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Dealing with No Shows

Front Desk Operations

Aidan Haines started this discussion 13 years 4 months ago

Hello all!

Just wanting some advice on how best to deal with no shows. I think I have a fairly standard policy in that I require 48 hours notice for cancellation. In the event of a total no-show on a reservation I charge for the first night. Thankfully, most people are understanding. They know they have reserved a bed or a room that many other people may have wanted (who we had to turn away) and that they will have to bite the bullet so to speak, if something went wrong (ie: visa not granted, flight cancelled etc.). But some people put up a fight and think they shouldn't be charged for a bed they didn't sleep in. So I recently had a guy from India threaten to contact his credit card company if we didn't reverse the transaction for his no-show stay. As he wasn't here and unavailable to sign the slip when he rang his CC through, I'm thinking he will get away with it. That's happened in the past. What do I do? It's really not worth my time and effort to deal with lengthy disputes with visa just to get a payment of 50 or so odd bucks to go through.

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rmzhao82

13 years

Maybe you can make exceptions if someone is extremely hostile about getting charged (because, like you said, it's not worth the headache of dealing with all the hassle that results). I might also make an exception if they take the time to call the day before or even early on the day of their booking and apologize or explain their cancellation.

I do think it is a fair practice to be charged in the case of a no-show. It's less common in certain countries (like where I run a hostel, in China) because most hostels and guest houses only deal in cash and don't accept credit cards. Hostelworld and other booking sites all, to my knowledge, have the policy of charging the first night's stay in the case of cancelations (less than 24 hours before check-in). However, hostelworld doesn't enforce the charge--it's up to the hostel itself to do it.

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Scotch Argus

13 years

Personally if it's not a huge amount of money in my opinion I'd probably refund the guy, even if he's in the right. It's quite possible if he tries to do a chargeback the bank may side with him anyway. They will often side against the business on the side of the consumer, even if the business is in the right. We don't get CV2 numbers on hostelworld, but still charge for no shows. According to our bank this is legal, and we write "no show" in the signature area. We haven't been challenged yet.

The other thing I think is that customers often feel that it's not their fault if their bus was cancelled, their ticket lost or whatever. While it's unfair for the business to bear the brunt of their bad fortune, they may not understand that. Especially in the internet age an aggrieved customer can post in lots of places and damage a businesses reputation, even if it is unfair. I have certainly seen a case nearby where a hostel wouldn't refund a guy who had paid in advance but left after one for the last 3 nights. If they'd just refunded him they would have saved a lot of negative publicity and lost very little money.

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rjd1983

13 years

I wonder if these people complain if they no-show on their flights?? The airlines would just say "Sorry mate, I don't care if you can't make your flight, you still have to pay for it". Why should it be any different for a hostel, or any other service where you have reserved a place?

Yes, it's annoying that you can't get a refund, but I don't go threatening these businesses with a petty chargeback...

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Scotch Argus

13 years

I think the difference is that they have paid in advance for a flight, while they are being charged in retrospect for their no-show, if full payment hasn't been taken in advance. This puts people in a different mindset. A lot of them would complain if they couldn't get a refund from the airline - just look at the column inches devoted to people trying to get refunds during the volcanic ash last year.

I would totally advise charging for no-shows, my only point is that getting in a huge - even legal - conflict with someone over a small amount of money can be counter-productive. I think Ryanair are a good example - although people (including me) will still fly with them as they are cheap, they have created a huge amount of ill-will for themselves via their rigid no-refunds charge for anything policies. To the point that at the same or similar price as another airline, most people I know would never choose them.

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Art Hostel Rio

13 years

I think the difference is that they have paid in advance for a flight, while they are being charged in retrospect for their no-show, if full payment hasn't been taken in advance. This puts people in a different mindset. A lot of them would complain if they couldn't get a refund from the airline - just look at the column inches devoted to people trying to get refunds during the volcanic ash last year.

I would totally advise charging for no-shows, my only point is that getting in a huge - even legal - conflict with someone over a small amount of money can be counter-productive. I think Ryanair are a good example - although people (including me) will still fly with them as they are cheap, they have created a huge amount of ill-will for themselves via their rigid no-refunds charge for anything policies. To the point that at the same or similar price as another airline, most people I know would never choose them.

We charge just the first night's value, which I think is fair - charging for any more nights is morally dubious particularly if then manage to sell the beds to other guests, you are effectively getting paid twice over for the same beds.

When we do direct bookings, we charge the full value of the first night as a non-refundable deposit, this tends to work well; HW gives us more problems on no-shows actually cos here in Brazil there is no way to charge a credit card without the CVV :mad:

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Scotch Argus

13 years

We charge just the first night's value, which I think is fair - charging for any more nights is morally dubious particularly if then manage to sell the beds to other guests, you are effectively getting paid twice over for the same beds.

When we do direct bookings, we charge the full value of the first night as a non-refundable deposit, this tends to work well; HW gives us more problems on no-shows actually cos here in Brazil there is no way to charge a credit card without the CVV :mad:

I think charging in full for the first night is an excellent idea - then you already have the money rather than having to charge after the event. I was speaking to someone who had a very large group booking cancel and they were going through legal action to keep the money they had taken. The group wanted their money back. According to the law they had to keep records of all the beds that had remained unsold over the nights the group would have been in and could charge them for those - if the beds we sold however they couldn't charge the group for them. I imagine these rules would vary from country to country.

I believe that according to the Visa card / mastercard rules we are only allowed to charge for one night for a no show, even if they had booked for 4. Obviously this is no good if the bank won't let you take a customer not present payment without the CVV however.

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