Ctrip has introduced a new hotel booking cancellation policy across nearly 100,000 hotels that did not allow booking cancellation. Under the new policy, customers can cancel their bookings before 18:00 on the check-in day and pay only 10% of the room rate as penalty. 

“No-cancellation” bookings in the past apply to certain room categories and bookings for those were not allowed to be changed or canceled, or a penalty will be imposed. Before the new cancellation policy was applied, hotel guests who failed to check in or had to cancel bookings had to pay the full amount of the room rate in general. This has been a contentious issue with travelers.

Under the new cancellation policy, Ctrip allows cancellation with no penalty before 17:00 10 days ahead of the check-in date, whereas cancellation before 18:00 on the check-in day will incur 10% room rate as a cancellation charge. No cancellation will be entertained after 18:00 on the check-in day.

In September, Ctrip launched the “No Deposit” and “Pay Later” features. Before that, it introduced the X Plan linking vertical services. The plan ensures that if a hotel cannot honor a confirmed booking, the guests will get as much as the first night's room rate for compensation, and hotels will not charge cancellation or service fees.