Give a Stay Credit Instead of a Refund

Plenty of small hosts run a no-refund policy and still want to treat a cancelling guest fairly once the dates sell again. A stay credit is the tool for that: a credit note toward a future direct booking, delivered as a branded card with a code the guest enters when they book with you.

Nothing is charged when you give one. The cost lands later, and only if the guest uses it: the booking they pay for with the credit pays you out less by the amount it covered.

Make It Your Policy

If you never refund money, make the credit your cancellation policy rather than a favour you remember to give. In the listing editor's Cancellation policy section (or Settings for all listings → Cancellation policy to set it once for every listing), set Refunds are given as to Stay credit and choose how long a credit stays valid — 6, 12, 18 or 24 months, or no expiry. Your refund tiers still decide how much comes back; this setting decides how.

With that in place the whole flow runs itself:

The guest cancels from their trip or guidebook. Haven works out the tier refund as usual and, instead of money, gives them a stay credit for that amount and emails it (unless you switched the Stay credit email off). Nothing goes back to their card. The policy they agreed to at booking says so, and so does the listing page and the checkout.
You cancel. The dialog shows the credit the guest will receive and sends it the same way. If you would rather return money for this one cancellation, choose Refund to the guest's card under Returned as — the policy is untouched.
A cancellation reaches Haven from your PMS and is treated the same way as yours.
A booking paid as a deposit and balance gets the credit too. The tier refund is worked out on what the guest has paid so far, the balance is never charged, and nothing goes back to their card.

Two things always stay money back: the 24-hour grace period every Haven booking has, and Haven's own Screen & Protect fee, which is Haven's fee reversal rather than your money.

A policy credit is good at every listing of yours that pays out to you, in the listing's currency. The guest sees it under Your stay credits on their Trips page and in the guidebook's profile sheet, and when they book again with you while signed in, Haven applies it automatically at checkout (they can remove it and keep it for later). Bookings on the same terms freeze the setting the way they freeze the tiers, so changing it later never restates an existing booking.

When to Use a Stay Credit

A guest cancelled under your no-refund (or partial-refund) policy, and you have since re-filled the nights
You would rather keep a guest's goodwill, and their next booking, than send money back
A stay went wrong and you want to make amends with a future visit rather than a refund
A guest who booked through Airbnb or another channel cancelled there, and you want to invite them to book with you directly next time

Cancel Under Your Policy First

A stay credit usually follows a cancellation in which the guest kept nothing, so the cancellation itself has to follow your policy.

The guest cancels themselves from their trip or guidebook: your policy decides the refund automatically.
The guest asks you to cancel for them: open the reservation, click Cancel Reservation, and under Who asked to cancel? choose The guest asked to cancel. Your policy applies exactly as if the guest had cancelled, including the 24-hour grace period, and the cancellation is recorded as theirs. Tick Refund in full anyway only if you want to waive the policy.
You are cancelling for your own reasons: choose I need to cancel. The guest is refunded in full, as they always are when a host cancels.

See Cancellation Policies.

How to Give a Stay Credit

From the reservation

Open the cancelled reservation — from Calendar → Bookings, the listing's calendar, or its conversation in Communication → Inbox.
Click Give a stay credit on the cancelled-reservation card (it is also in the ⋯ menu as Give a stay credit…).
The dialog opens filled in: the guest's name and email, and the amount you kept of their payment. It also tells you how many of the cancelled nights have been booked again, and warns you if you already gave a credit for this reservation.
Adjust whatever you need:
- Amount — any amount; it does not have to match what the guest paid.
- Guest email — booking-site relay addresses (@guest.airbnb.com and the like) are refused, because a direct-booking code must not travel through a channel's inbox. Ask the guest for their own email.
- Where it can be used — One property (the default), Several properties, or Whole group.
- Use by — 6, 12 (the default), 18 or 24 months, No expiry, or a date you pick.
- Message on the card — optional, printed on the card.
- Email the code to the guest — ticked when your Stay credit email is on. Untick it to give this credit without emailing it, for example a credit your team will spend on the guest's tab, or one you hand over in person. Tick it to email this one even while the email is switched off.
Click Send stay credit (it reads Give stay credit when the email is unticked). If you left the email on, the guest is emailed straight away. Either way the dialog shows the code with Copy code and Open card, and says whether the guest was emailed.

The same action works on a confirmed stay, past or upcoming, and on a reservation synced in from a channel.

For a guest without a Haven reservation

Open Grow your brand → Upsells → Gift cards & credits and click Give a stay credit. You can also open a guest from Marketing → Audience, switch to the Offer tab, and click Give a stay credit — the name and email come from their guest record.

