Cancellation Policies

Hotels typically override/replace a default cancellation policy with a more restrictive one over key/compression dates where demand is higher than normal. For example, a retail rate HTRET may be connected to a 24-hour cancellation policy with a 1-night penalty. This policy is then overridden over the New Year weekend between the check-in dates of Dec 29th and Jan 1st to make the rateplan non-refundable.

If you have a search/request for a reservation where different stay dates are subject to different policies then, the innermost policy will apply to the entire reservation.

Keywords

Cancellation Policy - The terms (timeframes and penalty amounts) related to how a reservation gets invoiced, in the event of a cancellation or no-show.

Staggered Policy - Defined as a Cancellation Policy with multiple windows leading to the check-in date that will result in different penalty amounts if canceled in those windows.

No-show Policy - The policy window that overlaps the check-in date is the applicable no-show policy as well unless otherwise specified.

Example 1

"cancellationPolicies": [
    {
        "startWindowTime": "2022-05-30 16:00:00",
        "endWindowTime": "2022-06-01 16:00:00",
        "cancellationCharge": 312.00,
        "currency": "USD",
        "timeZone": "America/New_York",
        "timeZoneUTC": "-05:00"
    }
]

Example 2

"cancellationPolicies": [
    {
        "startWindowTime": "2023-01-14 16:00:00",
        "endWindowTime": "2023-01-16 16:00:00",
        "cancellationCharge": 442.40,
        "currency": "USD",
        "timeZone": "America/New_York",
        "timeZoneUTC": "-05:00"
    },
    {
        "startWindowTime": "2023-01-12 16:00:00",
        "endWindowTime": "2023-01-14 16:00:00",
        "cancellationCharge": 221.20,
        "currency": "USD",
        "timeZone": "America/New_York",
        "timeZoneUTC": "-05:00"
    },
    {
        "startWindowTime": "2023-01-10 16:00:00",
        "endWindowTime": "2023-01-12 16:00:00",
        "cancellationCharge": 110.60,
        "currency": "USD",
        "timeZone": "America/New_York",
        "timeZoneUTC": "-05:00"
    }
]

Following are the nodes that are sent out in the post-booking confirmation step that provide more information about the cancellation policies:

Field Name	Description
cancellationCharge	This provides the penalty/cancellation amount payable in case of cancellation applicable for that window.
startWindowTime	This is the time from which this particular cancellation policy window is applicable.
endWindowTime	This is the deadline until which this particular cancellation policy window is applicable.
currency	The currency in which the reservation was made, and which will be applied to the cancellation charges.
timezone	The timezone of the property.
timeZoneUTC	The timezone of the property in the UTC format.

The timezone specified here is always the hotel’s timezone.

The cancellationCharge node is provided by Hotel Trader in the Search, Quote, and Book responses and must be passed along to the clients in the corresponding steps.

Cancellation Policies

Keywords

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