Enhanced Refund Terms allows you to offer your customers an enhanced refund policy on your online bookings in case the customer cannot attend your experience due to personal reasons that are unforeseen.
The Enhanced Refund Terms is entirely handled and paid within 48 hours by our global administrators of the service, Protect Group, enabling you to protect and keep revenue whilst ensuring an optimal customer refund experience and increased purchasing confidence, all at zero cost to you.
The service is completely optional for all customers and is presented as a small additional box within your checkout which if selected, adds a small fee onto the customer’s transaction.
All fees and costs are passed entirely onto each customer enabling you to obtain the following benefits of Enhanced Refund Terms at zero cost to your business:
- Offer more enhanced refund terms at no risk to your business
- Extra peace of mind and purchasing confidence for your customers
- Provide 100% refunds any time up to the travel time (and 60 days after) and keep the original payment as if the booking went ahead
- Reduce customer service admin as all service and payments are handled for you by our global administrators, Protect Group
You can find the incredibly broad list of included personal circumstances here which also include Covid-19 infection: https://refundable.me/extended/en/
Note: Enhanced Refund Terms does not cover scenarios where the event is canceled by you. It is only applicable to personal unforeseen and emergency circumstances preventing the customer from attending their booking.
What's covered in this article:
- How to enable Enhanced Refund Terms
- How Enhanced Refund Terms works
- What the customer sees
- Canceling bookings
- Modifying bookings
- Reports
- FAQ
How to enable Enhanced Refund Terms
Follow the steps below to enable Enhanced Refund Terms on your Xola account:
- Go to App Store > Enhanced Refund Terms and select it.
- Click INSTALL and agree to the terms of service.
- Go to Settings > Apps> Enhanced Refund Terms > Configure
- Select the listings you would like to have Enhanced Refund Terms offered to your customers.
Note: Enhanced Refund Terms currently works on the Online checkout and Back office bookings.
Xola is working with the Protect Group to provide a seamless experience for you and your customers, you can learn more about the Protect Group here.
How Enhanced Refund Terms works
- Once you install and configure the Enhanced Refund Terms app, an opt-in feature box is added to your checkout for customers to opt-in to.
- If you are making a booking for a customer in the back office, you will be asked if you want to add Enhanced Refund Terms on behalf of the customer after you enter the customer’s information. Again, this is optional for the customer.
- If the customer opts into the Enhanced Refund Terms, an additional fee is added to the customer’s transaction. This fee is 10% of the customer’s total booking value (including Taxes, Fees, and less any discounts).
- When the customer opts-in and makes their payment as normal, Xola creates a contract with the administrators of the service (Protect Group). The contract includes the customer name, guest count, and booking value.
- The customer then receives their booking confirmation email which will now contain Enhanced Refund Terms information within the cancellation policy section. This information confirms the extended refund terms, a T&Cs link, and also a direct link to the online Refund Application Form should the customer need to apply for a refund.
- Note: It is recommended that the customer go through the Refund Application Form process first and not go through you to cancel or refund the booking.
- If a customer opts out of Enhanced Refund Terms in the checkout, your standard cancellation policy applied to the listing(s) will apply and be shown in their confirmation email. You will be fully responsible for canceling and refunding the booking as per your policies.
- To file a refund claim, the customer clicks the direct link within their booking confirmation email, inputs the provided booking reference, and submits the info and evidence required for their refund into the online form.
- The Enhanced Refund Customer Experience team, from Protect Group, will review each application within 24 hours, communicating with each customer via email at every step of the application, and if approved, will refund the customer directly.
- Xola will tag all bookings with Enhanced Refund Terms tag 'refundable booking', and you will see the amount paid in the Payment summary, so you are aware of each customer who has applied this service to their booking.
Please note: Customers with Enhanced Refund Terms applied to their bookings must proceed through the online Refund Application Form first before you refund or provide store credit as the Customer Experience team will not be notified of your refund.
Warning! If you refund the customer or give them store credit, the customer can still ask for a refund from the Protect Group as well.
