.

Anyway, the way I have tried to work the site in the past is look at the calendar view. There you can see open days on all the sites and maybe stitch together an extended stay, even though you have to move a time or two. I've made 3 reservations before for a single visit. Of course there was a fee for each online reservation. It would be more cost effective to look online, find the collection of sites and days that would work and then call the park directly to make it as one reservation.

[GMandJM]

mchero wrote:
Reserve America is just about the only was to grab a site these days sort of walking up praying for an available site.

I have herd from more than one person that the trick is to be on te site at EXACTLY 8:00AM & be redy to search & select your site. I hae herd from others that it's midnight!

Whats the real deal on reserving a site on Reserve America?

It's more like be on the RA site BEFORE 8:00:00am, have your campsite scoped out and be ready to hit "book now" right at the stroke of 8:00:00 a.m.

And then be ready to see "Inventory Not Available" at 08:00:01 as I always do when trying to get that ever-elusive waterfront site at Bahia Honda.

Ahhh.....someday 😉