Refund a cancellation fee

When to refund

Use this guide when the restaurant has already charged a no-show or late-cancellation fee from a card guarantee and wants to return some or all of that fee to the guest.

This is not the same workflow as paid-commitment no-show settlement for deposit or prepay reservations. Deposit and prepay outcomes use the paid-commitment rules the guest accepted with that reservation.

Refund a charged card-guarantee fee when the restaurant decides the guest should receive money back. Common reasons include staff error, a valid guest explanation, duplicate charging, or a goodwill exception.

Open the charged reservation from Bookings.

The refund action appears only when the reservation has a successful guarantee charge with a remaining refundable amount. If the full charged fee has already been refunded, the Refund fee section is not shown.

Refund the fee

1. Open Bookings.
2. Open the charged reservation.
3. Find the guarantee section in the details sidebar.
4. Review the charge history and confirm the fee should be returned.
5. In Refund fee, read the disclosure: Stripe processing fees from the original charge may not be returned. The guest receives the refund amount you enter.
6. In Cancellation fee refund amount, enter the amount to return.
7. Select Refund.
8. In Refund cancellation fee?, confirm with Refund {amount} or choose Cancel.
9. Review Refund attempts after the action completes.

Enter only the amount the restaurant wants returned. The refund amount must be greater than zero and no more than the remaining charged fee. Partial refunds are allowed; they leave the remaining charged amount in place.

When part of the fee remains, the guarantee status becomes PARTIALLY_REFUNDED. When the full charged fee has been refunded, it becomes REFUNDED.

What guests receive

The guest receives the refund amount sent to the original payment method. Stripe processing fees from the original charge may not be returned to the restaurant.

This refund returns money from the original card-guarantee charge. It does not create venue credit and it does not change deposit or prepay paid-commitment outcomes.

Review refund history

The panel records refund attempts so the team can see the status, amount, refund ID when present, and failure message when present.

After a successful refund, the panel shows Cancellation fee refunded. If the refund fails, the panel shows Failed to refund cancellation fee and records the failed attempt for review.