strickerj

I booked a VRBO cabin in Alaska through Expedia a couple months ago for next spring, and given the road washout in Denali along with the ongoing border restrictions (we'll be arriving via a cruise from Vancouver), we've decided to cancel the trip. I canceled the booking through that infernal Expedia Virtual Agent thing, and it said the "Cancellation request has been sent." Looking at VRBO, I see their instructions for canceling include the following:

" ...
5. Review the property's cancellation policy.
6. Select Cancel booking.
​​​7. If Cancel booking isn't available, select Request cancellation."

My booking's cancellation policy is that I can cancel for a full refund until May 8 (2022). So why would "Cancel booking" not have been an option, and I apparently instead have to "request cancellation" and have the host approve it? (It's been 4 days with no response, so I sent a follow up a few hours ago.) What if the host doesn't approve the cancellation, even though I'm well within the full refund window? Am I just SOL?

strickerj

Just to update, the host did cancel my reservation (he had been traveling without internet access), but it still seems strange that you need their approval to cancel a reservation that's within the free cancellation period. Is that unique to VRBO or is AirBnB like that too?

ihispanic

My guess is that you booking through Expedia complicated things (from a cancellation perspective). FWIW, I've never seen approval required when canceling via Airbnb.

strickerj

I was wondering if that might be it. Still, I thought it'd be seamless since it says VRBO is an Expedia subsidiary.

ihispanic

Yeah, you'd think. It looks like Expedia bought VRBO in 2015, so they've had time to do that integration. But, there probably isn't a very high ROI to be realized by optimizing and perfecting the cancellation process.

jackal

If the host is a software-integrated host, the host actually has complete control of the booking and Vrbo actually can't directly process the cancellation, so they send a cancellation request to the host that the host has to handle in his/her PMS (property management system), from which the refund is then initiated.

Was the full charge on your card for the booking from Expedia/Vrbo, or was a small amount (the guest service fee) from Vrbo and the balance charged by the host directly? If the latter, then that's the biggest tell that you're dealing with a software-connected host. (If not, then I'd chalk it up to the aforementioned Expedia-Vrbo wonkiness.)

It'd be a little odd for a small-time single-cabin owner in rural Alaska to be a software-integrated host, but anything is possible (the software I use is pretty affordable for small-time hosts). The chances of it being a software-integrated host go up if the owner has multiple properties, though, and/or lists the property on multiple sites. Not sure what the situation is in your case.

strickerj

Thanks for that detailed explanation! I checked, and only the fee was charged by VRBO; the rest was the property owner's LLC. (It appears to be a lodge with about a half dozen or so cabins.) So if the property owner doesn't process the cancellation even though the booking was cancelable/refundable, what would VRBO do?

jackal

Yep, so a software-connected host, then.

Interesting question. It really shouldn't ever come up with a professionally-run business, but if the owner refused to approve the cancellation even though you have it in writing that you're outside the refundable window, you should be reasonably well-protected. A complaint with Vrbo would probably be the first step, and while they can't force the refund through (since they aren't in control of the funds), they can threaten various actions against the host (revoking Premier Host status, suspending the listing, and perhaps even billing the host for the stay and then issuing you a manual refund check), and if all else fails, a credit card dispute should be easy to win given the published cancellation policy.