You have a reservation of €600.
The guest cancels outside the free cancellation period and your policy allows you to charge them €300.
The first impression might be:
“Well, at least I keep €300.”
Not necessarily.
QUICK ANSWER
Booking.com explains that if the cancellation is free, the guest does not pay and the accommodation does not pay a commission.
But if the policy establishes a cancellation fee and the guest actually pays that fee, Booking applies a commission on the amount received by the accommodation.
With a no-show, something similar happens: Booking indicates that it does not charge a commission for a guest who does not show up unless the accommodation has set up a no-show fee.
VERIFIED FACT
The commission from Booking is not the same for all accommodations.
Booking states that the applicable percentage appears in the Agreement section during the registration process.
Therefore, to correctly calculate a cancellation, you need to know your own contractual percentage.
GATAVIA CALCULATION
ASSUMPTION USED
Original reservation: €600
Booking commission used in the example: 15%.
Scenario A · Free cancellation
Charge to the guest: €0
Commission: €0
Income: €0
Scenario B · 50% penalty
Charge to the guest: €300
Booking commission:
300 × 15% = €45
Net before other taxes or costs:
€300 – €45 = €255
Scenario C · No-show with 100% charge
Charge: €600
Commission:
600 × 15% = €90
Net:
€510
THE FORMULA
Net penalty = amount actually charged × (1 – commission percentage)
If you want to keep €300 net and your commission is 15%:
300 / 0.85 = €352.94
This does not mean you can arbitrarily set that penalty. It must fit with the configured cancellation policy and the conditions applicable to the reservation.
It serves to understand something different: €300 charged does not necessarily equal €300 received.
GATAVIA VERDICT
When analyzing your cancellations, do not automatically count the gross penalty as income.
Record separately:
- original price of the reservation;
- penalty actually charged;
- commission;
- refund made;
- net income retained.
This way, you can compare which cancellation policy really works best for your accommodation.
Gatavia · Question. Data. Accounts. Decide.