What the customer sees
During the online booking process, your customer will be given the option to purchase the Enhanced Refund Terms.
If they choose to opt-in, the fee will be added, and they agree to the terms and conditions of the Enhanced Refund Terms.
Note: The Enhanced Refund Terms fee is a 10% fee on to the total booking value (including Taxes and Fees, Booking fee less any discounts).
The Customer will continue the booking as normal, whether they opt-in or out of the Enhanced Refund Terms.
At the end of the Checkout, on the Thank You page, they will see a message about Enhanced Refund Terms. With a link to the terms and conditions and a link to request a refund through the Enhanced Refund Terms Application Form.
Note: For Packages and Multiple Item Bookings, if a customer has opted to purchase Enhanced Refund Terms, each experience will have the Enhanced Refund Terms on it and be treated as separate transactions with the Protect Group. The customer will need to submit as many requests, as bookings to get a full refund for all.
Emails
If a Customer opts in for the Enhanced Refund Terms, the confirmation email and reminder email will have a new cancellation policy on them.
When you enable Enhanced Refund Terms on a listing, that listing cancellation policy you wrote, will be replaced with the Enhanced Refund Terms cancelation policy.
From the Cancellation Policy on the confirmation email and reminder email, the customer can request a refund for the booking.
Canceling bookings
There are 3 ways for a customer to request a cancellation:
- From booking confirmation email:
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The booking confirmation email already includes a link under the Cancellation Policy section with steps to follow to apply for a refund
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The customer will follow this link to the online refund application and submit their details
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Note: if this happens, Xola will not cancel the booking from your Dashboard but will mark it as a no show
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You can cancel the booking in your dashboard. Xola will not show the return payment modal once a booking with Enhanced Refund Terms applied has been canceled.
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- From the Customers self-service option, the customer can cancel (If enabled)
- If the customer has opted into Enhanced Refund Terms, when they click the “Manage this Booking” hyperlink and are taken to the self-service page, the Refund Application Form and instructions are found within the “Cancel Booking” section.
- From the Back office:
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If you choose to cancel the customer’s booking, the booking cancellation email will have a link to apply for a refund through the Enhanced Refund Terms Application Form
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Note: You must ask the customer to apply for a refund themselves using the link in the booking confirmation email.
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Warning! If you refund the customer or give them store credit, the customer can still ask for a refund from the Protect Group as well.
Note: The Enhanced Refund Customer Experience team, from the Protect Group, will send the customer emails at every step of the refund process informing of the status of application, refund approval, refund denial, and/or request for more or correct evidence or details.
- Cancellations are handled the same for all experience including, but not limited to:
- Canceling 1 experience
- Canceling 2 experiences that were booked together (MIST)
- Canceling 1 out of 2 experiences that were booked together (MIST)
- Canceling 1 experience that was part of a package booking
- Canceling a whole package booking
Modifying bookings
Xola will display the Enhanced Refund Terms fee in the payment summary in order details on the Purchases Tab, emails, and receipts.
If you want to make a modification to a booking that has opted-in to Enhanced Refund Terms, the customer will only be refunded the total booking amount that was paid for at the original time of booking.
- Change Arrival
- Xola will update the Enhanced Refund Terms contract with a new arrival date/time.
- Any price difference due to the new schedule will not affect the Enhanced Refund Terms contract.
- If the cost is reduced, no refund will be offered for the Enhanced Refund Terms fee.
- If the cost increased, the Enhanced Refund Terms coverage amount will not proportionally increase.
- Change Guest Quantity
- Increasing or decreasing the guest quantity will not alter the original Enhanced Refund Terms contract.
- If the guest quantity decreased, the Enhanced Refund Terms contract will still reflect the higher original quantity.
- If the guest quantity increased, the Enhanced Refund Terms contract will still reflect the lower original quantity.
- Increasing or decreasing the guest quantity will not alter the original Enhanced Refund Terms contract.
- Switch Experience
- In most cases, the original Enhanced Refund Terms contract will continue to be valid.
- Any price difference due to the alternate experience will be ignored. The contract will still be for the original price and guest quantity.
