Cancellation policy is where a park either builds trust or breaks it. Too loose, and a busy weekend hemorrhages revenue to last-minute changes. Too rigid, and a single bad-weather refund war goes viral on the Facebook RV groups. The right policy lives in between, with named time tiers, a real definition of no-show, and a separate paragraph that handles weather. The "no refunds, period" policy that some parks still use is the worst version of every option.
Why "no refunds" is a bad policy
A no-refund policy looks tough on paper. In practice it does three things. It loses you the booking entirely (price-conscious guests check the policy before they pay). It generates chargebacks (the guest who got nowhere with you goes to the bank). And it produces the kind of review that follows the park around for years (one screenshot of the policy plus a sympathetic story is all it takes). A real tiered policy gets more bookings, fewer chargebacks, and better reviews. We have not seen an exception to this in any of the parks we work with.
The tiered policy (the version that holds)
| Time Before Arrival | Refund | Why this tier |
|---|---|---|
| 14+ days | 100% of room/site charges. Booking fee refunded. | You have time to refill the site. No real cost to you. |
| 7 to 14 days | 75% refund. Booking fee forfeited. | Refill possible but harder. 25% inventory hold is fair. |
| 3 to 6 days | 50% refund. | Most last-minute bookers cancel here. The window where you start to feel it. |
| Less than 72 hours | 0% refund. First night non-refundable. | You cannot refill. The slot is dead. |
| Day of arrival | 0%. Full reservation charged. | Same as above. |
No-show: define it, enforce it
The common failure point we observe is parks treating "no-show" like everyone agrees what it means. They do not. A guest who arrives at 11 PM thinks they were never a no-show. A park that closed the office at 9 PM thinks they absolutely were. Define it on paper, at booking, with a time.
The version that works: a guest is a no-show when they have not checked in by 11 AM the day after their scheduled arrival, and have not notified the park of a late arrival. Multi-night no-shows lose all remaining nights at 10 AM on day two. The note goes in the registration card, in the booking confirmation email, and in the cancellation policy section of the website. Three places. No surprises.
Weather: park-initiated vs. guest-initiated
Weather refunds are the single most contested area in independent park policy. The fix is two paragraphs, not one. Park-initiated cancellations are always full refunds. Guest-initiated weather cancellations follow the standard tier table, with limited exceptions at park discretion.
Park-initiated (always full refund): mandatory evacuation order, park closure due to wildfire or flood, loss of utilities for more than 12 hours, health authority closure, park-side overbooking with no equivalent site. Anyone who has worked through a hurricane forecast week understands why this paragraph saves you legal exposure later.
Guest-initiated weather (standard policy applies): rain, thunderstorms, normal seasonal weather, wind below sustained 50 MPH, heat or cold within normal regional ranges, wildfire smoke without an evacuation order. Forecast weather that does not materialize is also not a refund event.
Field note: The exception we make in practice is named tropical storms with a public watch for the park's county, NWS tornado warnings for the park's county, and AQI 200+ wildfire smoke for 24+ hours. These get credit toward a future stay, not cash back. Credit costs the park almost nothing and turns the conversation from a refund fight into a re-booking conversation.
Group bookings, holiday weekends, and long stays get their own paragraph
Group bookings (10+ sites), the three big holiday weekends, and 30+ night stays should be governed by the agreement signed at booking, not by the standard policy. Memorial Day weekend is not the time to refund a guest at 50% under the 3-to-6-day tier; the inventory is too valuable. The version we see work: 60-day notice for full refund, 30-day for 50% credit, less than 30 days non-refundable, deposit non-refundable in any case. Spell it out, sign it, and move on.
Free template: cancellation, no-show, and weather policy pack (PDF)
One page of standard policy, one page of weather handling, group/holiday paragraph, signature block. View inline, download, adjust the dollar percentages and the latest-arrival time to match your park, then have your attorney review.
Legal disclaimer
This article and the linked template are provided by Campground Management as an editable starting point. Neither is legal advice. Cancellation, refund, and weather-event law varies by state and by your park's payment processor. Have a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction review the policy before publishing it.
About the author
Sean Hakes is the founder of Campground Management and has spent the last decade working with independent parks on the policy documents that determine which weekends are profitable. Send him a note if you want a hand adapting the template for your park.
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