Cancellations & refunds

A confirmed booking can be cancelled by your team, by the player (if you allow it), or by your own website through the API. Whoever cancels, the same rules decide what is refunded, and the session goes back on sale.

What is refunded#

• The player gets back the room money they paid online: the room price after any discount or gift voucher.
• The player's service fee is never refunded. It covers MyEscapeRoom's costs, including the card fee Stripe keeps even on a refund.
• If the room was to be paid at the venue, nothing was charged for the room, so there is nothing to refund.
• A gift voucher that paid for part of the booking gets its money back on the voucher. If the voucher has expired in the meantime, the money goes back on it but the expiry date is not extended. The player is told to contact you for a new one, and the booking page says so too.
• A discount code that was used goes back to the code's remaining uses.

You do not pay for the refund out of your own pocket. The money MyEscapeRoom had sent to your Stripe account for this booking is taken back (reversed) in full, so a cancelled booking nets zero for you. This needs the money to still be in your Stripe balance. If it has already been paid out to your bank, the reversal is retried automatically until it works, and MyEscapeRoom follows up with you.

Cancel a booking from the dashboard#

An owner or an admin can cancel a booking until the game starts. Hosts cannot cancel.

1. Open the booking

   Click the session on Dashboard→Operate→Calendar, or the row on Dashboard→Operate→Bookings. The ticket opens.

2. Choose Cancel booking

   At the bottom of the ticket (or at the top of the full booking page) choose Cancel booking.

3. Read the refund line

   The dialog is called "Cancel BK-…?" and states what happens to the money. When the booking has a service fee it reads, for example, "€58 is refunded to the customer's card; the €5 service fee is not refunded." For a booking paid at the venue it reads "Nothing was paid online for the room; the €5 service fee is not refunded." Without a service fee the sentence stops before the semicolon.

   

   

4. Add a reason if you want

   Reason (sent to the customer) is optional and at most 500 characters. It is included in the email the player receives, so write it for them.

5. Confirm

   Choose Cancel booking. To change your mind, choose Keep booking. The booking becomes Cancelled, the session is free again and can be booked by someone else.

When you cannot cancel#

What the player receives#

The booker is emailed straight away: "Booking cancelled", with who cancelled ("The venue", "You" or "MyEscapeRoom"), your reason if you gave one, the date and the booking reference. It also says:

• the amount refunded to their card, which usually shows within 5 to 10 business days;
• or that nothing was charged for the room, for a booking paid at the venue;
• that the service fee is not refunded;
• if a gift voucher was used, that it has its money back (and, if expired, who to contact).

If you assigned a host to the booking, they are emailed too. Owners and admins get an email about the cancellation when they have "Email me when a booking is cancelled" switched on under Dashboard→Setup→Settings, with the refund and the transfer that is being reversed. If you issue your own room invoices outside MyEscapeRoom, that email reminds you to issue a credit note.

The invoices follow along: the room invoice of a cancelled booking is never issued, or is credited with a credit note if it was. The service fee invoice stands, because the service fee is not refunded. See Invoicing.

Let players cancel themselves#

By default players cannot cancel on their own. They have to ask you. You can allow it, and choose how late.

1. Open Settings

   Go to Dashboard→Setup→Settings. Only an owner sees the venue settings.

2. Choose Players may cancel

   In the Player cancellations section choose one of:

   • Players cannot cancel (through you only): the default.
   • Until the game starts.
   • 24 hours before, 48 hours before or 7 days before.

   

   

3. Save changes

   Choose Save changes at the bottom of the page.

Keep in mind:

• Only a player who is signed in can cancel, from their profile. A guest booking has no account, so a guest always asks the venue. Their confirmation gives your contact details.
• The checkout tells players the rule. A booking keeps the notice it was made under: if you make the rule stricter later, bookings made before keep the more generous one.
• You and your admins can always cancel until the game starts, whatever this setting says.
• The same refund rule applies: players get the room price back, never the service fee. A room that is paid at the venue is not refunded, because nothing was charged for it.

Cancel through the API#

If you run your own booking site on the MyEscapeRoom API, you can cancel a booking with a request to the cancel endpoint (see the API reference). By default an API cancellation is treated like a player cancelling: it follows your "Players may cancel" setting and its deadline.

To let a key cancel as the venue (until the game starts, whatever the player rule is), turn on the permission to cancel as the venue for that key on Dashboard→Setup→API, and send asVenue: true with the request. Do that only for a key that lives on your own server. A key in a browser widget can be used by any visitor, so it should not have this permission. See API keys.

Releasing a booking that is still only a hold (the player backed out of checkout) needs no permission, but it can still be refused: with 409 BOOKING_PAID when the payment went through after all, with 409 PAYMENT_PROCESSING while the payment is still being processed (try again shortly), and with 502 STRIPE_ERROR when the payment status could not be read from Stripe.

Refund status#

The ticket and the booking page show where a cancelled booking's refund stands. The ticket also says who cancelled it ("your team", "the customer", "your website (API)" or "MyEscapeRoom"), when, and the reason.

The settlement block on the ticket shows what happened to your share: the amount that was reversed from you.

If a refund fails#

Stripe sometimes accepts a refund and then fails it afterwards, for example when the player's card was closed. The booking then shows Refund failed in red, and owners and admins see it under Needs attention on the Today page. The refund is not retried, because the payment method is gone. MyEscapeRoom is notified and pays the player another way, then marks it as resolved. Your booking page says "The refund … to the player failed; MyEscapeRoom is resolving it." There is no button for you to press: it is settled by MyEscapeRoom.

Frequently asked questions#

Can I refund the service fee?#

No. It is never refunded, whoever cancels.

Can I make a partial refund?#

No. A cancellation refunds all the room money paid online. There is no partial refund in the dashboard.

Does cancelling affect the leaderboards?#

No. A booking only counts once it has been played, and a booking cannot be cancelled after the game has started or after a result is logged.

Related#

• Managing bookings & the calendar
• Connect Stripe & get paid
• Invoicing & VAT profile
• API keys