Nothing is charged until you’re accepted
When you ask to join a paid experience your card is authorised, not charged. The money only moves once the host says yes. If they pass, or the request expires without an answer, the hold falls away and you keep your money.
So a request you never hear back on costs you nothing.
If you’re a guest and you cancel
What comes back depends on the policy the host set, which is shown on the experience before you commit. Free experiences are always flexible.
- Flexible — full refund any time before it starts.
- Moderate — full refund if you cancel at least 48 hours before; half back inside 48 hours.
- Strict — full refund at least 7 days before; half between 7 days and 48 hours; nothing inside 48 hours.
Once it has started, there’s no refund under any policy.
None of that is a reason to go quiet. Cancel the moment you know. A seat you don’t use is one the host held for you and turned someone else away for, and cancelling early is usually the difference between a gap they can fill and one they can’t.
If you’re a host and you cancel
Every guest gets a full refund, regardless of the policy you set. The policy governs guest cancellations; it never protects you from your own.
That’s deliberate. Someone rearranged their evening around a thing you said was happening.
If you have to cancel, message everyone as early as you can, and certainly before people would be setting off. Cancelling badly does far more damage to whether people come back than cancelling does.
Choosing a policy
If you’re not sure, pick flexible. Strict makes sense when a place genuinely costs you something to hold — you’ve bought ingredients, booked a space, turned people away. It reads as unfriendly on a casual evening where it isn’t protecting anything real, and on a first experience it can be the thing that stops someone requesting at all.
No-shows
Accepted guests who never arrive are recorded as no-shows after the event ends. It happens automatically from check-ins rather than a host marking anyone absent, so nobody has to make an awkward judgement call on the night.
It follows the guest, not the host. That’s the point of it: hosts choosing who joins can see whether someone actually turns up to what they say yes to. One is a bad week. A pattern is a pattern.
If you’re a guest, this is the strongest argument for cancelling rather than quietly not going. A cancellation is a normal thing that happens. A no-show is a record.
If something goes wrong with a payment
Refunds are issued through Wello so they stay attached to the booking. If a refund hasn’t reached you after a few working days, that’s usually your bank rather than the refund not having been sent, but tell us and we’ll look.
A general guide to how cancellations and refunds work on Wello. The policy and refund windows shown on the experience itself are the ones that apply to your booking — always check them before you commit. Nothing here overrides your statutory rights as a consumer. See also How joining works.