Cancellation & refund policy

Samia’s cancellation terms are the same for every venue — one clear standard, so you always know where you stand. Nothing is committed to the venue until your booking is confirmed. After that, your payment is held, not charged, until after your event, and how much comes back if you cancel depends on how close to the event you are.

• Before your booking is confirmed: Cancel any time, free of charge.
• 20 days or more before the event: Full refund.
• 10–19 days before the event: The 30% deposit is non-refundable; the rest is refunded.
• 9 days or fewer before the event: No refund.

Before your booking is confirmed, no payment has been taken or held — cancelling costs nothing. Once you confirm, a hold is placed on your payment method — the amount is reserved but not taken. It is only captured after your event has taken place. If you cancel with a full refund due, the hold is simply released. If a deposit is due, only that portion is captured and the rest is released. See our Payment Terms for how holds, captures, and refunds work.

You can cancel from your bookings page any time before the day of your event. What comes back follows the schedule above:

• Not yet confirmed: cancel any time, free of charge — nothing has been committed to the venue yet.
• 20 days or more before the event: your held payment is released in full — a 100% refund.
• 10–19 days before the event: the 30% deposit is non-refundable, and the rest is refunded.
• 9 days or fewer before the event: the booking is non-refundable.

The deposit that’s kept goes to the venue, in recognition of the date being held for you. Everything beyond the deposit always comes back.

Once the event day has arrived, self-cancellation is closed — the system will tell you the event date has already passed. After the day, the question is no longer “cancel or not” but “did the event go as it should have”. If something went wrong, you raise a dispute instead. See our Dispute Resolution Policy.

If you book, don’t cancel before the event, and don’t turn up, the booking still stands and is charged in full once the event auto-completes. The simple rule: if you don’t cancel before the event, the booking stands. So if your plans change, cancel — the earlier you do, the more you get back.

If a venue declines or cancels your booking before the event, you are made whole — your held payment is released in full and you pay nothing, whatever the timing. That protection is automatic; the deposit schedule never applies to a venue-initiated cancellation.

Where we can, our team will also help you find an alternative venue for your date. That is a goodwill and coordination effort on our part, not a guarantee, and we don’t promise a like-for-like replacement. Contact us and we’ll do what we can.

Severe weather, security situations, and family emergencies don’t always fit a simple schedule, and sometimes a cancellation is contested — one side sees it differently. In any of these cases, contact Samia and we’ll handle it through our dispute process, where a person reviews the situation and decides a fair outcome. See our Dispute Resolution Policy.

The schedule above is the current Samia standard. If we ever revise it, the change applies only to new bookings — a booking already confirmed keeps the terms that were in force when you made it. You’ll always see the exact terms before you pay.

A released hold goes back to the payment method you used. Mobile money — EVC Plus, ZAAD, or SAHAL — usually clears quickly; card releases can take a few business days depending on your bank. You can follow the status from your bookings page, and if anything looks stuck, contact us.