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  2. New feature : Cancellation Protection
  3. New feature : Cancellation Protection

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How to Activate, Configure and Deactivate Cancellation Protection

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JB - Smily Team
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Follow these steps to activate Cancellation Protection for your rentals and start offering flexible booking options to travelers.

 

Eligibility Requirements

Before you can enroll in Cancellation Protection, your account must meet these criteria:

  • SmilyPay Gateway: You must have at least one active SmilyPay payment gateway
  • Currency: Your rentals must use EUR (Euro) currency
  • Location: Rentals must be located in Europe, excluding Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus

 

Step 1: Enroll Your Account

Access Cancellation Policies

  1. Go to your Smily dashboard
  2. Navigate to Settings > Cancellation Policies
  3. Look for the Cancellation Protection enrollment option

Enable the Feature

  1. Click the "Enable" button
  2. A modal will appear asking you to accept the terms and conditions

 

3. Review the terms carefully, which include:

  • All future rentals (created after enrollment) that meet eligibility criteria will automatically have protection enabled
  • You can disable protection for individual rentals if needed

4. Check the acceptance box and click "Confirm"

Important: Existing rentals created before enrollment will NOT automatically have protection enabled. You'll need to enable it manually for each existing rental.

 

Step 2: Configure Individual Rentals

For each rental you want to protect, follow these steps:

Enable Protection on a Rental

  1. Go to Rentals in your dashboard
  2. Select the rental you want to configure
  3. Click Edit and navigate to the "Cancellation Policy" tab

4. Check the "Enable Cancellation Protection" checkbox

5. Alternatively, click "How it works" to open a modal with more information and enable from there

6. Save your changes

Verify Rental Eligibility

Make sure your rental has:

  • EUR currency assigned
  • SmilyPay gateway assigned
  • A location in eligible European countries

If any of these requirements are not met, you'll see an error message explaining what needs to be fixed.

 

Step 3: Configure Channel Settings

Booking.com

Once Cancellation Protection is activated:

  • The flexible and non-refundable rates will be automatically created
  • A default lower rate for the non-refundable rate will be applied
  • You cannot edit cancellation policies directly from Booking.com, all changes must be made in Smily

Airbnb

Once Cancellation Protection is activated:

  • The flexible and non-refundable rates will be automatically created
  • You cannot edit cancellation policies directly from Airbnb, all changes are made automatically in Smily when you activate Cancellation Protection

Airbnb has a special consideration:

  • Airbnb only displays the non-refundable rate within 60 days of check-in
  • For stays more than 60 days away, only the flexible rate with price increase is visible to travelers

 

Step 4: Confirm Payment Gateway Setup

This is a critical step to ensure proper reconciliation:

  1. After enabling Cancellation Protection, the Smily team will receive a notification and contact you
  2. You can retrieve your IBANs directly in Smily using the View IBAN button on the payment gateway (Settings > Payments > Payment gateways). If you need to generate a large number of IBANs, Smily Support can also retrieve them for you.
  3. You then need to replace the payout IBANs on Airbnb and Booking.com using the virtual IBANs provided:
    1. Booking.com extranet: This is located in Finance > Finance settings > Bank Details
    2. Airbnb extranet: This is located in Account Settings > Payments > Payouts
  4. On Booking.com, you then need to switch to “Weekly Payout” on Booking.com (located in Finance > Finance settings > Payout timing)

5. You then send proof of IBAN replacement to verification@smily.com (relevant proof may be screenshots or a video of the replacement)

6. Our support team will verify that your payment gateway IBANs are correctly set up for each channel (Airbnb and Booking.com), and activate the cancellation protection in your Smily account
In parallel, we kindly ask you to invite Smily support to join your Booking.com group account, so that we can ensure proper monitoring of operations by following the dedicated procedure.

7. You'll receive confirmation once the setup is complete

8. Protection will only be fully active once this verification is complete

Why this matters: Proper IBAN setup ensures that we can reconcile payouts from channels and collect the protection fees correctly. Without this verification, bookings with protection may result in reconciliation issues.

 

Step 5: Monitor Your Protected Rentals

Once configured, you can view the protection status for each rental:

  1. Go to the rental's Cancellation Policy tab
  2. You'll see status indicators showing:
    • Protection status per channel (Airbnb, Booking.com)
    • Payment gateway confirmation status
    • Whether the rental is ready to receive protected bookings

 

Understanding the “Cancellation Protection” status in Rentals

To make it easier for you, in the Rentals section, the “Cancellation Protection” column shows, at a glance, whether each rental is currently covered by Cancellation Protection and whether any setup step is still required. This helps you quickly confirm which rentals are protected and what needs attention.

