More 4NCL

[Rob Thompson]

But Rob, it doesn't get rid of the problem in totality, if you don't want overbooking to occur at all then you have to have a rule in place for everybody

Maybe so, but i don't think 5-10 rooms overbooked is much of an issue, if the teams doing it get it right the majority of the time. The major issue is teams overbooking massively every weekend. And this also avoids punishing the teams that have done nothing wrong.

[Alan Walton]

I cannot really seeing it being only a few teams overbooking rooms, why would a team over book more than 2 rooms, I think it is more likely a cumulation of numerous team booking 1 or 2 rooms extra causing the problem (which could add upto 20-40 rooms)

Mike, have you had any good feedback from the hotels around who the culprits have been, is it just a room here and there per team from a wide selection of different teams?

[Mike Truran]

I'm waiting to hear back from Staverton on specific examples.

[Ben Purton]

Mike My thing occured where by I booked the rooms and then was suppose to give names which werent mine in 4 days and I did it 6 days later , i assumed they were secured. When I booked they told me they had a large amount of room, the quote was something in hundreds.

Literally i know it sounds bad but my 2 entire teams I run can stay in 5 twins, given people share beds/floor it if we only had such a small amount. Literally some of the more affluent teams are so pathetic giving double rooms to single players and booking twice as many , so instead of fitting 48 in 24 rooms say, you end up with 12 rooms used for 12 and 12 cancelled on the Thursday.

I therefore think that you should have to pay for cancellations or say £15 a room if you cancel 2 weeks before , not 2 days.

Ben

[Ben Purton]

We cancelled 3 rooms at starveton park ,that helps you with your job, I openly offered them on this very forum/in open email to all captains. the 3 cancellations were because my players somehow got hold of spares at Barcelo.

Like now I am totally ****ed in January as it stands. Id be more curious to find out who the hell has block booked Barcelo in January. Literally.

[Alan Walton]

Ben,

I can tell you that 3C's have booked the following (I believe as my dad has done it):

8 single (6 for the 1st team, 2 for adults supervising the kids on the second team)
1 double
3 twins (for the kids on the 2nd team)

Over booking only happens when people have non-playing people going in addition, if you have the rule as I explained earlier around a limited of discounted rooms per team, would discourage this a little, but hotels being full may still occur if people decide to pay the full whack

Ben, I think that the 3 people moving to the other hotel have to shoulder a little responsibility in this matter, but having split venues in the same town on the same weekend, will always cause some issues

[Alex Holowczak]

Like now I am totally ****ed in January as it stands. Id be more curious to find out who the hell has block booked Barcelo in January. Literally.

Are you saying that Hinckley Island is already fully booked?

[Ben Purton]

Yes it is fully booked amigo

[Ben Purton]

In fact I had "we are showing a minus" when i rang up and had my argument with them , meaning they arent just fullybooked they are overbooked

[Ben Purton]

Ben,

I can tell you that 3C's have booked the following (I believe as my dad has done it):

8 single (6 for the 1st team, 2 for adults supervising the kids on the second team)
1 double
3 twins (for the kids on the 2nd team)

Over booking only happens when people have non-playing people going in addition, if you have the rule as I explained earlier around a limited of discounted rooms per team, would discourage this a little, but hotels being full may still occur if people decide to pay the full whack

Ben, I think that the 3 people moving to the other hotel have to shoulder a little responsibility in this matter, but having split venues in the same town on the same weekend, will always cause some issues

Hardly Walton ............... Barcelo was were we wanted to stay but they were "fully booked" for months. We werent event staying where we were playing.

[Alex Holowczak]

Yes it is fully booked amigo

Oh dear.

[Alan Walton]

Fair enough, I had the same problem the other way round last season, where I couldn't stay at Staverton (where playing) was fully booked and I had to stay at the Barcelo, but I honoured my booking.

Normally when you get discounted rates at hotels you have to pre-pay for you room and get charged for cancellations in the last 24/48 hours before the stay, maybe they have to bring something akin to this into their thinking as well

[Ben Purton]

Alan its not like I did it 48 hours before, I informed the hotel 11 days prior and said id help to fill them. But OK

[Carl Hibbard]

Yes it is fully booked amigo

Oh dear.

Doesn't just naming and shaming the teams who are doing it sufficient to cut it down?

[Mike Truran]

Alan, what is likely to happen with the venues (and I still have to finalise the details) is that the numbers of rooms held on large block bookings (probably four or more) will be treated by the venues as definitive two weeks before the weekend and charged to the booker's credit card. If individual rooms need to be cancelled just before the weekend for reasons such as illness, bereavement etc the venues will of course exercise discretion. The two weeks deadline is the best I can get as a compromise (reasonable or otherwise) between giving the captains a fair chance of finalising their teams and the venues a fair chance of reselling the rooms in the event of cancellation.

As a former captain myself I know that this isn't exactly going to make captains' jobs easier to say the least given the difficulty of getting players to commit in advance, but the venues are adamant that they not prepared to countenance continuing loss of revenue on the scale that has been happening. I expect captains who block book will need to scale back their block booking to a level they are comfortable they are going to be able to commit to a fortnight out and have players not covered by the block booking make their bookings on an individual basis.

If anybody has any thoughts on whether this arrangement can be modified in a way that will be acceptable to the venues before it is finalised I would be glad to hear from them.