Step 6 - Create policies

Use the Policies API to create, modify, and retrieve cancellation policies for your properties.

Cancellation policies are specific to a property. You must create cancellation policies on the property level but assign them on the roomrate level.

In this tutorial, we create a non-refundable cancellation policy with the following conditions:

The guest can cancel free of charge until 2 days before arrival.
The guest will be charged 50% of the total price if they cancel in the 2 days before arrival.
If the guest doesn't show up, they will be charged the total price of the reservation.

Prerequisites

You must have a property ID by completing step 2 successfully.

Creating a cancellation policy

POST
https://supply-xml.booking.com/policy-api/properties/{property_id}/policies

Note down the policy ID in the response. You'll need it when creating the roomrate in step 12.

Path parameters

The following table describes the elements you must specify in the path:

Element	Description	Type	Required/ Optional	Notes
`property_id`	Specifies the unique ID of the property.	integer	required

Request body parameters

All parameters are required unless otherwise noted.

Parameter	Description
`Request`	Root element
> `Policies`	Contains the cancellation policy information you want to create for a property. There is a limit to the total number of cancellation policies you can create, that is, 7 for properties.
>> `Policy`	Contains cancellation, guarantee payment and no show penalty fees for the policy. For more information on cancellation, guarantee payment and noshow penalty conditions, see Understanding cancellation policy penalty conditions.
`type`	Specifies the policy type. Currently, the API supports only `Cancellation`.
>>> `CancelPenalty`	Contains the details of the cancellation penalty assigned to the policy.
`PolicyCode`	Specifies the Booking.com cancellation code that suits your business needs. For a full list of cancellation codes and their descriptions, see the cancellation policy codes.
>>> `GuaranteePayment`	Contains guarantee payment details. Certain penalty codes accept only specific combinations of `Required` and `EffectiveFrom` values. For example, a non-refundable penalty code must have the `Required` attribute always set to `true` and the fully-flexible penalty code must have the `Required` attribute always set to `false`. Except for the penalty codes specified in the Penalty code and guarantee payment matrix, you can specify any guarantee payment value for all other penalty codes.
`Required`	Indicates whether a guarantee payment is mandatory. Possible values are: - `true`: Guarantee payment required - `false`: Guarantee payment is not required For CancelPenalty `PolicyCode`= `1`,`152`,`166` and `168`, see the Penalty code and guarantee payment matrix.
`EffectiveFrom`	[Mandatory only when Required = "true"] Specifies when the guarantee payment is charged. Mandatory only when `Required = "true"`. Possible values are: - `after_reservation_is_made`: Use if you want the guests to make a payment immediately after reservation. - `after_cancellation_fee_begins`: Use if you want the guests to make a payment after the free cancellation window has closed. If `Required = "false"`, then any value provided here is ignored. For CancelPenalty `PolicyCode` = `1`, `166` and `168`, see the Penalty code and guarantee payment matrix.
>>> `NoShowPolicy`	[Optional] Contains the no show penalty details.
`Penalty`	[Optional] Specifies the penalty charged in case the guest does not turn up for the reservation. Possible values are: - `default`: Use if you want the no show penalty to follow the cancellation fee. - `total_price`: Use if you want the no show penalty to equal the total reservation price. By default, the API creates a policy with a no show penalty that equals the cancellation penalty.

Sample request

This is a sample request for a cancellation policy with code 55.

<Request>
   <Policies>
      <Policy Type="Cancellation">
         <CancelPenalty PolicyCode="55" />
         <GuaranteePayment Required="true" EffectiveFrom="after_reservation_is_made">
         </GuaranteePayment>
         <NoShowPolicy Penalty="total_price" />
      </Policy>
   </Policies>
</Request>

Sample response

A successful response looks as follows:

Note down the Policy ID from the response which we will use in step 12: Add roomrate.

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<Response>
    <Success/>
    <Policies>
        <Policy Id="419417191" GroupName="non refundable" Type="Cancellation">
            <CancelPenalty PolicyCode="55">
                <PenaltyDescription>
                    <text>The guest can cancel free of charge until 2 days before arrival. The guest will be charged 50% of the total price if they cancel in the 2 days before arrival. If the guest doesn't show up, they will be charged the total price of the reservation.</text>
                </PenaltyDescription>
            </CancelPenalty>
            <NoShowPolicy Penalty="total_price"/>
            <GuaranteePayment Required="true" EffectiveFrom="after_reservation_is_made">
                <TPA_Extensions>
                    <Description>The guest will be charged a prepayment of 50% of the total price after reservation.</Description>
                </TPA_Extensions>
            </GuaranteePayment>
        </Policy>
    </Policies>
</Response>
<!-- RUID: [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX] -->