Troubleshoot cancellation failures

Learn how to diagnose and resolve cancellation failures for accommodation reservations, car rentals, and standalone car insurance policies (Beta).

v3.2 Beta

Cancellation requests may fail if the travel service is no longer eligible for cancellation, required information is missing, or the request cannot be processed.

This guide explains how to:

• Verify whether a travel service can still be cancelled.
• Troubleshoot common cancellation failures.
• Interpret the most common API responses.
• Determine whether a request should be retried.
• Confirm the final cancellation status.

Before investigating a failed cancellation request, retrieve the latest order details and verify the current state of the travel service.

Confirm that:

Before cancelling a standalone car insurance policy, verify that:

• The reservation includes an insurance policy.
• The insurance policy has not already been cancelled.
• The associated car rental reservation is still active (confirmed).

If any of these conditions are not met, the insurance cancellation request fails.

The following scenarios prevent a cancellation request from succeeding.

Accommodation reservations cannot be cancelled when:

• The reservation has already been cancelled.
• The stay has been completed (the status is stayed).
• The reservation has been marked as a no_show.
• The reservation was cancelled by the accommodation provider.

Car rental reservations cannot be cancelled when:

• The reservation has not yet been confirmed.
• The rental has already been completed.
• The reservation has already been cancelled.

Standalone car insurance policies cannot be cancelled when:

• No insurance policy exists for the car rental reservation.
• The insurance policy has already been cancelled.
• The associated car rental reservation has already been cancelled.

The following table summarises the most common errors returned by the /orders/cancel endpoint.

Not every error should be retried.

If the travel service is no longer eligible for cancellation, the API returns an order_not_cancellable error.

For example, attempting to cancel an accommodation reservation after the check-in date may return:

{
  "request_id": "01jc0echvzdvwt4g1vc0yj280f",
  "errors": [
    {
      "id": "order_not_cancellable",
      "message": "The order is no longer cancellable. Check-in date was yyyy-mm-dd."
    }
  ]
}

If the reservation has already been cancelled, the API returns a similar error:

{
  "request_id": "01jc0echvzdvwt4g1vc0yj280f",
  "errors": [
    {
      "id": "order_not_cancellable",
      "message": "The order is not cancellable. The order has already been cancelled."
    }
  ]
}

Car rental and standalone car insurance cancellations are processed asynchronously.

If /orders/cancel returns:

{
  "data": {
    "status": "processing"
  }
}

this means the cancellation request has been accepted but has not yet completed.

If the cancellation is still not reflected after waiting up to one hour:

1. Retrieve the latest car order details using /orders/details/cars/live (Beta).
2. Verify whether the reservation or insurance status has changed to cancelled.
3. If the status remains unchanged after repeated checks, contact support.

Follow these recommendations to minimise cancellation failures and improve the traveller experience.

Cancellation eligibility and applicable fees can change over time.

Before calling /orders/cancel, always verify:

• The current travel service status.
• The applicable cancellation policy.
• Any cancellation fees.
• Insurance eligibility, where applicable.

Avoid unnecessary API calls by validating that:

• The travel service exists.
• All required request parameters are present.
• The travel service is still eligible for cancellation.

Only retry requests for temporary server or network errors.

Do not retry validation errors (400), missing resources (404), or business rule conflicts (409) without first resolving the underlying issue.

The confirmation process depends on the travel service:

To verify that the cancellation has been completed:

• Accommodation reservations are cancelled synchronously - A successful response from /orders/cancel confirms that the reservation has already been cancelled.

• Car rental reservations and standalone car insurance policies are cancelled asynchronously:

  • A processing response confirms that the cancellation request has been accepted.
  • Retrieve the latest car order details later to verify that the reservation or insurance policy status has changed to cancelled.

Before releasing your integration, test scenarios such as:

• Free cancellations.
• Cancellations with fees.
• Already cancelled reservations.
• Completed or non-cancellable reservations.
• Car rental cancellations.
• Standalone car insurance cancellations.
• Temporary server failures and retry behaviour.

Testing these scenarios helps ensure a reliable cancellation experience for travellers and reduces operational issues in production.