What Happens When You Have To Cancel Your Vacation Rental?

You’ve chosen your dream cottage to rent, paid the deposit, and the kids are already excited. You’re sure you have everything covered and in only five months you’ll be heading off for a week or two of blissful relaxation on the lake; a little fishing off the dock; watching exquisite sunsets; playing board games in the evening and getting back to real family time.  But what happens if it all goes wrong? If something so unexpected happens that you have to cancel.

Have you covered that possibility too?

There are a number of things that can occur to curtail or cause a complete cancellation of your vacation. A death in the family is an obvious one, but other situations can come up that you may never have considered. Here’s a couple of examples that we experienced with guests last year:

A teen failed year twelve and was entered into summer school for additional tuition. The cancellation of the cottage came too late for it to be rebooked and the family lost their vacation. I don’t think the teen in question will be allowed to forget that in a hurry.

A family member developed a severe allergy a few weeks before the vacation and had to spend several days in allergy testing that could only be scheduled in over the holiday time. Once again cancellation came to late for the place to be rebooked so the family just took three days of their time at the cottage.

The father of a rental group was made redundant four weeks before the vacation commenced. We were able to rebook the cottage for part of the time so they received some of their money back but had to pay $150 in cancellation penalties.

I would not dream of going on any vacation without travel insurance in place that would cover these eventualities. An annual family policy could cost less than the cancellation fees imposed by many agencies and private owners and provides cover for the entire year. It is worth it just for the peace of mind.

Check the Cancellation Policy

Rental agencies will have a clear cancellation policy that is written on the Terms and Conditions of Rental and is clearly stated on their web site. If you are booking privately with a cottage owner, make sure you are fully aware fo their procedure in case of cancellation. A standard policy is likely to offer a full refund of all your payment if the period you rented can be re-booked, less a cancellation fee, but these can vary so check thoroughly.

Planning and looking forward to a vacation is great fun. Being well covered in case of a problem occurring should be part of that planning.