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Below, learn how to handle your guests' requests for early reservation departures. In this article you'll learn how to open a spot on your grid, update pricing after an early departure, and refund or keep any overpaid money.
Opening Up A Site On The Grid
When a guest requires an early departure date, the site they were occupying can be booked by another guest after it becomes available on the Reservation Grid.
The reservation check-out date must be edited in order for the spot to become available on the grid. To learn how to Edit a reservation and change the check-out date, [WATCH HERE].
Tip: Changing a Reservation to Checked-out status will not free up a Site on the Reservation Grid. The check-out date must be edited.
Options For Overpaid Money
When a guest has paid for a reservation and then changes the reservation check-out date, in most cases the edits will change the cost of the reservation. This cost change typically results in an overpayment on the reservation due to the decrease in the invoice total. When this happens you have the following options for the overpayment:
- Refund your guest
- Retain the money in Camp or User Credit to be used for a future stay
- Retain the money as a cancellation fee
- Manually increase the rates on the invoice to keep the money on the reservation
Regardless of the option you choose, edits to the reservation invoice will be necessary. Before making invoice edits, have the option you'd like to choose in mind.
Refunding or Retaining The Money For A Future Stay
Refund your guest: To refund money to your guest, follow the standard refunding procedures. To learn more about refunds, watch [this video] on our support site.
Retain the money in Camp or User Credit for a future stay: To retain the money for a future stay, make a refund to your preferred method of either User or Camp Credit. If the money is not refunded and is left on the reservation, the system will automatically move it to User Credit the next day.
Manually Adding an Early Departure Fee
To retain the money as an early departure or cancellation fee, you must have a Miscellaneous Charge setup to add to the invoice. Learn how to create Miscellaneous Charges [HERE].
To manually add a cancellation fee to an invoice, navigate to the reservation's Billing tab, scroll down to Invoice Details and click the green + Add New Charge button.
Enter the amount of the early departure fee and click save. The fee can be entered as any amount you choose, including the exact amount of the overpayment.
The clip below shows these steps.
Tip: Editing a reservation's check-out date does not automatically make a cancellation fee apply. Any fees must be manually added to the invoice.
Manually Increasing Invoice Pricing
To manually increase the cost of the Site nights, navigate to the reservation's Billing tab, scroll down to Invoice Details and click the three green dots next to the price of the Site nights.
Here you can change the price to what it was before the reservation check-out date was changed.
The clip below shows a reservation that had a $100 decrease after the check-out date was changed. The cost of the new number of nights was then increased by $100 to get the reservation back to its original price.
Tip: Editing the cost of the Site nights will not make the invoice explicitly show that the money is being retained as a fee.