Cancellation Policy tracking

In these days, when some of us may be tweaking cancellation policies to try and fill the huge voids in our calendars, it occurred to me, more than once now as cancellations continue to come in, that it would be nice to know under what policy a booking was made. It seems trivial to pull that out of the property description and drop it into the booking record.

Theoretically the rental agreement kind of does this, but I have to go into the booking email and then determine which agreement was included for them to sign at the time. That is a bit laborious.

Thanks for the suggestion, Chuck. On each booking > Legal tab, it should show the renter agreement that was signed with a copy of the PDF archived there.

Thanks Paul, I eluded to that and have been relying on it. My issues have not been with the guests, but with AirBNB and VRBO who have said the policy THEY have is different that what has been in the RA. So I am just looking for a way to provide more tracking and "evidence".

Chuck,

I think it will be a very rare situation where an OTA will allow anything in our RA to override/affect cancellation policy as established in their platform. I agree it would be nice to have more tracking and evidence, but I think it's inherently complex. Changing a single punctuation can affect a legal document, and it would be unlikely for VRBO for example to get legal advice on interpreting anything in your RA. Only in the most extreme situations involving legal action.

I think of the RA for use in a different manner - if I am every severely impacted and cannot be made financially whole by the platform, I can always choose to pursue court action using my RA. I expect to never do that, it's just a safety net.

In any case, in my RA I say the following:

Guest is advised to purchase travel insurance. Guest agrees that Owner is not in a position to refund any payments except as covered by the cancellation policy.  Absolutely no refunds will be made after Guest checks into the Property for any reason. No refunds shall be made for inclement weather conditions, health issues, pandemics or any other reason. Guest acknowledges that weather is inherently unpredictable and Owner has no control over accessibility of public or private roads leading to the Property. At times during inclement weather, mountain roads may be temporarily closed to traffic.

Notwithstanding anything in this provision to the contrary, in the event that Guest is entitled to any refund due to cancellation, retention of service fees shall be governed by the terms of the rental website or other booking provider, if applicable. Owner does not directly charge and will not retain any service fees.

Cancellation policy:
Cancellation policy for bookings paid using VRBO, Homeaway, Airbnb, Expedia and similar online travel agencies will be as determined at booking time on those electronic platforms.

Cancellation policy for bookings with initial and/or full payments directly between Owner and Guest  shall be as follows
If Guest cancels this Agreement and
• If the notice of cancellation is provided more than 60 days before the Arrival Date, all amounts paid by Guest shall be refunded to Guest;
• If the notice of cancellation is provided 31 - 60 days before the Arrival Date, 50% of the total booking amount amounts paid by Guest shall be refunded to Guest; provided however that at a minimum, Owner shall be entitled to retain the entire Initial Payment; and
• If the notice of cancellation is provided less than 31 days before the Arrival Date, no amount shall be refunded and Owner shall be entitled to retain all amounts tendered.

Rich: Do you send a trigger email to guests right after they book reminding them of your cancellation policy and encouraging them to purchase Travel Insurance with CFAR? Some of us have started doing that with links to the OR insurance as well as other options. It's just one more thing you can pull out to prove the guest knew the policy and you gave them options.

Hey Chuck -- If you go into the guest's reservation in OR and click on the Rules tab, down at the bottom of the screen shows the cancellation policy. I believe it's reflecting the one that was in place at the time the guest booked.

(Chris/Paul - can either of you confirm if that's accurate?)

I know of one owner who took Airbnb guests to small claims court and judge upheld their RA. So it is only rare because most owners (understandably) do not pursue it.

Today's PU post is relevant to this:

https://www.ownerreservations.com/blog/product-updates-cancellation-policies-channel-blackouts-condensed-charges-nonrefundable-airbnb-policy-rtb-on-properties

You can now define custom Cancellation Policies. You can also have Vrbo pick this up in the HA API connection and it will be completely represented as you entered it in OwnerRez end to end. So if you have crazy random policy with 3 different periods/%'s that go back, setting it in OR will also make it show up in Vrbo that way. Lot of other great nuggets in the new Cancellation Policies, but that one applied to what BlueMtn just mentioned.