All you need to know about Smart Flex Reservations

We developed Smart Flex reservations (formerly known as Risk-Free Reservations) to remove the hassle of offering free cancellation options. The program will make sure you have the best chance of attracting new guests.

In this article

Understanding Smart Flex Reservations

Now more than ever, travelers need flexibility. A recent study in April 2020 revealed that 73% of customers cited free cancellation as their main reason for booking a property. The Smart Flex Reservations program is designed to attract more guests who prefer this flexibility to your property.

But Smart Flex reservations don’t just benefit potential guests. Our data shows that simply offering Smart Flex reservations helps our accommodation partners achieve up to 3% more conversions. The truth is, most travelers find flexibility attractive, and Smart Flex reservations are a great way to appeal to those travelers.

We understand that an increase in flexibility could lead to an increase in cancellations. However, the Smart Flex Reservations program has been designed to prevent this from happening. Using Booking.com’s unique insights on traveler behavior, we only offer these flexible options to guests who are booking trips that are less likely to be canceled. If a guest does cancel, we’ll immediately look for replacement guests to refill the room. If we can’t find a replacement, we’ll compensate you.

Note: Replacement guests can only be placed if the canceled rooms remain open and bookable. In the case of a Force Majeure event, same as any other impacted reservations, we’re not responsible for these cancellations. 

Please keep the canceled rooms open and bookable. If you’ve set restrictions for these rooms, such as a minimum length of stay, you must remove them to increase the possibility of finding a replacement booking.

How does the Smart Flex Reservations program work?

To make your property more appealing, we’ll upgrade your strictest policy to include free cancellation. If you already offer a free cancellation policy, we’ll extend it.

What we do if you join the Smart Flex Reservations program:

• If you have a non-refundable policy for some or all of your rooms, some of them will be updated on Booking.com to include free cancellations
• If your rooms already include free cancellation options, we’ll upgrade some of your policies to more flexible ones (e.g. if your original policy offers free cancellation within 7 days of check-in, we might upgrade it to free cancellation within 3 days of check-in)
• Our algorithms will offer these flexible options to guests who are less likely to cancel
• If the guests cancel, we’ll look for a replacement
• If we can’t find a replacement, we’ll compensate you for these nights based on your original cancellation policy
• We’ll add additional flexibility where it adds value, unless you already allow guests to cancel for free until their check-in date

Our algorithm determines which rules will apply to which hotels globally on a daily basis. This means you might not receive Smart Flex reservations every day. Rooms with Smart Flex reservations will show up on the Extranet’s reservations page as “Smart Flex” reservations.

For partners using a channel manager or property management system to manage reservations, we’ll update the comments/remarks section when a new Smart Flex reservation is created.

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