Nobody wants to see a booking get canceled, but sometimes life happens! Canceling or changing a booking may involve many variables depending on your Cancellation Policy and Cancellation Fees.
Does the guest get back all the money they paid? Sometimes, but sometimes not. Does the guest get a percentage back? Maybe, but it can be complicated. Or maybe you can give a refund only if you can rebook the dates, and otherwise, do not?
- Cancel Direct Bookings, Google Vacation Rentals
- Cancellation Fees
- Refunds
- Change Dates
- Listing Channels
- Cancellation Within 24 Hours of Booking
- Reactivating Canceled Bookings
- Remote Door Locks
- Caveats
- FAQs
Direct Bookings, Google Vacation Rentals
There is no mechanism available for guests to cancel their reservation directly on OwnerRez hosted websites. Guests wishing to cancel their reservation will need to contact you, the host, to initiate the cancellation process manually in OR.
There are a couple of different ways to cancel a booking. The first is to navigate to the booking overview tab and click the right-side cancel button.
Alternatively, you can navigate to the booking overview tab, click the upper-right kebab menu, and select Cancel Booking from the dropdown list.
Vrbo Channel Integrated
Vrbo guests can request cancellations from hosts. While you will receive a Vrbo message regarding the cancellation request, you will also receive a Booking Cancellation Requested email or push notification from OwnerRez when that occurs, along with a Vrbo cancellation request displayed directly in the Unified Inbox message pane.
Begin the cancellation process by following the instructions in the Direct Bookings, Google Vacation Rentals section. Since guests cannot cancel their bookings in OwnerRez, the host must initiate the cancellation for them. If you are connected through the Vrbo channel integration, you'll be asked to state Who caused the cancellation?
This information is sent to Vrbo, informing them that the cancellation was caused or initiated by the guest. Vrbo will display the cancellation reason as "No Reason Specified."
The cancellation reason can stem from either the host or guest. For example, if the host cancels due to the guest not following clearly stated house rules, like signing the rental agreement, it's the guest's fault. Conversely, if an unexpected incident like a pipe burst or flooding occurs before the guest's arrival, the host is responsible. In such cases, contact Vrbo with evidence of the circumstances.
This "Reason Canceled" area is a Vrbo-specified field that can include values such as "Accidental," "Wrong Dates," "Owner Disagreement," etc. Currently, we don't have a selection for these items in OwnerRez. Vrbo does not offer a way to push the value to them through the channel integration, so the cancellation reason will always be displayed as "Reason not specified."
If you encounter a situation where you were penalized for rejecting a request-to-book from Vrbo, contact Vrbo support.
Cancellation Fees
On the Cancel Booking page, your current Cancellation Policy will appear along with some additional Refund options.
Users can choose from the following.
- Follow the policy: Guest gets no refund
- Guest gets a partial refund.
- Guest gets a full refund
- I'll update the charges myself
When the No Refund option is unselected, you can choose to charge a Cancellation Fee by selecting from the following options.
- No fee
- Charge a fee from the Cancellation Fee drop-down list.
- Click on the Add New link to create an on-the-fly Manual Surcharge Cancellation Fee during the booking cancellation process.
If Add New is selected, the Create Manual Surcharge pop-up will prefill the Category and Description fields with Cancellation Fee.
- Add a new cancellation fee Amount.
- Determine whether the Cancellation Fee Is Taxable by selecting Yes or No.
- Decide whether the Status is Active or Categorize this as a 'rent' line item.
- Property Management users can make selections in the additional Expense and Commission sections.
Click Save & Apply.
The new Cancellation Fee will appear in the Cancellation Fee drop-down list, allowing users to select and apply it as desired.
Refunds
Below that Refund information is detailed in the blue informational box. Security Deposit information is detailed, and users can also select specific Cancellation notification alerts. Click on Cancel this booking.
The Cancellation Notice email editor will open immediately, allowing users to notify the guest of the cancellation and, if applicable, the refund. Notice that the booking banner now includes a red "Canceled on date" label at the top. Click Send Email.
The booking cancellation process is complete, and the booking will be removed from the calendar, but the guest and booking information will be saved. Next, you'll want to issue either a manual refund or record a refund.
After cancellation, the Booking cancelled indicator is displayed in the lower-left corner of the Unified Inbox message pane.
Users should note that if they are Vrbo channel-integrated and a pre-channel-integrated booking is canceled, there is no automatic notification to or from OwnerRez users by Vrbo.
Users will either have to
- Notice the cancellations themselves in the Vrbo Owner Dashboard
- Or possibly recognize the cancellation when importing Channel Bridge files (which users should continue to do, as there's no other way to update pre-channel-integrated bookings).
Manual Refunds
If users are unable to process a refund for a canceled booking through the Direct Bookings, Vrbo Channel Integrated cancellation process, they can always process a refund manually by navigating to the specific Booking > Transactions, then, from the Refunds dropdown menu, select Send Refund (Run Card).
Process the guest's refund by adding Amount to Refund > selecting the Linked Payment amount, then Process Refund.
A refund notification email template will appear, allowing users to notify guests of their refund by clicking on Send Email.
Record Refunds
Once users have successfully canceled a booking, you can record the refund, which will also notify the guest about their refund, as processed elsewhere, by navigating to the canceled Booking > Transactions > Refunds > Record Refund.
Record the Amount Refunded and click Save.
