Why are we even discussing this? WHY would you give a refund (or voucher) to guests who either no-show or cancel at the last minute? You can't run a business giving away rooms! Establish you policies, publish them on your website, on the confirmation, make them acknowledge they've read it on the on-line reservation procedure and THAT'S IT! No deviation. People will give you sob stories... TOO BAD! Then, when they charge back on their credit card you HAVE PROOF when fighting the chargeback. We win 90% of our CB appeals because we document the refund policy in several areas. Stop being nice and start running a business. A voucher is the same as a refund! And if they write a bad review you respond with the policy!.
Fourteen years... only one chargeback, a fraud on a stolen card. We explain the policy. Offer to send a copy of the invoice so that they can request it back from their insurance company. And explain our policy of sending out a voucher if we resell the night, which encourages them to tell us well ahead of time.
I have to say that if I have ever given a guest a voucher, I have never had a single regret about it. I've done it only when I have resold the days, never for the same amount, always with the ability to expire it, because it isn't tied to the original amount and in the few cases when they have booked, they have spent a lot more than they originally were going to spend (and often off-season) because they looked at the voucher as being found money. I've always ended up ahead of the deal and never had a bad review because of it.
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I issued a voucher a long time ago. They never came back. They did want their money back when they told me they had made the mistake of RSVP'ing to 2 different weddings in one weekend. That whole group was a pain. The minister left at 4 PM and never said a word. We found the keys, cleaned the room and sold it again that night.
One of the bachelors in the wedding party needed a room but after listening to him all morning about what he was planning to do that night I decided not to tell him we had an open room.
I've had guests TELL me it would be the gracious thing to do (offer the voucher) after they tried to get out of their rez at 5 PM day of arrival. And, another time had an absolutely awful guest tell me she knew she wasn't going to be able to make it that night but didn't think she should have to pay as we weren't full anyway. (I hate that argument.) No deposit taken that time and I chalked it up as a lesson learned.
But, these are few and far between and fewer and farther with the deposit in place.
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