This will be a great system for me to make routine reservations, but totally useless for me for last-minute reservations or hard-to-get restaurants, because I usually tell the CM to search for any time on any day during my stay. With no time window in the system, you have to jump through hoops to cover all the possiblities. The five-day window (instead of seven or 10 or even 14) also makes that difficult.
Regarding the discussion about double booking: while I agree it should not be done, there are several instances I can see that prohibiting it automatically would be difficult.
I've had several instances where we booked a "late lunch" during the dinner hour, say like 4 PM, and a late-night dinner at say 10 PM. So you couldn't filter on just "dinner" - there would have to be a time between reservations as well. And who is to say that people won't want to eat three hours apart? What about two hours? You can see it gets difficult.
Already mentioned has been some people in one party at one restaurant, and others at a different restaurant. So the party size has to be considered as well. And what if the times are slightly offset, and one adult is going to hop over to the other restaurant for light fare? Then you would be exceeding the total number in party.
And what if I keep going back and looking for a cancellation at Le Cellier or someplace, and one comes up but I'm already booked somewhere else at that time? I should be allowed to jump on the new one and then go cancel the other one later.
