Sandals and Beaches Resorts Implements New Cancellation Policy

Sandals Resorts and Beaches Resorts just announced they will be implementing a new cancellation policy for changes and cancellations to all new reservations made on December 1st, 2022, going forward.

Many may remember the old policy of final payment being due 45 days prior to travel, with the booking becoming non-refundable 30 days prior to arrival (with 50% penalty on the land portion for 30-15 days prior to arrival and 100% penalty on the land portion for 14 days or less prior to arrival). Let's check out what is new...

The New Policy For Bookings Made On Or After December 1st, 2022:

Final payment is now due 60 days prior to travel.
Bookings fully refundable up until 45 days prior to travel.
Bookings cancelled or revised within 45-31 days prior to travel will be subject to a 50% penalty on the land portion.
Bookings cancelled or reviews within 30 days or less prior to travel will be subject to a 100% penalty on the land portion.

What If You Booked Your Trip Prior To December 1st, 2022?

The good news is that your booking will continue to follow the old policy (mentioned above and found on your terms and conditions of your original invoice). Per the new policy, even if you make a revision to your booing after December 1st, 2022, it will still follow the old policy as long as your booking itself was made prior to this new policy going into effect.

Changes To Deposits On The Brand's Top Suites:

Another noticeable change with this policy is that there will be new and revised fees for the resort brand's top suite categories. The Overwater Villas and Bungalows used to be a non-refundable/non-transferrable deposit of $1,000, which is now changing to a non-refundable/non-transferrable $2,500 as of December 1st, 2022.

There will now be the addition of Poolside and Seaside Bungalows (like the ones found at the brand new Sandals Royal Curacao) which will now require a non-refundable/non-transferrable $1,000 deposit as of December 1st, 2022.

At the moment, those are the only top suites mentioned for the refreshed deposit policy. All other room categories across the brand will continue to have a $400 deposit due which is still able to be split between two payments of $98 upfront with $302 due 21 days after the first deposit.

UPDATE [as of August 2023]:

Sandals has quietly become more strict on not allowing last minute booking changes. In the past, there has been some flexibility when making last minute changes to push dates out while within the penalty period (once bookings become non-refundable). Say you had a trip and were set to leave in three weeks but you had something come up and couldn't travel. You didn't have travel insurance so you reached out to your travel agent (or Sandals direct) and requested to switch your dates to three months later instead. Usually, Sandals would approve and because the cost of the room was normally more, the change fees would be waved.

Now, Sandals is no longer even allowing you to change with change fees. They are requiring you to cancel your reservation and submit to insurance to get a voucher and then use that to rebook. Therefore, it is HIGHLY recommended you purchase insurance (either through Sandals or a third party carrier) to protect your vacation investment in case you have to make any last minute changes or cancellations.

Why the change? Unfortunately, too many guests were making last minute changes like this with their trips and it was taking up too much room inventory from guests that genuinely wanted to book those dates, forcing Sandals to crack down with this new policy.