 

 

Statuses you may see

  1. Protected
  • What it means: Cancellation Protection is active for this rental (when eligible), so qualifying late cancellations by the traveler can be covered (according to the product rules and eligibility conditions).
  • What you can do: No action is required in most cases. You can open the rental details if you want to review configuration.
  1. Awaiting IBAN
  • What it means:
    • Cancellation Protection is not active yet because the IBAN setup/confirmation is still pending for the payment gateway/channel.
    • Until the IBAN setup is completed and confirmed, Smily cannot activate protection and properly reconcile channel payouts for this feature.
  • What you can do: Open “View details” and complete the requested IBAN setup/confirmation steps for the relevant payment gateway/channel. Once done, the status will update and protection can become active.
  1. Not protected
  • What it means: Cancellation Protection is not enabled for this rental, or the rental is not currently eligible based on the feature’s requirements.
  • What you can do: If you want protection on this rental, open the rental details and follow the steps to enable/upgrade (when available). If the rental isn’t eligible, you’ll need to adjust the required conditions (where applicable).

 

Note: An additional filter is available to search rentals by their protection status: protected or unprotected.

bs_manual_protection_status_en.jpg

 

Why this is useful

  • Fast visibility: You can immediately see which rentals are protected without opening each rental individually.
  • Clear next steps: “Awaiting IBAN” highlights rentals that only need a setup step to become protected.
  • Reduced risk: It helps you avoid missing coverage on rentals you intended to protect, especially when enabling the feature across many rentals.

 

Enabling Protection from the Bookings Page

You can also activate Cancellation Protection directly from a booking:

  1. View any booking in your dashboard
  2. If the rental isn't enrolled, you'll see a prompt with information about Cancellation Protection

3. Click the link to be taken to either:

  • The rental's edit page (if your account is enrolled but the rental isn't)
  • The cancellation policies page (if your account isn't enrolled yet)

 

What Happens After Activation?

Once Cancellation Protection is active:

  • New bookings on Booking.com and Airbnb will automatically offer both flexible and non-refundable rate options
  • Travelers will see clear pricing for both options at checkout
  • The protection fee is automatically added to flexible bookings
  • You don't need to do anything else—the system handles everything automatically

How to Opt Out of Cancellation Protection

If you no longer wish to offer Cancellation Protection on a rental, follow these steps.

Step 1: Deactivate the feature in Smily

  1. Go to Rentals in your dashboard
  2. Select the rental you want to opt out
  3. Click Edit and navigate to the "Cancellation Policy" tab
  4. Uncheck "Enable Cancellation Protection"
  5. Save your changes

⚠️ Important: please read before deactivating:

  • Deactivation takes effect immediately for new bookings only. Bookings made before deactivation remain covered only if payments continue to be collected entirely through SmilyPay and no changes are made to cancellation policies or IBANs on the Booking.com and Airbnb Platforms. Otherwise, coverage for those bookings ends automatically.
  • Any Cancellation Protection fees already collected before deactivation remain due to Smily and are non-refundable.
  • If IBANs are changed on Booking.com or Airbnb without deactivating Cancellation Protection in Smily beforehand, this can trigger immediate loss of eligibility on affected bookings, plus a €150 administrative penalty per incident and repayment of any uncollected Prices (+10% recovery costs). Repeated incidents may lead to termination of Cancellation Protection across your entire portfolio.

If you want to receive payouts directly, and you have acknowledged that once the IBANs are replaced you will no longer be covered by Cancellation Protection, even for past bookings, you can replace your IBANs as follows:

Step 2: Replace the IBANs on Booking.com and Airbnb
Once Cancellation Protection is deactivated, you'll need to replace the virtual IBANs (provided by Smily) with your own IBAN on each channel:

  • Booking.com extranet: Finance > Finance settings > Bank Details
  • Airbnb extranet: Account Settings > Payments > Payouts

📌 Special note: Booking.com Partial Sync rentals:
If your rental is connected to Booking.com via Partial Sync, Smily cannot automatically restore your original cancellation policy on Booking.com once Cancellation Protection is deactivated. You'll need to manually update the cancellation policy directly in your Booking.com Extranet to reflect the policy you want going forward. If you need guidance, reach out to Smily Support.
 

Need Help?

If you encounter any issues during setup or have questions about eligibility, contact the Smily support team. We're here to help you get Cancellation Protection up and running smoothly.

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