RANCHO JACONA CANCELLATION POLICIES: 9/2011

CANCELLATION WITH SUFFICIENT NOTICE: For any partial or total cancellation requiring a refund of deposit, we retain $10 as a cancellation charge to cover bookkeeping expenses.If you paid by check, you will receive the total deposit (less $10) by check.If you paid by credit card, you will receive 96% of the deposit (less 10$) as a credit on your card. The credit card handlers will already have eaten 4% of it before we ever saw it.If the refund is made some months after the original deposit, the credit card handlers may not permit the refund (the original transaction having lapsed in their records) in which case you will be sent a check for the same amount. (Effective for all reservations made subsequent to September 1, 2011.)

IN SEASON RENTALS:  Full or partial cancellation of One or Two Houses In Season requires Sixty Days Notice. For three houses, Ninety days notice. For four or more houses One Hundred Twenty Days notice.  Partial cancellation would be shortening the stay.  Changing dates, if other dates in the same season are available, is not cancellation.)

OFF SEASON RENTALS: Full or partial cancellation of one house Thirty days.Two houses, sixty days.Three or more houses, ninety days.

WAY OFF SEASON RENTALS: Full or partial cancellation of one house, two weeks (15 days) for two houses, thirty days.  For three houses or more, six weeks..

CANCELLATION WITHOUT SUFFICIENT NOTICE: We retain your deposit. The deposit may, however, be reused at any time during 18 months following the date of the reservation for any stay of the same pre-tax dollar value as the original reservation.The deposit may be used only by those making the original reservation unless they have personally arranged with Rancho Jacona to transfer the credit to some other, identified, person for a specified house and dates.If this is done, sufficient time must be allowed for the user to be supplied with the same information sent to all guests prior to their arrival. 

***********************The Reasons For the Policies*******************

Rancho Jacona has only eleven houses.This means we don’t have extra rooms and houses to play with and “hold” for people.  People who use the web to take fantasy vacations often use a credit card to“hold” places they have little or no intention of visiting, and we can’t afford to play that game.   We rent our houses only when we receive a deposit of fifty percent of the total rental before taxes, and those considering making that deposit should understand why.

The cancellation period depends upon season of year, and number of houses involved.   Think of staying at Rancho Jacona rather like going on a cruise.  You aren’t paying for any old conveniently vacant bunk. You’re buying a named house, equipped as described, for specified dates: a house that will be cleaned and supplied for you.  Once you’ve bought that house and date, it can not and will not be sold to anyone else.  We can’t “overbook” the way hotels and motels do, because they have dozens or hundreds of identical, anonymous rooms to play with, and our staff is resident, not larger or smaller according to need.  Cleaning schedules are set well ahead and extra people are hired in advance.  Late cancellations affect these arrangements and are sometimes very costly.

SEASON OF THE YEAR.  Our cancellation policies are based on the degree of difficulty we will have in re-renting the house being cancelled.  In Season, given six months notice, it’s probable we’ll re-rent one house without any trouble, but if three houses are cancelled on two weeks notice, we probably won’t be able to re-rent them at all.  In Season reservations at Jacona are usually made months in advance and chances are that we have already turned away those likely to have been interested.  Also, if you have rented a house for one week In Season, and then want to cancel two nights of it, and those two nights are sandwiched between your reservation and another one leaving just before you, those nights cannot be re-rented at all.  We aren’t staffed to do two nighters.   You would lose your deposit for those nights.

THE NUMBER OF HOUSES INVOLVED:   If several houses are rented for a single event, such as a family reunion, it makes no difference if one person makes the reservation or several people reserve separate houses.  In either case, the same notice must be provided in order to receive a refund or refunds.  If the reservation is In Season and the total number of houses rented is three, then the In Season notice for “Multi-House” rentals would be applied.  “Multi House rentals” include “Any four or more houses of any size rented in concert and for the same dates”, or “Any three houses rented in concert if they include Butterfly or Frog or Rabbit.” That is, roughly, enough houses suitable for 15 -20 people, one third or more of our total capacity.

(NOTE:   A deposit made for nights that are subsequently cancelled can be used as payment for the balance of the reservation only if sufficient notice is given and if the cancellation leaves rentable days on the calendar.  If your reservation began on the same day that someone else’s reservation ended,  lopping one or two nights from the start of your reservation would result in one or two un-rentable days, as Jacona is not staffed to provide lodging for fewer than three nights.  In such a case, you would forfeit the deposit for those two nights.)

All policies are subject to variation in cases of verifiable emergency situations.