Hotels are under increasing pressure to offer flexibility without weakening rate strategy or creating refund risk. As guest expectations around cancellations continue to shift, balancing booking confidence with revenue protection has become a growing commercial challenge.

Through the live partnership between Aven Hospitality and Protect Group, hotels using the Aven Hospitality Booking Engine can now offer Refund Protect directly at checkout, giving guests the option to upgrade to a refundable stay while allowing hotels to maintain their existing cancellation policies.

Refund Protect gives guests added peace of mind by enabling them to receive a refund if they need to cancel for a covered reason, without requiring the hotel to change its standard booking terms. This helps reduce hesitation during the booking process, improving confidence at the point of purchase and supporting stronger direct booking conversion.

For hotels, the value goes beyond flexibility. Refund Protect allows operators to offer refundability without weakening their pricing strategy or relying on stricter booking conditions. It also creates an additional revenue stream through revenue share on every Refund Protect policy sold, helping strengthen commercial performance while reducing friction at checkout.

Activation is managed through the Protect Group Onboarding Platform, which provides hotels with a guided setup experience, configuration controls, and the tools needed to launch quickly within their existing booking flow. The solution is available globally, free to activate, and designed to integrate without adding operational burden for on-property teams.

Rather than introducing new refund policies or creating manual refund handling, hotels can offer guests a clear, optional protection layer that supports both sides of the transaction.

Ethan Wiseman, Head of Distribution, Product Management at Aven Hospitality, said:

“We are dedicated to ensuring hoteliers’ guests can book with confidence. Protect Group delivers an at-scale, global solution to enable a more frictionless guest experience. By making Refund Protect available through the Aven Hospitality Booking Engine and simplifying activation through the Protect Group Onboarding Platform, we are giving hotels a practical way to deliver more flexibility for guests while supporting stronger commercial outcomes.”

Austin Lopez, Global Strategy Lead for Hospitality at Protect Group, added:

“This go-live marks an important step in modernising the hotel booking journey. Refund Protect helps hotels offer an experience guests increasingly expect: the ability to choose refundability at the moment they book, delivered in a way that is simple to implement and easy to manage.”

As direct booking strategies continue to evolve, solutions that improve trust, reduce booking friction, and unlock ancillary revenue are becoming increasingly important. Refund Protect offers hotels a practical way to strengthen booking confidence while protecting revenue certainty, without changing the policies that support long-term profitability.