Refunds and Cancellations

Hosts can sell tickets, and can also run an event free to attend. These rules apply wherever money has changed hands for a ticket. A free event has nothing to refund.

This page sets out the rules that apply. It is published so that hosts choosing a plan, and attendees deciding whether to trust an event, can read the terms before either is asked for payment.

Subscription plans are separate from tickets and are covered under plan subscriptions below.

A host can cancel their own event at any time, for any reason. A canceled event remains visible to the people who signed up rather than disappearing, and everyone who signed up is emailed, because people who signed up need to know that the event is not taking place.

A buyer can cancel their own ticket up to the cutoff the host sets. Each event carries its own cutoff, chosen by the host when they set the event up, and it is shown before you pay. After that point, self-serve cancellation closes, because the host has already committed to a room, a venue, and a headcount.

A host may set no cutoff at all. Where that is the case, tickets for that event will not be self-serve refundable, and this will be stated before you pay.

Cancel inside the host’s window and you are refunded the price of the ticket. The platform fee is not returned.

The fee covers the work of processing the booking, which takes place whether or not you attend. Where the host chose to absorb the fee rather than add it to your total, you never paid it separately and you will receive what you paid; the fee is retained from the host’s side in that case.

After the cutoff, a ticket is not self-serve refundable. You may still ask the host, and hosts may refund whoever they choose, whenever they choose. That is a matter between you and them.

Every buyer is refunded in full, including the platform fee. You receive back everything you paid, whether the fee was added to your total or absorbed by the host.

We do not profit from a host canceling. The fee is returned rather than retained, because charging for a booking that produced no event would be charging for nothing.

Tickets for a canceled event are voided and cannot be used. No action is required from you: refunds are returned automatically to the card used for payment.

Live events run over live connections, and a failure is possible. What you are owed depends on what occurred.

• The event never starts, for any reason. Treated as a host cancellation: full refund, fee included.
• The event is abandoned before any round is completed. Treated the same way: full refund, fee included.
• The event is cut short after some rounds have been played. The host decides whether to refund, in full or in part, and we will process that decision.
• The event runs but a technical failure on our side made it unplayable. Contact us and we will refund in full, fee included, without requiring the host to arbitrate.
• A player's own phone or internet fails. The game holds a player's place and reconnects them, so this is not usually a refund situation. If you missed the event entirely, ask the host.

The principle we hold ourselves to is this: where the platform is the reason an event did not take place, we refund without argument, and we return our fee.

Refunds will be issued to the original payment method through Stripe. We do not send refunds by any other route, and we cannot refund to a card other than the one used.

Once a refund is issued, the funds typically appear within 5 to 10 business days. That window is set by your bank or card issuer, not by us or by Stripe, and we cannot expedite it. A refund on a canceled event is issued at the point of cancellation.

Start with the host. The host knows what happened at their event, can refund you directly, and is almost always faster.

If the host does not resolve it, email us at hello@hivehousegames.com. Include the event, the date, and the email address you booked with. We hold the order record and can see what was charged and what was refunded. We will review it and tell you what we find, including where the answer is that the decision is the host’s.

A card chargeback should be the last step, not the first. You are entitled to raise one with your bank. Note that a chargeback recovers the money from the host rather than from us, is slower than a refund, and cannot be reversed once it is decided.

A host’s plan subscription is separate from event tickets, and this page’s ticket rules do not apply to it.

You can cancel a plan at any time. Canceling stops the next renewal, and you keep the paid features until the end of the period you have already paid for. We do not prorate a refund for the remainder of a period you chose to leave early.

If you upgrade mid-cycle you pay only the difference, with credit for what remains on the old plan. If you were charged in error, email us and we will correct it.

Refund questions go to hello@hivehousegames.com. This policy forms part of the terms of service.