India Hosts Unable to Charge Credit Cards
We have a big problem being unable to actually charge a fee to No-Show or Cancelled bookings.
We are a Guest House in India and have found that the banking system here does not allow us to charge a credit/debit when the card is not present. (ie MOTO or CNP). We have 2 POS machines and neither has a MOTO function. We queried with our bank and they tell us the function is not available. So despite us having the ability to view the customer credit card details (albeit without the CCV anyway) we are unable to recoup any costs from No-Shows and lose out a lot because of this. Effectively every customer gets a cancellation fee-free booking regardless of our policies.
Would love to hear from other hosts who have encountered this issue or found a solution ?
Yes, many of us in the same predicament, welcome to the club!
BDC are fully aware of our losses and in turn theirs but have done absolutely nothing to help.
The only way around this, IF available in your country, is using a third party card processing company, a few have been mentioned in this forum, none of which are available where I am.
Same in Indonesia. Banks will not let MOTO type entries. So BDC card collection useless. I use PayPal to Bill guests. Also Mandiri bank ecommerce site. Both of which are a pain. MOTO would be better
Thank you so much for the question! I raised it many times but helpless, they do absolutely nothing and always support guests. Though it could be their income as well...
If it is not a prepaid booking then it is no option to charge this type of guests. In our place, we have many competitors so that advance payments is no option for us, only in very high season time.
We really have a lot of losses because guests do not mind cancellation policy or they can just tell: charge my card! Well... and what?
I have, in conjunction with my Indonesian Bank, Mandiri, just installed DOKU payment system. 2.7% bank fee. Can process BDC credit card info without card being present. DOKU system a bit clunky but will do the job. Hope that helps. Oh by the way the approval process is nothing short of a nightmare..Bank Mandiri is incredibly incompetent, but eventually it will get through
Check Effective Tours they provides us facility to charge guests in advance, via online link. It's a 3D secure transaction which happens on a EU bank page.
It's good, because there is no third parties involved here. Nobody see a card details, so the guests feels very safe. We are in Sri Lanka, but I beleive there will be no issues with Indonesia or India
After 7 days, we can withdraw the money to our bank account, Epayments or Payoneer card.
Hello Alex,
Am a new host in Srilanka maybe you can help me,i will realy appraciate if you can.I have a problem with tge virtual card service of booking.com i got tge pos machine from my bank (Commercial Bank) but when a guest booked am not able to see the card information and i can't get money before they come.Infact of that when a guest cancel tge reservation after the free cancellation period am not able to get the money and I lost so much money in this way.How I can solve this situtation .
Thank you
You have to enable receiving card details from Booking.com - as far as I remember, this features is disabled for a new properties. So better contact you booking manager for details.
You also have to know the risks of charging the card directly, as there is no written confirmation from guests for the amount you charge, the guests can easily request a refund from the bank and get the money back. Unfortunately I've been in that situation twice, that's why we switch to Effective Tours as they provide online payment with no risk for refund requests.
If you add your email to your profile here https://partner.booking.com/en-gb/villa-elisabeth I can contact you and explain more if you like