Cancellation & Refund Policy

The accommodation provider sets the cancellation terms

Derleng Free Travel LLCis the merchant of record: we take your payment and we issue your refund. But we cannot waive a provider’s cancellation terms, and we do not add charges of our own on top of them. When you cancel, we apply the provider’s terms to the amount you paid us and return what is due.

The three kinds of rate you will see

• —Free cancellation— cancellable at no cost up to a stated deadline, usually a set number of days or hours before check-in, in the property’s local time zone. Cancel before the deadline and you are refunded in full. Cancel after it and the rate is treated as non-refundable, or a charge applies.
• —Partially refundable — part of what you paid is returned and part is retained. The retained portion is set by the provider and is commonly the first night, or a percentage of the total.
• —Non-refundable — no refund at any point after booking. These rates are cheaper precisely because the provider carries no cancellation risk. If your plans might change, book a flexible rate or take travel insurance.

Where a rate’s terms are shown as varying or unavailable at the time of booking, we will confirm the applicable terms with the supplier before applying any charge, and we will not retain more than the provider does.

How to cancel

Email chhaya@derlengfree.com from the address on your account, with your booking reference and the property name. That is the only way to cancel a booking — there is no cancel button in the account area today, and a request sent any other way is not a cancellation.

What happens next

• —We acknowledge your request, normally within 24 hours.
• —We cancel the reservation with the supplier and obtain the cancellation charge, if any, that the rate carries.
• —We confirm to you in writing: that the booking is cancelled, what is being refunded, and what — if anything — is retained and why.
• —We initiate the refund. See the next section for timing.

Cancel as early as you can. On a free-cancellation rate the deadline is real and the provider enforces it to the hour; a request that arrives an hour late costs you the whole flexible benefit you paid for.

Refund method and timing

Method

Refunds are returned by the same method you paid with, to the same card, account or wallet. We cannot redirect a refund to a different card, a different person or a different payment method — that restriction is a fraud control, not an inconvenience, and it is not waivable.

If the original method has expired or been closed, tell us when you cancel and we will agree an alternative route with you. That takes longer and may require additional verification.

Timing

• —We initiate the refund within 5 business days of confirming the cancellation with the supplier. That part is within our control and is the commitment we make.
• —Card refunds then take a further 5–10 business days to appear, depending on your bank. That part is not within our control.
• —Crypto and stablecoin refunds are normally settled within 3–7 business days of initiation, subject to network conditions.
• —Where a charge was only authorised and never captured — which is what happens when a supplier declines a booking — there is nothing to refund. The hold is released and drops off your statement, typically within 5–7 business days.

Refunds are issued in the currency of the original payment. If your bank converted that payment into another currency, the amount you receive back may differ slightly because your bank applies its own rate on the way out and on the way back. That difference is your bank’s, not a deduction by us.

We do not charge a cancellation or administration fee. What is retained on a cancellation is the provider’s charge under the rate terms, and nothing else.

No-shows and early departure

No-show

If you do not arrive and have not cancelled, the booking is a no-show. Providers charge no-shows in full on almost every rate, including rates that would have been freely cancellable had you cancelled in time. There is normally no refund.

A booking the provider refuses because the guest details do not match the traveller — a different name, or identification that does not correspond to the reservation — is treated as a no-show.

Late arrival

If you will arrive later than the property’s stated check-in window, tell us or the property in advance. An unannounced late arrival can be released as a no-show by the property.

Early departure

Leaving before your booked check-out date does not automatically entitle you to a refund of the unused nights. Most providers charge the full booked stay. Where a provider does agree to release the remaining nights, we pass that refund on to you in full.

If you leave early because the property failed to deliver what was booked, that is a service complaint rather than an early departure. Raise it with the property at the time, get something in writing if you can, and then contact us — see the disputes section.

Changing a booking

To change dates, guest names, room type or occupancy, email chhaya@derlengfree.com with your booking reference and the change you want. We will ask the supplier.

• —Amendments are at the provider’s discretion. Many non-refundable rates cannot be amended at all.
• —Where an amendment is possible, the new dates or room are repriced at the rate available at that moment — not at the rate you originally paid. If the new price is higher, the difference is payable; if it is lower, we refund the difference.
• —A provider may charge an amendment fee. Where it does, we pass it on at cost and show it to you before you commit.
• —A correction to a misspelled guest name is usually free. A change to a different guest is a name change and is often treated as a cancellation and rebooking.
• —Nothing is changed until we confirm it to you in writing.

If the provider will not amend, your alternatives are to keep the booking as it stands or to cancel it under the rate terms above. Cancelling and rebooking is sometimes cheaper than amending — we will tell you when that is the case rather than let you take the more expensive route.

What happens to your LENG cashback

Cashback is a promotional reward tied to a stay that actually happens. The rules below are binding and apply to every booking that earns cashback.

When a booking is cancelled or refunded

• —Cancellation, refund, dispute or chargeback before the cashback becomes available — the pending cashback on that booking is not released. It does not enter your balance, and nothing is retained from it.
• —Partial refund — the same applies: pending cashback on a partially refunded booking is not released. Where we choose to credit a reduced amount reflecting what you actually paid and kept, we will tell you the figure and how it was reached.
• —No-show or early departure charged as non-refundable — the cashback stands. It is calculated on the amount actually charged, because that amount was a real payment for a real booking.

Cashback is calculated on the amount you paid for accommodation. It is not earned on taxes and fees collected by the property directly at check-in, on amendment fees, or on any amount refunded to you. See the Terms of Service for the platform-fixed LENG rate and for the conduct rules under which cashback can be withheld.

Events outside anyone’s control

Natural disaster, extreme weather, war, civil unrest, epidemic, government or border restriction, strike, utility or infrastructure failure and similar events can make a stay impossible or unsafe. These are outside the control of you, of us, and usually of the provider.

• —Where a provider cancels or closes, we refund in full what you paid us for that booking — regardless of whether the rate was non-refundable.
• —Where the provider is open and able to host you but you choose or are unable to travel, the rate’s normal cancellation terms apply. A non-refundable rate stays non-refundable. This is the situation travel insurance exists for.
• —Where a provider offers a credit, voucher or waiver in these circumstances, we will put that option to you rather than decide for you.
• —We will always ask a provider for a goodwill waiver in a genuine force-majeure situation, and we will tell you honestly what the answer was.

Neither we nor the provider is liable for consequential costs arising from such an event — flights, onward travel, replacement accommodation or loss of enjoyment. Our liability is limited as set out in the Terms of Service.

If something goes wrong

If the property was not as described, was not delivered, or a charge is wrong, raise it with us at chhaya@derlengfree.com with your booking reference and anything supporting it — photographs, correspondence with the property, a receipt.

• —Raise it as early as you can, and ideally during the stay: a problem a property can fix while you are still there is one you do not need a refund for.
• —We acknowledge within 2 business days and aim to resolve or give you a substantive answer within 14 days.
• —Where the fault is the provider’s, we pursue it with the provider and pass on any recovery in full.
• —Where the fault is ours — a booking we mishandled, a charge we got wrong — we fix it and refund without argument.

Before you raise a chargeback

Please contact us first. A chargeback on a charge that was correct under the rate terms you accepted does not change those terms, takes months to resolve, and — as set out above — reclaims any cashback earned on the booking. Almost every case is settled faster by email.

This policy forms part of the Terms of Service and is governed by the same law. The current version is always published at https://www.derlengfree.com/cancellation, and the terms that apply to your booking are the ones in force when the booking was made.