What the Guest Receives

An email with a card drawn in your site's brand — your colours, logo and fonts — labelled Stay credit, with their name, the amount, the use-by date and your message. It carries the CREDIT-XXXX-XXXX code and a QR code that opens a page where the guest can copy the code, save the card image, and go straight to booking.

The email is yours to switch off or reword: it is the Stay credit card under Communication → Message automations → Whenever this happens → You give a stay credit. Edit email changes the heading and words around the card; the card, code, use-by date and QR code are filled in for each credit. Switched off, credits are still created and still apply automatically at checkout and on the guest's tab — the guest just isn't emailed (they still see every credit under Your stay credits on their Trips page and in their guidebook). The leftover-balance email (Balance on a new code) has its own card on the same page.

How the Guest Uses It

A signed-in guest does not need to do anything: when they book any of your listings the credit applies, Haven applies their credit automatically at checkout, with a note saying so and a Remove link if they would rather keep it. They can also enter the code in Have a discount code? on your listing or at checkout, or follow Book a stay on the card's page or from Your stay credits on their Trips page. Tax is worked out on the full stay, and the credit pays the nights and fees, never the tax, so the guest still pays the tax at checkout. It stacks with a discount code.

Leftover value is kept. When the stay costs less than the credit, the rest moves to a new CREDIT- code, emailed to the guest once the booking is paid. Nothing is forfeited.
The guest always pays a small amount. Card payments have a minimum (for example $1, or 10 MXN), so a credit can never bring a stay to zero.
Use by means the booking must be made by that date (the end of the day where your listing is). The stay itself can be later.
If that booking is cancelled, the credit comes back in the same proportion as the cash refund: all of it when you cancel, the tier's share under a partial-refund policy, none under a no-refund policy. It returns on a new code that is good for at least another 12 months.

Expenses during a stay

A stay credit also settles expenses you add to a current stay (see Add an expense during a stay). When the guest opens the Expenses card in their guide, the credit shows as Stay credit applied and comes off the tab before they pay; what is left over goes to a new code, as it does on a booking. A tab the credit covers entirely is settled with Settle with your stay credit and no card charge, which makes this the one place a credit can bring a bill to zero. Refunding a line paid partly with credit returns only the cash share.

Credits Pay for Extras During a Stay

A guest's stay credits also pay for extras on their reservation's guest tab — breakfast, a transfer, anything you add from the reservation sheet's Guest tab section. They come off automatically before any card is charged, the one expiring soonest first, and several can be used together. So a guest who overpaid, gave up a night, or got a credit from your cancellation policy can spend it on the stay they are on, and an incentive like "$50 toward breakfasts" works the moment you give it: use Give credit in the Guest tab section. To give one your team spends at checkout without emailing the guest a code, untick Email the code to the guest when you give it, or switch the Stay credit email off for every credit.

The reservation sheet shows how many credits the guest has and what they are worth, beside their name and in the Guest tab section. Expand the list to see each one, where it came from and its use-by date.
Take off keeps a credit for a later booking; Use on tab puts it back. The guest can do the same from Your tab in their guidebook.
Nothing is spent until the tab is paid (at checkout, when you close it, or when the guest pays). Unused value moves to a new code, as with bookings.
If the amount left after credits would be under the card minimum, slightly less credit is used so the card is charged exactly the minimum.
Credits are matched by the guest's own email. A guest whose only email is a booking-channel relay address shows no credits until their real email is on the guest record.
Refunding a tab item returns card money only. To give credit back, issue a new credit.

See Guest tab.

Where Credits Work

Direct bookings that take payment through Haven. A listing whose direct bookings your PMS collects (OwnerRez payments, for instance) cannot take a stay credit, and the dialog greys it out.
Single-listing bookings. Multi-room bookings cannot use a credit yet.
Listings in the same currency as the credit.

Managing Credits

Grow your brand → Upsells → Gift cards & credits lists every gift card guests bought and every stay credit you gave: who has it, what it is worth, its use-by date, and whether it was used and on which reservation. From each row you can copy the code, open the card, resend the email (a credit can go to a corrected address), or void a credit the guest has not used. Voiding stops the code working at once; it is refused while a guest is checking out with it.

If a credit's leftover value ever fails to arrive on a new code, its row offers Issue remaining balance.

To see what one guest holds, pick them in Communication → Guests or open their profile: Credit & points lists each unspent credit with its amount, the listings it is valid at, its use-by date and code, next to their loyalty points.

Payouts

A stay credit costs nothing when you give it. When a guest pays for a booking with one, that booking's payout to you is lower by the amount the credit covered. Your cancellation policy and the payout for the cancelled reservation are unaffected.

A refund you send later through Issue refund is cash only: it does not return any credit or gift card the booking used. Give a new credit instead if you want to.