Cancellation policy by season?

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I've suggested this to Airbnb also but I don't know if I'll ever hear from that black hole..lol. Anyway, I would love to have separate cancellation policies for our high season here in FL and for the off season. In high season I have a strict cancellation policy but I'd like to be more flexible in the off season so I can cater to business travelers. Any plans in the works for us to be able to set parameters for different cancellation policies based on the time of year? 

Our Custom Cancellation Policies integrate with Vrbo, so are limited to what they support - and they don't.  We have asked them for this as well as some other additional customization options, and will implement them as soon as they allow, but, I wouldn't anticipate that happening in the near future.

Our Custom Cancellation Policies integrate with Vrbo, so are limited to what they support - and they don't.  We have asked them for this as well as some other additional customization options, and will implement them as soon as they allow, but, I wouldn't anticipate that happening in the near future.

Thank you Ken, I understand.

Are there any work arounds for this? Have you heard of anyone having two listings? Our summer rentals are weekly for up to 20 people. I don't want guests to lock up a week for a year and then cancel 90 days out. I know I have other options but obviously these affect off season too. Thanks for any suggestions

Well, you can assign different cancellation policies to different properties, so, I suppose you could set up the property twice in OwnerRez with different cancellation policies for each; the summer blocked off in one and the winter in the other.  Seems a bit clunky, and it would cost a bit extra, but I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't work.

We'd also like to be able to adjust the cancellation policy by season... There are high-demand events here and we'd like a longer cancellation time period. Can this happen at least for the direct booking sites?

I tend to think that would create a good deal of confusion, but, I'll leave it here as a suggestion to see what the community thinks of it.

I tend to think that would create a good deal of confusion, but, I'll leave it here as a suggestion to see what the community thinks of it.

Hi, Ken. Interesting... why do you think it would cause confusion? The cancellation rule would be associated with the booking and be noted in the renter agreement. Unless I'm missing something....

Cancellation policy by season would be huge for our home. We have people who want to book a year and a half out and I do not want to have a 60 0r 90 day cancellation policy for them but I do want that for our off season.

The Helpdesk gets a ton of support tickets along the lines of "Why did booking X do Y when I have it configured for Z", when the reason is that booking X is on a particular channel that can't do Z and is therefore configured for Y.  So, while there are a potential infinity of possible flexible options, we tend to lean away from doing them unless there is strong demand and clear need.

Longtime users can of course list dozens of things like this that are already possible, and we certainly could be persuaded to add yet another one.  Again, that's why the voting.  :-)

Even if we could just do it for direct bookings through OwnerRez it would be helpful. I want to do it for the 2024 Solar Eclipse. In general, most places are offering no refunds given that it is a one shot thing. We don't plan on offering channel bookings during that time.

This is one of the most needed features in my opinion.  Our peak season on Cape Cod runs from mid June to mid Sep and requires a one week minimum stay with a 90 day cancellation period.  For the other 9 months of the year we want our cancellation policy to be much more flexible.  Just because VRBO lacks this capability doesn’t mean that Ownerrez shouldn’t enable it for direct bookings or in conjunction with other integrated channels.  

I 100% agree. We book 1 and 2 years out for our summers. We are a large home so we do not book 30 and 60 days out. We book 6 months out. We need a second cancellation policy for those off peak times. It does not work for someone to tie up a week in July and then cancel within 60 days no penalty. On the non peak seasons we need more flexibility for a 3 night rental.

I just got an email with Host updates from VRBO:

Seasonal flexibility:  Tailor your cancellation policies by date range

So it looks like they will offer this. Any possibility of our having this available?

Well, that's cool. Do you know how to set this up on VRBO?

Unfortunately, at present Vrbo does not yet support this function via their API connection, but this is planned to be added in the near future, and we'll be implementing it as soon as it's available.

Any update on this, as it would be HUGE for many of us!

No movement as of yet. We're working on things we have access to: Vrbo Reviews and having surcharges go by category. Those are the next Vrbo things up on the roadmap.

[Another topic was closed as a duplicate of this topic (Seasonal Cancellation Policies)]

Funny they were the ones to suggest we see if we could do it through owner Rez and seemed to imply that if implemented in owner Rez it would work in vrbo.  

Shari