Cancellation and refunds: how notice sets what comes back

A cancellation never puts a guest under a claim for damages. What may be kept is the share of the fee already earned at the moment the message arrives, and the notice given is the only thing that sets it. With more than twenty-four hours still to run, the whole deposit comes back. Inside the final twenty-four hours, while she has not yet set out, half of the deposit is kept and half is returned. Once she has set off towards you, none of it comes back.

Two things soften the last step. If the hour you released is taken by another client, the deposit is repaid in full. If you can show that the loss was smaller than the part kept, only that smaller amount is kept.

For a regular on a two hour booking, with half the fee sent ahead, that reads as follows. A roster change reported two days early brings back the whole of that half. Reported on the morning of the booking, it brings back half of the deposit, which is a quarter of the fee. Reported while she is already on the road out to Schiphol-Rijk, it brings back nothing, unless the evening is re-let. Moving rather than cancelling is often gentler, as the free move explains. Force majeure turns a deposit into credit, and if the house cannot perform, the deposit is returned in full or kept as credit, whichever you prefer. The full text is on the cancellation policy.