A refund notification email template will appear, allowing users to notify guests of their refund by clicking on Send Email.
Offline Refunds
If either of these situations is true:
- You received guest payment through a payment processor that you are no longer integrated with.
- Your guest payments were made more than 6 months prior to the refund.
You will not be able to process the guest refund within the OwnerRez system. You will have to work directly with your current payment processor to complete the refund and manually adjust the booking to include the refund in OwnerRez.
Change Dates
Changing the booking dates may result in a refund, requiring changes to the charges, or requiring manual collection of a payment from the guest. To change booking dates, follow the instructions on our Change a Booking support article.
Listing Channels
Airbnb / iCal-connected Vrbo / Using iCal+Channel Bridge
- Airbnb
- Cancellations and Booking Modifications should be managed on Airbnb and allow that cancellation to sync to OR.
- Airbnb may charge host penalties, so if a host needs to cancel a guest for breaking house rules, OwnerRez recommends that users call Airbnb directly to manage that cancellation to ensure that the cancellation is penalty-free.
- Vrbo iCal-connected
- The booking must be canceled on Vrbo, preferably by the guest.
- Then, cancel the booking in OwnerRez - even once VRBO has canceled the booking at their end, they do not reliably update the calendar feed to cancel it in OwnerRez, so you should cancel it yourself manually to clear your calendar.
- Vrbo will issue the appropriate refund to the guest within a few days.
- Once the refund is complete, run Channel Bridge and let it try to update the financials for the canceled booking. This should bring in the refund from Vrbo, but it may still not clear out the charges. That is very hard for OwnerRez to detect, and it only happens if we see a completed 100% refund going back.
- In the case of a partial refund, you may need to switch the booking into manual mode, even after doing Channel Bridge, and manually fix the charges to reflect what took place accurately. Note that canceled bookings are visible in OwnerRez, just not on the calendar - you can find them by searching for the ORB booking number or the guest's name.
- Using iCal+Channel Bridge
- If you are sure that the booking was imported via iCal and that the booking has, in fact, been canceled, manually cancel the iCal booking in OwnerRez. See also, My booking was canceled on the other channel, but it's still showing in OwnerRez.
Houfy, FloridaRentals, HomeToGo Channel Integrations
These channel integrations create the equivalent of direct bookings in OwnerRez. The booking cannot be canceled on the booking channel by either you or the guest. You must cancel it yourself in OwnerRez. Follow the Direct Booking instructions at the top of the page.
Booking.com
If a Booking.com (BDC) guest requests the cancellation of a booking, users can follow the instructions on BDC's Handling cancelations and guests cancelation requests support article.
If a BDC booking was made with an invalid credit card, users can learn more by reading the BDC Handling invalid credit cards support article.
Depending on their BDC configuration, users may need to handle the refund manually.
Cancellation Within 24 Hours of Booking
If the cancellation occurs within 24 hours of booking, users can use the Void & Delete option to void the credit card payment. Then, cancel or delete the booking. The Void & Delete option may allow the credit card transaction to not go through settlement, and users may not get hit with any fees from their processor.
Generally, the allowed range for voids isn't "within 24 hours" but rather "before the daily batch settles," by each payment processor, which usually happens once a day in the evening.
If the OwnerRez system does not allow for this process, users may have to contact their payment processor directly.
Users should consult the OwnerRez Support Article for their specific payment processor (Support Center > Payment Processing > Processors & Gateways > your Processor) for more information about voiding a transaction.
Note for Stripe: Stripe doesn't support a void, users can only refund the transaction.
Reactivating Canceled Bookings
You can only reactivate Direct Bookings in OwnerRez. In the upper right side of the pink status bar towards the top of the screen for a Canceled Booking, is a link to Reactivate the direct booking.
⚡ WARNING:
DO NOT do this for channel bookings, whether or not they are channel integrated bookings - listing channels do not support this. Canceled bookings should only be reactivated if they are direct bookings that do not involve a listing channel (e.g., Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, etc.).
Remote Door Locks
If you have configured OwnerRez to use automatic remote door lock codes, when you cancel a booking, any codes associated with that booking will also be automatically canceled if the lock is an online lock. Algorithmic-only locks cannot delete codes.
Caveats
Users should note the following.
- Payments made more than 6 months prior to the refund cannot be processed within the OwnerRez system. Users can work directly with their payment processor to complete the refund.
- Municipalities' policies on how hosts handle canceled booking sales taxes can vary.
- If you are Vrbo channel-integrated and a pre-channel-integrated booking is canceled, there is NO automatic notification to or from OwnerRez users by Vrbo. Users will have to do either of the following.
- Notice the cancellations themselves in the Vrbo Owner Dashboard
- Or possibly recognize the cancellation when importing Channel Bridge files (which users should continue to do, as there's no other way to update pre-channel integrated connected bookings).
- You cannot make changes or cancel pre-channel-integrated bookings; Vrbo must make those changes. We suggest that you reach out to Vrbo PM Support.
FAQs
Vrbo is not honoring my cancellation policy and refund amount.
If Vrbo is not honoring your cancellation policy and refund amount, immediately reach out to Vrbo IPM support.
Vrbo treats cancellations very differently depending on whether you are Vrbo channel integrated or not as IPM cancellation policies are applied differently than regular iCal connected Vrbo platform cancellation policies. Vrbo channel integrated properties have a distinct advantage with exclusive Vrbo IPM support.