What’s the “Right of Regret” in Brazil?

Updated 3 years ago
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The Right of Regret refers to Article 49 of Statute 8.078/90 of the Brazilian Consumer Defense Code (CDC). This law allows consumers to withdraw from a contract within seven days and receive a full refund of any payments made. It applies to payments made for both products and services – including accommodation reservations.

How does this affect properties in Brazil?

Under this law, Brazilian guests have the right to cancel reservations at Brazilian properties for free up to seven days after the booking confirmation date, regardless of the property’s cancellation policy. If the check-in date is less than seven days after booking, guests can cancel for free until 11 am on the check-in date. If a guest changes their check-in date, this law still applies from the original booking confirmation date.


What do I need to do?

If you have a property located in Brazil, you’re responsible for refunding all reservations made in Brazil that are canceled within this seven-day period. To minimize the impact on your operations, we recommend only charging a guest’s credit card seven days after their booking confirmation date. If any charges are made earlier than the first seven days, you’ll need to issue a full refund if a guest requests it.

Here’s how to see which reservations are no longer in the seven-day window and which ones you can charge:

  1. Log in to the Extranet.
  2. Click Reservations.
  3. Click Date of, then select Reservation from the drop-down menu.
  4. Count back eight days from today, then enter that date in the Until field (e.g. today is January 1, 2021, then you’d enter December 24, 2020 in this field).
  5. Click Show.

You can charge reservations that appear in this filter without the risk of refunding them later due to this law.

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