refund advice

[Marie]

Hi All

I've just received a cancellation for a booking due to start at the end of January.  Realistically I don't expect to re-let at this short notice during the winter, but I then have the issue of refunding the rental money.  How much is reasonable to refund at this stage?  Our terms state that the deposit is non-refundable, and we will only refund the balance of late cancellations if we manage to re-let, but I don't rate my chances of doing that in low season.  Any advice???

 

Marie

[Miki]

Do exactly what it says in your cancellation clause.

That way, the client has been forewarned and cannot expect any other treatment. If someone cancels within a month (6 weeks is pretty normal) of the date we do not refund any monies, unless the week can be relet, then we charge them for administration costs. Many will keep the deposit whatever happens anyway.

 

[GRT17]

I agree with Miki 100%

You have stated the cancellation terms quite clearly when the booking was made.

Just think of yourself as large tour operator, would they give a refund at short notice? I think not.

all the best

Gill

[Owens88]

The only time this has happened to us (touch wood or whatever will bring good luck) was when the booking family had a bereavement. It was a shoulder season booking and the family re-booked with another shoulder season booking when we had a vacancy. We suffered some extra costs (their cancellation was absolutely last minute and the cleaner had even made the beds) but we thought a sympathetic approach was best.

 

On the other hand we had a French family last year who wanted a peak season week and refused to pay a deposit, as they were not in the practice of doing so. In fact they wanted to pay NO money at all until they turned up and got the key.

I explained my problem with that idea. I even offered to route their booking through a credit card handler should they be wary of handing over dosh to me. In the end we agreed to void the reservation - but they still couldn't understand what my fears were. 

 

If your cancellation has no mitigating factors then you have no reason to mitigate their costs yourself. You might make a gesture and return something to recognise the costs you won't have (energy ?), and if you re-sell it then you can be a bit more generous. Otherwise stick to your printed terms.

By the way we always advise renters to take out insurance (another reason I offered to take a credit card booking from the French family).

[Paolo]

Hi Marie,

The posts above are absolutely right - you can keep the money with good conscience. However...in certain circumstances I would give them the money back.

If I knew for sure that I had not turned anyone else away for that week (i.e. it wasn't marked as booked on an availability calendar), and I was confident they were cancelling for a good reason (bereavement rather than they found something better), I'd figure - they haven't done anything wrong, and I haven't lost out on anything, so why shouldn't they get their money back?

You may get them back another time because you've made them happy, or they may recommend you to friends because you have done them a good turn.

Just thought I'd give you an alternative view to muddy the waters!

Paolo

[Marie]

Thank you all so much for the good advice. 

Having left the original message, I went to check my bank records to see what amount we were dealing with, only to discover that the prospective tenants had never paid the balance, which was due a month ago!  I am now seriously p****d off, as you can imagine, - mainly with myself for not remembering to check that the money had been paid, which would have given my the chance to follow it up and release the dates if necessary, but also with them, as it would appear that there was a problem back at the end of November, but they only chose to let us know today!  Their excuse was that they had tried to contact us over Christmas but their emails had been returned - a valid excuse you might say, but being married to a computer consultant, as I am, means he can check all email traffic on his webserver and instantly see that nothing has even reached us from them, let alone been returned. (This is without mentioning the fact that our phone number is on the website, and we have received several other emails by the same route without problem.)  Needless to say, we will not be refunding the deposit, and I shall be leaving myself plenty of reminders to check that payment has arrived in future!

I shall go and get myself a large drink now while we compose a dignified response explaining that we shall not be refunding them any money, and suggesting that they might have a problem with their internet provider, as we certainly don't have one with ours!

Thank you again for your wisdom, I promise I shall learn from this particular episode!

 

Marie