Cancellation Policies

Haven cancellation policies are built from stacked refund tiers — an ordered list of rules you control, instead of a single fixed preset. This lets you match anything from a simple "full refund up to 7 days out" to a layered Airbnb- or Hospitable-style policy with mid-stay protection.

How refund tiers work

Each tier is one rule: a refund percentage, the window it applies to, and a few optional settings. When a guest cancels, Haven walks your tiers from the most generous (earliest) to the least and pays out the first tier that matches how far ahead of check-in the cancellation happened. If no tier matches, the booking is non-refundable (after the grace period).

You read a policy as a set of windows. For example, two tiers — 100% if cancelled 14+ days before check-in and 50% if cancelled 7+ days before check-in — read as:

• 100% refund if cancelled 14 days or more before check-in
• 50% refund if cancelled 7–14 days before check-in
• No refund if cancelled less than 7 days before check-in

The "No refund" window at the bottom is implicit — it covers any time closer than your lowest tier.

The lead-time gate (optional)

Any tier can require that the booking was made at least N days before check-in for that tier to apply. This is how you say "100% refund — but only if the guest booked at least 7 days in advance," so a last-minute booker doesn't get your most generous tier. Leave it empty for the tier to always apply.

Mid-stay cancellations (refund of unspent nights)

For longer stays you can add a tier that also applies once the stay has started. Instead of a percentage of the whole booking, a mid-stay tier refunds a percentage of the unspent nights — the nights the guest has not yet used — and can charge a penalty of one or more nights first.

This matches the Airbnb-style long-stay rule: "Guests who cancel within 5 days of check-in or during their trip are charged 1 extra night and refunded 50% of the unspent nights."

How a mid-stay refund is calculated:

1. Nights already started (on or before the cancellation date) are fully charged — they're considered used.
2. The penalty nights are taken from the front of the remaining nights and charged in full.
3. The remaining (unspent) nights are refunded at the tier's percentage.

Taxes on mid-stay refunds: Haven refunds the tax that was collected on the nightly portion being refunded, drawn from the booking's frozen tax breakdown. Tax on the cleaning fee and other one-time fees is not refunded mid-stay, because those are treated as already consumed once the stay begins.

A mid-stay tier is always the last tier in your policy (the lowest "days before check-in"), since it covers the tail end and the in-stay period.

Templates

You don't have to build tiers from scratch. The Start from a template… menu in the editor seeds common shapes you can then fine-tune:

• Flexible — 100% refund 7+ days out
• Moderate — 100% refund 7+ days out, 50% up to 1 day before
• Strict — 50% refund 14+ days out
• Super strict — non-refundable
• Layered — 100% 14+ days, 50% 7–14 days, none inside 7 days
• Firm + mid-stay — 100% 30+ days, then 50% of unspent nights (charging 1 night) within 5 days of check-in or during the stay

Templates only seed the tiers — once you edit them, your tiers are the source of truth, and Haven shows a derived label (Flexible, Moderate, Strict, Super strict, or Custom) automatically.

Help me decide

Not sure where to land? Use Help me decide in the Cancellation policy section to open the cancellation coach. Answer a few questions about your market, how far ahead guests book, and your refund comfort, and it recommends a full tier list (including a mid-stay tier when it makes sense) that you can apply with one click.

24-Hour Cancellation Grace Period

All bookings on Haven include a 24-hour cancellation grace period. This is a platform-enforced policy that applies to every booking, regardless of the host's chosen cancellation policy.

• What it means: Guests can cancel any confirmed booking within 24 hours of making the reservation and receive a refund minus the non-refundable processing fee.
• When it applies: The 24-hour window starts from the moment the booking is created, not from check-in.
• After 24 hours: Once the grace period expires, the host's chosen cancellation policy takes effect.
• For hosts: This policy is automatic and cannot be changed. It is designed to give guests confidence when booking and is standard practice across the vacation rental industry.

Example: A guest books a property at 2:00 PM on Monday. They have until 2:00 PM on Tuesday to cancel and receive their refund (minus the processing fee). After that, the host's cancellation policy (Flexible, Moderate, Strict, or Super Strict) determines the refund amount.

Processing Fee on Refunds

When a payment is processed, Stripe (our payment processor) charges a non-refundable processing fee of 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. This fee is not returned when a refund is issued.

How It Works

• Guest-initiated cancellations: The processing fee is deducted from the guest's refund amount. This ensures the host is not charged for a fee that cannot be recovered.
• Host-initiated cancellations: The guest receives a full refund. The host absorbs the processing fee since they initiated the cancellation.

Examples

Booking Amount	Processing Fee	Guest Refund (100% policy)
$500	$14.80	$485.20
$1,000	$29.30	$970.70
$2,000	$58.30	$1,941.70

Why This Matters

• For guests: Your refund will be slightly less than the full amount you paid due to the non-refundable processing fee. This is standard across the industry.
• For hosts: You will not be charged for the Stripe processing fee on guest-initiated cancellations. The fee is retained from the guest's refund.

Host-initiated cancellations

When you cancel a booking (rather than the guest), the guest always receives a full refund and you absorb the processing fee. The refund tiers above only govern guest-initiated cancellations after the grace period.

Setting Your Cancellation Policy

1. Open the Cancellation policy section — on your property's Edit Listing page.
2. Start from a template (optional) — pick a shape close to what you want from the Start from a template… menu.
3. Add or edit tiers — for each tier set the refund percentage and the "days before check-in" window. Use Add rule for more tiers.
4. Add mid-stay protection (optional) — tick "Applies once the stay is underway" on your last tier to switch it to refunding unspent nights, and set how many nights to charge as a penalty.
5. Set a lead-time gate (optional) — require the booking to have been made N days in advance for a tier to apply.
6. Review the preview — the "How guests will see this" box shows the exact window wording guests read. Changes save automatically.

Snapshots: changing your policy never affects existing bookings

Your tiers are frozen onto each booking at the time it's confirmed. Editing your policy later only affects future bookings — every existing reservation keeps the exact policy it was booked under, so a guest's refund is always calculated from the terms they agreed to.

A note on synced (PMS) listings

If your listing is synced from a connected channel manager, your cancellation policy is imported from that partner and the field stays locked to keep the two in sync — the tiers you see are derived from the synced policy. To edit the tiers in Haven, use Edit in Haven on the field to unlock it and set your own — see the in-app message on that section for details.

Changing Booking Details

Haven does not support modifying existing bookings. If a guest needs to change their reservation (dates, number of guests, etc.), they must:

1. Cancel the existing booking - Cancel the current reservation
2. Create a new booking - Book again with the desired dates or details
3. Refund processed - Original booking refunded according to your cancellation policy
4. New booking confirmed - New reservation is created with updated details

Important: Guests cannot modify reservations. They must cancel and rebook to change any booking details. This ensures clear pricing and avoids confusion about refunds and charges for changed bookings.

Best Practices

1. Be clear - Make sure guests understand your policy
2. Consider your market - More flexible policies can attract more bookings
3. Protect yourself - Ensure policies protect against last-minute cancellations
4. Be reasonable - Balance protection with guest-friendly policies

Policy Considerations

When to Use Flexible

• High competition area
• Want to maximize bookings
• Can easily rebook canceled dates

When to Use Moderate

• Standard approach
• Balanced protection
• Works for most situations

When to Use Strict

• High-demand periods
• Difficult to rebook
• Seasonal properties

Related Articles

• Property Setup Overview
• Managing Bookings