Help Centre

Holding Money from Cancelled Bookings

Updated on

If a guest requests the cancellation of their booking, but wishes to put the amount already paid towards a future booking, there are a number of options how to process this money.
The dates for the new booking can be known, but don't have to be.

If the guests have already made a new booking, and simply need to have the previously paid money transferred to the new booking, this can also been done.

need the retained payment applied to that new booking, you can also do  this for them.

How to retain money from a cancelled booking and allow the guest to put it towards a future stay using a voucher

If you would like to cancel a booking, but retain what the guest has already paid, in order to put the money towards a future stay, you can do so using Voucher Codes:

1. Cancel the guest booking, in order to make the dates available again. This will not cancel the record of what they have already paid. 

2. Generate a voucher code to the value of the amount paid, or whatever you would like to offer them against a future booking. Make sure that you tick 'expire after one booking' when setting this up. Instructions to generate voucher codes can be found here.

3. Email the voucher code to the guest, who can then use it to book directly through your website and redeem the amount they previously paid against a new booking, up to the date that you have set the voucher to expire. 

You can also generate and send a voucher within a booking, which creates a record in the booking's History & Correspondence.

Note- In order to assist clients manage their bookings during this time,  LITE users now have the facility to generate vouchers.  We will add the function to generate vouchers for three months.  After that time they will still be able to view and use vouchers that have been generated. 

If You wish to free-up the booked dates for the moment, but the guest intends to re-book shortly, you can also move the booked dates to any span of free dates in the past, then change the dates again when the guest knows when they want to re-book, and contacts you directly to do so. This retains all the original details and payments on the existing booking. This article explains how to amend the dates on a booking.

How to generate a Voucher Code in a booking
How do I transfer a payment from one Booking to another?

There are two ways to do this:

1. If the guest is the same, you can just change the dates of the booking, instructions for doing so are to be found here. This will change the dates of the booking to new dates, but preserve the existing guest information, correspondence history and any payments already received. 

2. If you do wish to create a new booking, but record the details of a payment made in a previous booking in it, you should use the 'Custom Payments' line in the customer payments section of the booking. We would recommend entering the booking number for which payment was received in the left hand box. 

When you have entered the required information, click 'Save' on the right.  This records in the new booking, a payment that was received in a previous booking.

How to use an Option/Extra as a cancellation fee that you wish to split between Agency and Owner (AGENCY ONLY)

This method of processing a cancellation is useful when: 

- The guest has made a part payment
- The guest is not being refunded
- The owner hasn't been paid
- Commission has been taken from the paid deposit and pay the balance to the owner

When to use the cancellation Fee (AGENCY ONLY)

This method of processing a cancellation is useful when: 

- When the guest is not being refunded
- When the owner is not being paid

What to do if you need to claim funds back from the owner for cancelled bookings where the owner has already been paid. (AGENCY ONLY)
Previous Article How do I Cancel a booking and view previously Cancelled Bookings?
Next Article How do I create my booking sources?