Cancellation Policies

Cancellation Policies allow you to define in detail when refunds are given and, if they are, for what time periods and amounts. You can define multiple periods and refund amounts, assign different policies to different properties, and have the policy language dynamically inserted into your messaging and renter agreements.

• Viewing and Creating Cancellation Policies
  • Grace Period
• Assigning to Different Properties
• Setting on Individual Quotes and Bookings
• Embedding in Renter Agreements and Email Templates
• Guest Experience
• How Policies Work with Channels
  • Airbnb
  • Vrbo

Viewing and Creating Cancellation Policies

Navigate to Settings > Rules > Cancellation Policies. By default, the Cancellation Policies grid hides any disabled policies, but you can use the filter to show them as well.

To create a new cancellation policy, navigate to Settings > Rules > Cancellation Policies > + Create Policy. On the Create Cancellation Policy page, you'll determine whether you offer refunds for cancellations or charge a cancellation fee. Depending on your settings, options will appear for you to complete. If a Cancellation Fee is selected, a Create Manual Fee pop-up window will appear, allowing you to charge guests a cancellation fee manually upon cancellation.

Notice that, as you define the policy, a dynamic policy description is generated in human-readable grammatically correct clauses for what you configured. This description will be used elsewhere in OwnerRez to convey your policy to the guest. For instance, this might be shown in email templates or renter agreements.

After saving your new policy, you can either continue creating cancellation policies for all properties or break them up so there are different policies for different properties. The Cancellation Policies grid will display them, along with the associated properties.

Grace Period

OwnerRez supports an authorization-only payment option to tackle the issue of non-refundable card processing fees for canceled bookings (except for last-minute bookings arriving within 72 hours). This option allows hosts to place temporary holds on funds through card authorization, which finalizes the charge after a configurable grace period expires for both direct and channel-integrated bookings.

Configure your Cancellation Grace Period by navigating to your existing Cancellation Policy or to create a new cancellation policy by going to Settings > Rules > Cancellation Policies > select either + Create Policy or your Cancellation Policy > Grace Period > Free cancellation period after booking, and add your cancellation Grace Period.

The maximum available grace period is 72 hours after booking and at least 800 hours away.

During the booking process on hosted websites, guests will see your Grace Period displayed with your Cancellation Policy.

How does that Grace Period appear in OwnerRez on a booking? On the Booking > Transactions > Scheduled section, payments will have the Pending and Authed (Authorized) labels displayed in the Status column.

While users should note that this Grace Period option allows hosts to be in full compliance with California laws, configured grace periods are not prominently displayed on listing channels such as Airbnb, Vrbo, or Booking.com. 

Assigning to Different Properties

Renter agreements are chosen based on criteria at the time of booking. However, if you have more than one property, you probably want to see and assign cancellation policies for properties in one place. OwnerRez has a Batch Update page that can do that. On the global Cancellation Policies page (Settings > Rules > Cancellation Policies), click the Batch Update button, then select the Properties option.

This will load a page showing all active properties and the current cancellation policies set for them. If you've never assigned any policies, all properties will show No Policy Set. You can run down the list and select the policy for each property or use the top "Set all properties to" selector to set them all at once.

Make your selections and save. After you save, all new quotes and bookings will show the property's cancellation policy.

However, as with other settings, pre-existing quotes and bookings are not automatically updated when global cancellation policies change. This follows our standard practice of leaving quotes and bookings unchanged until you manually change them.

Setting on Individual Quotes and Bookings

If you've recently created new cancellation policies or updated existing ones, you may also want to ensure that pre-existing quotes and bookings are updated individually to match. However, be careful when modifying a booking's cancellation policy, as the guest may have already read and signed the renter agreement for the policy you previously had. If you are changing the cancellation policy after they signed, you may want to request that they sign a new renter agreement for the booking.

To change an existing quote or booking, navigate to that quote or booking > click the Rules tab > Change Rules button, and scroll down to the Cancellation Policy section. This will show you what is set on the booking. If nothing was set previously, it will show Not Set. Note that channel-integrated quotes & bookings are controlled by the channel and cannot be changed.

You have several options when setting cancellation policies on individual quotes or bookings. You can pick the property default (which will match the global changes you just made), or you can create a new cancellation policy inline for the specific quote or booking you are working on.

Need to change many quotes and bookings at once? You can do that too by using the global Cancellation Policies page (Settings > Rules > Cancellation Policies), clicking the Batch Update button, then selecting the Quotes & Bookings option.

The Batch Update Quotes & Bookings screen allows you to define which quotes or bookings you want to update, the policy to set, and additional criteria to narrow your selection.

Once you click Update Quotes & Bookings, the system will run through all quotes or bookings that match the criteria and make the changes you requested. Again, if bookings are changed after the guest signed your rental agreement, you may need to request that they sign a new copy, as what they signed is no longer correct.

Embedding in Renter Agreements and Email Templates

The point of creating cancellation policies is to keep guests informed about refunds and to disclose everything clearly upfront. As your policies change over time, your messaging and agreements need to stay up to date.

We created field codes to automatically embed policies into renter agreements and email templates. Proper setup means you won't need to update emails or agreements when policies change, and different properties with varying cancellation policies can use the same templates.

The field codes are:

• Booking
  • {BCANPOL} The effective cancellation policy for this booking
  • {BCANPOLDAT} The effective cancellation policy for this booking with exact dates supplied based on arrival
  • {BCANPOLLEGAL} The effective cancellation policy for this booking in legalese
• Quotes
  • {QCANPOL} The effective cancellation policy for this quote
  • {QCANPOLDAT} The effective cancellation policy for this quote with exact dates supplied based on arrival
  • {QCANPOLLEGAL} The effective cancellation policy for this quote in legalese

Consult the Field Codes support article or Field Codes Walk-Through video for more details about field codes and how they are used.

Guest Experience

Notifying guests about your cancellation policy is essential for managing expectations, ensuring transparency, helping guests decide, and reducing disputes over refunds or fees. On the quote acceptance and booking pages, guests can see your full legal cancellation policy clearly displayed at the bottom of the Booking Confirmation page.

How Policies Work with Channels

Airbnb

For complete information, see the Configuring rules and settings section of our Airbnb Setup & Connecting support article.

Vrbo

For complete information, see the Cancellation Policy and House Rules section of our Vrbo Setup & Connecting support article.