💡 Channel reservations are bookings made through your connected channels such as Expedia, Agoda, and other Online Travel Agencies (OTAs). Channel bookings cannot be cancelled through your platform — they must be cancelled directly through the original booking channel.
How to cancel channel reservations
For channel reservations, the guest needs to cancel the booking through the channel directly. The guest must cancel directly through the channel where they made the booking (Booking.com, Expedia, etc.). Guests should contact the channel's customer support directly with their booking confirmation number for any assistance.
If for any reason you need to cancel the booking instead of the guest, you must contact the channel's support team for assistance. Provide the booking confirmation number and any relevant details.
If the guest has advised they have cancelled but the cancellation is not reflected in your platform, contact the booking channel directly to confirm and investigate.
Note:
The penalty that will apply for cancelled reservations will depend on your cancellation policy. For most channels, the cancellation policy is set up and managed directly via the channels extranet
OTA cancellation confirmation emails are sent by the channel directly
Cancelled channel reservations cannot be reactivated from your platform. Contact the channel directly for support with cancelling or modifying channel reservations
After cancellation
Auto-replenishment
If auto-replenishment is enabled, when the channel processes the cancellation, room availability will be automatically restored.
To set up auto-replenishment, go to Setup > General information. You can choose from two options:
Always: always restore availability
Only if the availability is 1 or more: availability is automatically increased when a reservation is cancelled, as long as availability for the room rate is not 0
Outstanding balances and refunds on cancelled reservations
When a reservation is cancelled:
The total room cost amounts can no longer be modified
The cancellation cannot be reversed
Any outstanding balance for the cancelled reservation will show
💡 There is currently no option to remove any outstanding amounts from cancelled reservations. These outstanding amounts are not included in any reports and will not affect your financial reporting.
If the reservation has been cancelled but payment has been collected:
Cancellation policy is refundable and you use Little Hotelier Pay: open the reservation and click Process Refund
Cancellation policy is refundable but you do not use Little Hotelier Pay: process the refund in your third-party payment system, then record it in Little Hotelier using Record Refund
Non-refundable: no action is required
Reservation shows as confirmed but the channel has cancelled it
If your reservation shows as confirmed in your platform but the channel has cancelled it, request the reservation cancellation XML logs from the channel. These logs can verify the cancellation timestamp and other details for further investigation.
The cancellation wasn't delivered to Little Hotelier
When a booking contains an unmapped rate, that cancellation will not be sent to Little Hotelier automatically. In those cases, you will need to cancel the booking and update inventory manually in Little Hotelier.