Canceling a reservation

Cancel a confirmed reservation when necessary—for example, due to maintenance issues, overbooking, or other unforeseen circumstances.

Both guests and hosts can cancel reservations.

When you cancel a reservation, the dates become available on all booking channels. Any associated automated messages are automatically canceled.

Learn about all available reservation changes and updates you can make.

Limitations

• To sync a cancellation between Guesty and the booking channel, the listing must have a “Connected” status in the booking channel’s integration page in Guesty.
• For disconnected listings, cancel the reservation in both Guesty and the booking channel separately. For Airbnb disconnected listings, follow the specific steps below.
• You can't delete reservations, and canceled reservations can't be restored or edited. If needed, create the reservation again manually.

Understand Guesty's auto-decline feature

Use Guesty's auto-decline feature to protect your response rate, which helps maintain your host status (for example, Airbnb’s Superhost or Vrbo’s Premium Host).

Request to Book reservations receive a "Reserved" status and must be approved or declined within 24 hours. If no action is taken, Guesty automatically declines the reservation, changes its status to "Expired," and the guest gets notified.

Vrbo calls Request to Book reservations "Quote and Hold." You must approve or decline these within 42 hours.

Learn more about reservation statuses.

Guest-initiated cancellations 

Guests can cancel their reservation at any time—even after check-in, as long as the check-out date is in the future. When a guest cancels, here’s what happens:

• Automatic sync: The cancellation syncs to Guesty, usually within one to 24 hours.
• Notification sent: You receive a cancellation notification in your Guesty Inbox.
• Reservation status change: The reservation status in Guesty changes from "Reserved" to "Closed."
• Refund processing: Process any refunds according to your cancellation policy.
• Ranking metrics: Guest-initiated cancellations don't impact your search ranking on the booking channel.

Host-initiated cancellations

When you, as the host, cancel a reservation, expect the following:

• Recorded in channel: A manual cancellation in Guesty is recorded as "canceled by host" in the booking channel. For Booking.com, see more below.
• Affect on host status: A host-initiated cancellation may negatively impact your status on the booking channel.
• Cancellation rate: This cancellation will affect your cancellation rate.
• Listing suspension: Some booking channels suspend listings with high cancellation rates.

Group cancellations 

When you create a group reservation, Guesty generates multiple sub-reservations as separate events in the calendar. Cancel sub-reservations one by one.

Refunds and charges

Fees manually added to a reservation remain as non-canceled invoice items if the reservation is canceled. You can add a guest’s cancellation fee to the invoice according to your cancellation policy or rate plan. You must manually issue refunds—they aren't processed automatically. If needed, you can waive a guest’s cancellation fee.

If a Request to Book or inquiry isn't approved, neither you nor the guest is charged. However, you may be charged a cancellation fee by the channel and/or by Guesty.

If the listing has an active rate plan(s) and you mark a reservation as canceled by the guest, Guesty automatically calculates and shows the cancellation fee in the invoice. View it in the "Guest invoice" section of the "Balance due / Payout" page.

Accounting users: When a reservation is canceled, reservation-related charges or expenses are canceled automatically. Payment-related or recurring/periodic charges and expenses aren't affected. Learn how canceled reservations affect the accounting folio and owner statements.

Which reservations can I cancel?

You can only cancel confirmed reservations. If a guest uses an invalid payment method, the reservation is not canceled automatically. Set a notification for failed payments, then charge the guest again, collect a new payment method, or manually cancel the reservation.

Where should I cancel a reservation?

Check the reservation's source and take action based on the channel. When you cancel via the channel, Guesty usually syncs the status update unless otherwise specified. Follow the instructions below to cancel the reservation in Guesty.

Cancel a reservation in Guesty

You can cancel a reservation in Guesty from three places:

• The reservation page
• The Multi-Calendar
• The Inbox widget

Airbnb: Cancel a disconnected listing's reservation

If a Guesty listing isn't connected to Airbnb, you can cancel related reservations directly in Guesty from the Multi-calendar and the reservation page.

For disconnected listings, you can cancel you'll see a banner on the reservation page and widget:

You can cancel a reservation in Guesty from two places:

• The reservation page
• The Multi-Calendar