In simple terms, Sherpa's cancellation policy is:
A full, automatic refund if a lesson is cancelled with more than 12 hours' notice.
An automatic 50% refund when cancelled from the student's side with less than 12 hours' notice.
Rescheduling
It's likely that just rescheduling the booking could solve the issue, which can be done before a lesson starts to avoid any cancellation fees or waiting on a refund. We recommend that you give your tutor as much notice as possible.
Late cancellations (by the student)
If you are going to cancel a booking, especially at late notice, please let your tutor know via message as they may understand and cancel it for you, so that you receive a full refund.
Cancelling within 12 hours of the start time will result in a late cancellation fee of 50% of the booking cost. This is to compensate the tutor for reserving the lesson time and for any preparatory work carried out.
If this was done due to an emergency, message your tutor as soon as possible so they can consider authorising a full refund. This needs to be done within 48 hours of the scheduled lesson. You can also view our refund policy.
Late cancellations (by the tutor)
When a tutor cancels a confirmed booking that has been paid for (with less than 24 hours' notice), a full refund is automatically triggered by the system and will be received within 5-10 business days. This may affect your relationship and business with a student, so please ensure this only happens under mitigating circumstances.
Failed payment
If there has been a failed payment, we will notify you by email and give you until 12 hours before the lesson to update the payment details before the lesson gets automatically cancelled after a final attempt. You can do this from your Bookings page.
If a lesson is accepted within 12 hours of the start time and the payment method fails, the booking automatically gets cancelled. An email notification will confirm the lesson has been cancelled for this reason.