The 'Send or Request Money' feature lets you make financial adjustments on a reservation after it's booked. You can use it to:
Refund guests
Request additional payments from guests
Adjust reservation charges
It's available on Direct and Vrbo Partner reservations. How a refund or ad-hoc charge is actually processed depends on your Merchant of Record (MoR) setup — Hospitable for Direct Premium and Vrbo Partner reservations, or your own Stripe account for Direct Basic. See Merchant of Record for Direct Bookings for the full breakdown.
For Direct reservations, while both adjustments and alterations result in partial refunds or additional charges, you should continue to use alterations to make changes to a reservation's details (eg. check-in/out dates or number of guests).
When can I use the Send Or Request Money feature?
Reservation Type: The full feature is available for Direct (Premium and Basic) and Vrbo Partner reservations.
Merchant of Record: Hospitable processes the transaction for Direct Premium and Vrbo Partner reservations. For Direct Basic, the transaction is processed through your Stripe account.
Timing: The feature is available for up to two weeks after the guest's check-out date/cancellation.
Payment Status: The reservation must be fully paid for the feature to appear.
Manual Bookings: For manual bookings, the 'Send or Request Money' is not available.
❗ If the booking is unpaid, partially paid or if there's an ongoing / pending alteration for the reservation, the send or request money option will not be available.
Ad hoc refunds
You can choose to send money to your guest at any point after accepting the reservation, up to fourteen days after the reservation ends, either checkout or cancellation, provided your account has a sufficient balance.
The amount you can refund is only equivalent to the payout you will have in the booking and will never be equal to the amount the guest paid due to service fees collected for the booking. Whenever applicable, use the Alter Reservation function to recalculate the booking cost to include service fees.
How to send money
Open the reservation from your Hospitable inbox
In the inner left sidebar, click on Send or request money
Select Send a refund
Enter the amount you would like to refund
Confirm the refund
It may take a couple minutes before you see the refund documented in the inbox Pricing Details and on your Payout History page. All refunds may take up to 5-10 business days to fully process to your guest.
How ad-hoc refunds work when Hospitable is the Merchant of Record (Direct Premium & Vrbo Partner)
For Direct Premium and Vrbo Partner reservations, Hospitable is the Merchant of Record and processes the refund on your behalf.
When setting the refund amount, Hospitable displays the maximum refundable amount, which is the lower value of either the amount paid by the guest or the current balance of the bank account.
The money can only be drawn from the bank account associated with the reservation, so you will need to have sufficient funds on your account. If the reservation has already been paid out, it will be drawn from other upcoming reservations on the same bank account and the money will be deducted from your next payout. Given sufficient funds, you may return up to the full amount paid by the guest. Refunds that have already been paid out to your account will create a deficit, which will be deducted from future payouts. Ensure that your payout balance remains positive to avoid disruptions.
Chargebacks and dispute handling for these refunds are managed through Hospitable's payment system.
How ad-hoc refunds work when you are the Merchant of Record via Stripe (Direct Basic)
For Direct Basic, you are the Merchant of Record via your Stripe account, and the refund is processed directly from that Stripe balance.
You can issue a refund up to the total amount paid by the guest. Hospitable does not, however, validate that you have sufficient funds in the associated Stripe account to cover the refund, as Stripe will allow customers' accounts to have a negative balance. Refunds may fail if Stripe refuses the transaction due to insufficient balance. If this happens, consider adding funds to your Stripe account to enable the refund or issuing an off-platform refund if absolutely necessary.
Chargebacks and dispute handling for these refunds are managed through your Stripe account.
Ad hoc charges
You can request an additional payment from your guest on a Direct or Vrbo Partner reservation at any point after accepting the reservation, up to fourteen days after the reservation ends, either checkout or cancellation, provided your account has a sufficient balance.
How to collect additional payments
Open the reservation from your Hospitable inbox
In the inner left sidebar, click on Send or request money
Select Request payment
Enter the amount you would like to collect
Confirm your payment request
Hospitable will email a payment link to your guest. Guests can also action the payment request through the Guest Portal. The guest can enter the CVC of their card on file, or use a different card. When the payment is successfully captured, you'll see it documented as an event in your Inbox conversation thread. You'll also see it updated in the reservation's payment details and on your payout history page.
Note: Any amount collected through the "Send or request money" option (ad hoc charges) are not applied toward the guest's existing balance and will not be used to cover their scheduled payment terms.
This option is only intended for collecting additional fees that were not part of the original booking.
How the payment is processed depends on your Merchant of Record:
Direct Premium & Vrbo Partner (Hospitable as MoR): Hospitable charges the guest's card on file (or a new card the guest enters) and the funds flow into your Hospitable payout balance. Any applicable taxes and the Hospitable service fee are deducted before payout.
Direct Basic (host as MoR via Stripe): the charge runs through your Stripe account. Stripe processing fees are deducted as usual, and you remain responsible for tax collection and remittance on the additional amount.
How do I confirm an ad hoc payment was received?
When a guest pays an ad hoc payment request, you will normally receive an email confirmation. If you did not receive the email, check the reservation's Financials by opening the reservation in your inbox, navigating to the Financials on the right-hand side. The Financials show all captured payments, including ad hoc requests. If the payment appears there, it was successfully captured. If it does not appear, the guest has not yet paid. You can resend the payment request from the same Send or Request Money flow.
The Financials view shows captured ad-hoc payments regardless of whether Hospitable or your Stripe account processed them.
Taxes & fees
How taxes and fees are handled on an ad-hoc charge or refund depends on your Merchant of Record:
Direct Premium & Vrbo Partner — Hospitable as MoR: Hospitable deducts any applicable taxes and the 7% service fee from the amount collected before paying it out to you. Taxes may be automatically calculated and remitted where supported. See: How to manage taxes for Direct.
Direct Basic — host as MoR via Stripe: Stripe deducts payment processing fees as usual. Hospitable will calculate any taxes you have scoped to Miscellaneous fees (adjustments) and update them in your Metrics Taxes report, but you remain responsible for configuring, collecting, and remitting those taxes.