Credit card guarantee for non-prepaid reservations

How does credit card guarantee work?

If your guests select a rate that does not have a prepayment policy configured, they will be required to provide a credit card as a guarantee before finalizing the booking. As the selected rate does not have a prepayment policy, no amount will be charged to the credit card.

What if the guest provides a debit card instead of a credit card?

If the guest provides a debit card instead of a credit card, it will be required to prepay for the full accommodation price (and the add-ons, if you have this setting active in your Booking Engine settings). Debit cards cannot be provided as a guarantee. 

They are also given the option to select other debit payment methods if you offer them, such as iDeal and Bancontact.

How can the guests know about these conditions?

There is a default message displayed to your guests in your booking engine. You can change this message as per your needs in the payment settings.

Where will the credit card details be stored?

Card details are stored in the booker profile. The data is encrypted, and you cannot consult the details, only charge them from within the reservation. Check the following article to know more: Understanding cardholder-not-present (CNP) transactions

What if the provided credit card is not valid?

The credit card information is not validated during the booking process, only after the reservation has entered your RoomRaccoon with the status booked. After this, our integrated payment system will tokenize the credit card and verify if all the information is valid, such as card number, expiration date and CCV.

If the credit card is not valid, you will receive a notification email informing that the credit card has been declined. This way, you can decide whether to cancel the booking, contact the guest to get a new guarantee or whatever is best for your business.

How to configure my booking engine to require credit card as a guarantee?

1. Go to Payments module and open Payment Settings tab
2. Select the option Require credit cards for non-prepaid reservations and save.

Good to know

• Any payment policy for external booking channels must be configured directly in the respective platform. 
• Credit card tokenization is a security protocol that protects sensitive data during online transactions. It replaces a cardholder's Primary Account Number (PAN) with a unique, randomly generated identifier, referred to as a token. Thus, cardholder information is never exposed during the payment process.