Hopper Cancellation Policy Could Disrupt Short-Term Rentals
Skift Take
Hopper aims to be a big player in short-term rentals, and it's still under development cancel-for-any-reason feature could draw a ton of positive attention from hosts and guests. It could either mean a ton of red ink for Hopper or, if successful, spur competitors to scurry to offer knock-offs.
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Hopper's still-in-formation plan to offer a cancel-for-any-reason feature for vacation rental bookings could reverberate throughout the sector — if Hopper doesn't go broke trying it.
With this product, which the company said it plans to introduce "in the next few months," Hopper would enable guests to pay a fee — the amount of which hasn't been specified and would fluctuate — and then cancel their vacation rental bookings for any reason, and receive an 80 percent to 100 percent refund from Hopper, a spokeswoman said.
Host would be huge beneficiaries, as well.
"Hopper pays out the cost of the stay in full to the host, as if the customer did not cancel," the spokeswoman said. "Hopper takes on the financial risk with all of its fintech products."
Of course, the terms and conditions would be all-important with this feature. Would guests be able to cancel because a new Covid variant was spreading like a Cali
