I have to say that I don"t like the feel of this either.
As has been said, it"s usually "the earlier you book, the cheaper it is", (i.e. hotels, holidays, season tickets etc...), and to the outsider it might look like a bit of a rip-off (obv. we regulars know it isn"t) as they will rightly point out that all poker companies, and all other companies in fact, have running costs for admin., and they don"t charge a fee.
Is there any reason why we cant send the "reservation" money, say £20 to make it worthwhile, to the casino by bank transfer, rather than send it to APAT? Most of us will have on-line banking I guess. We just pay the balance on the day. If you are a "no show" then the casino gets the extra. This might incentivise them to set the system up.The admin costs then lie with them rather than APAT.
That way they would bear the costs of "moving the money" in whatever way they needed too, and we would just pay the same amount on bank charges, if any, as we would if we were paying APAT.
Des" points were:-
The ideal scenario for APAT:-
1) Keep the events open online until the last possible moment, ideally the evening before the event.
2) Offer the events with the shortest possible journey between becoming aware of them (on the home page) and committing to play - ie, don"t ask new players to wade through a 20 page thread and then have to download software etc, find a tournament tab, deposit funds, etc etc etc!
3) Remove as much of the admin as we can to enable us to get on with some more important stuff for the tour.
4) Avoid getting hit with charges from payment providers or currency transactions
5) Generate revenue for APAT.
Points 1-4 would seem to be covered although point 5 would not be.
1) The casino knows how many runners they have registered at any time.
2) The "Pay Now" button would simply need to show how to make the reservation payment. i.e. account number, sort code etc....
3 and 4) It would appear to do this.
5) to be addressed.
or is this too easy?