- Refund
- Refunds will not affect the Enhanced Refund Terms contract or fees. The Enhanced Refund Terms fees are non-refundable.
- When you initiate the refund workflow, Xola will display a warning message that the customer has opted-in to Enhanced Refund Terms.
- Xola will allow you to refund the whole value of the booking including the Enhanced Refund Terms fee, but note that the Enhanced Refund Terms fee will NOT be returned to you.
Note: Xola recommends you NEVER refund a customer who has opted-in for Enhanced Refund Terms unless they have approached you informing their Refund Application has been denied. Let them proceed through the Enhanced Refund Terms Application Form first to request a refund through the dedicated Customer Experience team, from Protect Group.
- The following actions have no effect on Enhanced Refund Terms:
- Add a coupon
- Add a charge
- Add/Reduce the number of add-ons
- Modify taxes and fees
Reports
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After a customer opts in for Enhanced Refund Terms, Xola will create a transaction that reduces your balance by the fee amount. Those transactions can be seen by checking your Earning Report, and you will see the source as the Protect Groups logo:
Enhanced Refund Terms fee will also be shown in the custom booking report, where an additional column will be visible:
Also, the transaction report, export excel file will have an additional column and row showing the cumulative Enhanced Refund Terms fee, shown as App Fee, in summary, sheet:
And individual transactions on the ‘transactions’ sheet will have a new App Fee column as well as a proper new method and source field values:
FAQ
Q: Do Enhanced Refund Terms cost my business anything?
A: No there is no cost as all fees are passed onto the customer. In fact, you will most likely save costs since the refunds are paid by the plan administrators, allowing you to keep the original payment and reduce time spent on customer service and admin.
Q: Do I have to turn Enhanced Refund Terms on for all my listings?
A: No, you can select which listings you want to offer Enhanced Refund Terms on by using the product selector under Settings > Apps > Enhanced Refund Terms > Configure
Q: Do Enhanced Refund Terms work for Manual Accept Bookings?
A: Yes, Enhanced Refund Terms will work if the listing is on Auto-Accept or Manual Accept in your Settings > Preferences.
Q: Can a customer still issue a chargeback or dispute?
A: Yes, however, Enhanced Refund Terms is designed to refund the customer as quickly as possible (within 24-48 hours of the Refund Application Form submission), and therefore it is unlikely the customer will issue a chargeback or dispute.
Q: What happens if my circumstance isn’t included in any of the Refundable Terms?
A: If the customer feels their circumstance is “unforeseen” and/or classed as an “emergency” then the customer should still apply through the online Refund Application Form as the circumstance will be considered by the Enhanced Refund Terms Experience Team on potentially a discretionary refund basis. If it is not classed as such, the customer’s refund application will likely be denied according to the terms.
Q: What is excluded from the Enhanced Refund Terms?
A: Any circumstance that is not detailed in the T&Cs nor can be considered an unforeseen and/or emergency circumstance would not be eligible for a refund. Please find a list of general exclusions in the Protect Groups, Terms and Conditions.
Q: Do Enhanced Refund Terms include COVID-19 related circumstances?
A: Enhanced Refund Terms include some of the most common COVID-19 related circumstances on an entirely discretionary basis. It is important to read our full Terms for these cases however in summary they include the following:
- The customer, or someone within the customer’s Immediate Household, has contracted Covid-19 within the 14 days immediately prior to the Booking; supported by evidence of a positive test result.
- The hospitalization, or death, of the customer’s Immediate Family Member due to Covid-19, within the 28 days immediately preceding the Booking; supported by a medical / death certificate.
- A significant change in the customer’s pre-existing medical condition in the 14 days immediately prior to the Booking results in a Doctor recommending the customer does not attend due to the risk of exposure to Covid-19.
NOTE: Refunds are not issued where the customer does not Attend because the customer is concerned about catching Covid- 19 or are self-isolating without a positive Covid-19 test, or where the Booking is canceled
These reasons for a refund are considered on an entirely discretionary basis and are not to be taken as a guarantee of refund.