Cancellation policy: setting your hotel's rules on every booking site

Booking.com calls cancellation policies an essential element of every rate plan: they define what a guest can expect if they cancel, a full refund, a partial one or none.

• The free period: until how long before arrival the guest can cancel at no cost.
• The fee after it: the first night, a share of the stay, or the whole stay.
• No-shows: what a guest who doesn't arrive pays.
• Prepayment: whether the guest pays part or all of the stay before arriving.

On Booking.com the last two are set together. A hotel chooses what a guest is charged for cancelling, the whole price, half of it or the first night, and that decides the prepayment: a policy with a fee of half the price asks the guest to prepay half when booking.

• Flexible: free cancellation until a deadline you set. Booking.com's “Flexible - 1 Day” lets guests cancel free until the day before arrival, and charges the first night after that.
• Custom: your own deadline and fee. Expedia lets a hotel set up to two cancellation windows in one policy.
• Non-refundable: no refund at any time, usually at a lower price. OneHorizyn's page on non-refundable rates covers it.
• Temporary exceptions: a different policy on chosen dates, such as a festival or a wedding weekend, while the usual one stays on the rest. Booking.com sets these under “Advanced Settings” on the “Reservation policies” page.
• A grace period: Booking.com lets a hotel give guests 24 hours after booking to correct a genuine mistake, such as the wrong date or room, without a fee.

Booking.com recommends allowing free cancellation one to two days before check-in, if it fits your business, and offering a flexible and a non-refundable rate side by side.

1. 1Booking.com: sign in to the extranet, go to “Property”, then “Reservation policies”, click “Create new cancellation policy”, choose whether to offer free cancellation and for how long, choose what guests pay for late cancellations or no-shows, and click “Save”. Then link it: “Rates & Availability”, “Rate plans”, the rate plan, “Edit”, then “Policy”.
2. 2Expedia: in Partner Central, go to “Rooms and rates”, then “Cancellation Policies”, then “Create a new policy”. Choose a 24, 48 or 72-hour window before your cut-off on the day of check-in, non-refundable, or a custom policy, and activate it on at least one rate plan. Keep the cut-off earlier than your check-in time.
3. 3MakeMyTrip and Goibibo: in the InGo-MMT extranet, open the “Property” tab, then “Cancel Rules”. Under “Add New Policy”, choose “Hotel Level” or a rate plan, the dates, and one of the three ready-made templates.
4. 4Agoda: in the Partner Portal, go to “Property”, then “Cancellation policies”, click “Add cancellation”, set the stay dates, choose a policy and the rate plans it applies to, and save.

If a channel manager or PMS manages your rates, Booking.com says to check under “Account”, then “Connectivity provider”, where your policies are managed, and to change them there. Agoda says that when a channel manager sends a rate plan without a policy, the strictest policy on your “Cancellation policies” page applies, and that a rate plan set up with no policy is non-refundable by default.

• A guest asks to cancel: Booking.com's “Request to cancel reservation” works up to 48 hours before check-in, and cancels free of charge with zero commission. If you want your fee to apply, Booking.com says to ask the guest to cancel through their confirmation email, their Booking.com account or its Customer Service.
• A guest doesn't arrive: “Mark as no-show” works from midnight on the check-in date until 48 hours after the check-out date.
• A fee you decide not to charge: “Waive cancellation fee” removes the fee, and the commission on it.
• Commission: Booking.com charges it on the cancellation and no-show fees you do charge.
• Expedia: its policy exceptions let you choose when cancellations are refunded automatically, except bookings made within 72 hours of check-in.

Guests compare. Free cancellation on one site and a strict policy on another, for the same room and price, sends guests to the softer one, and a policy on your website that differs from your listings leads to arguments at the desk.

• Write the policy once, in plain words, and use the same wording on every site and on your website.
• On Google, a rate is marked refundable only if it meets Google's rules: a full refund, taxes and fees included, to the original payment method, with a booking page that shows the policy and the same deadline Google has.
• Check each site as a guest for a date next month, and read the policy on the booking page itself.
• Change the policy for busy dates well ahead. Booking.com says confirmed bookings are legally binding, and changes to a rate plan apply to future availability only.