Sometimes you may want to refund a guest without canceling their reservation. Most commonly this happens if the guest decides to cancel their stay after checking in, since guests can't cancel a reservation themselves after check-in and you canceling the reservation for them could negatively affect your metrics.

You may also want to refund a guest without canceling as compensation for an issue like broken air conditioning in the rental or a natural disaster during the stay.

Guests can still leave reviews after such a refund since the reservation officially stays active.

Issue a refund

From your inbox, you can issue a refund for any amount, as long as it’s not more than what the guest has already paid (excluding tax and fees).

Log in to your account.
If you have more than one listing, select the property.
Select Inbox.
Find the reservation. You can select Filters to filter your conversations or enter the guest's name or reservation ID (Res ID) into the search bar.
Select the guest's name.
Under Payment schedule, select Send a refund.
In Custom amount, enter the refund amount.
Select Continue.
Select Send refund.

If you don't have the option to send a refund to your account, select Contact Us at the bottom of this page for help.

After a refund

We’ll send you and the guest an email with refund details. The payment schedule section will update to show the payment status as refunded or partially refunded. Refunds can take five to seven business days to appear in the guest's account.

Guest’s original payment account is closed

If a guest no longer has the original form of payment, you should still attempt to refund through your dashboard. The guest's financial institution may still be able to credit them or provide a check through their own reconciliation process.

Processing fees

While there are processing fees to collect payments, there are no fees to refund a payment.
- Example: You issue a refund of $500. Of the $500 your guest paid, you received $485 due to a 3% processing fee. We will only take $485 from your account and will return the 3% processing fee directly to the guest, so they receive the full $500.
Note for integrated property managers: Refund your guest through your software or payment processor. Contact your software provider or payment processor support for any questions regarding refunding or modifying payments for guests.