Handling cancellation fees and commission

We charge commission on confirmed stays, non-refundable and partially refundable bookings, regardless of whether the guest stayed at your property or not. But there are some situations when you don’t need to pay commission. We’ve also built a tool to help you automatically accept free cancellation requests that guests make within a timeframe of your choice.

What’s in this article

Commission and cancelled bookings

We charge commission on confirmed stays, regardless of whether the guest stayed at your property or not.

You also pay commission when:

• You charge guests for non-refundable or partially refundable no-shows or cancellations
• You charge guests who cancel after the free cancellation period has ended

You don’t have to pay commission when:

• If you manage the payment yourself and you choose to waive the cancellation fee for non-refundable or partially refundable bookings by using the Waive cancellation fee button on the Reservation page in the extranet.
• You have set up policies for modification and cancellation exceptions which would not require a payment collection.
• A guest doesn’t arrive for their booking, you choose to waive the fee and you mark the guest as a no-show either in the extranet or on the Pulse app
• You mark a credit card as invalid because you couldn’t charge the guest

The Waive cancellation fee button is only visible if you are not on payment services offered by Booking.com and if a guest has cancelled a reservation which was non refundable or partially refundable. You can use this feature if you did not charge the cancellation fees and the invoice was not yet created. 

If you're on Payments by Booking.com, ensure that your cancellation policies are up to date.

How the Cancellation Fee Exceptions tool works

Even if a guest has booked a non-refundable rate, they can ask to cancel this free of charge. Our research shows that guests are most likely to cancel accidental bookings within 24 hours. In fact, 25% of all cancellation requests are made within this period.

It’s always your choice whether you accept these requests, but you can use the Cancellation Fee Exceptions tool to automate the process.

The tool allows you to automatically allow free cancellation if the guest requests it during a certain period, such as within 24 hours of making the reservation. When you use the Cancellation Fee Exception tool, your calendar will update immediately and the cancelled rooms or units will become available for bookings again straight away.

If you haven’t set up this tool, or if a guest asks us to cancel their reservation after your chosen time period has expired, we’ll contact you to see if you agree to waive the fee.

Even though we always explain the booking conditions to guests, waiving fees is a friendly gesture that may help prevent complaints and encourage satisfied guests to book with you again in the future. Of course, it’s always completely up to you whether you use the Cancellation Fee Exceptions tool and waive cancellation fees.

How to use the Cancellation Fee Exceptions tool

1. Log in to the extranet
2. Click on Property and then click on Policies
3. Under Cancellations and prepayment policies, click on Edit under the policy you want to make an exception to
4. Under Is there a period when the guest can cancel free of charge?, tick Yes
5. Specify the conditions that you want to set for the exception
6. Click on Save

To find out more about when you can cancel a reservation, take a look at this article.

Go to extranet