One of the most important features of an accommodation website is the choice of payment platform. Which method is the most suitable for customers to book on your hotel website?
We explain the most used and effective ways to obtain direct bookings so that you can find the one that best suits your accommodation.
Card as a guarantee
With our booking engine, the card data is split at the time of booking, one part is attached to the booking (the last 4 digits with the expiry date) and the other part is stored on our PCI server. The data is not stored together at any time to protect the security of the customers.
To retrieve the card data, the PCI server sends an email with a single-use link that expires after 10 minutes. Only users with authorised email at PCI level can access the numbers.
- Pros: Seamless web integration, under PCI standards.
- Cons: The system does not check that it is a real card, only the internal validity of the numbers.
Redsys POS
The platform most used by Spanish banks, especially since the disappearance of the savings banks that used CECA. There are 2 modalities, secure and non-secure. With the secure mode, transactions cannot be reversed, but it can cause problems because some cards are not prepared for secure transactions and some customers cannot book. In non-secure mode, charges can be reversed, which affects non-refundable fees.
- Pros: Secure mode prevents fraud.
- Cons: It has a low commission of 0.3 - 0.4 %. Only allows a single charge to be made to the customer's card. In some cases, customers book at the last minute, stay at the hotel and cancel the payment when they have already checked out.
Apart from this platform we can integrate any other platform that meets the requirement of instant and asynchronous payment notification. It must also support payments from abroad under the same premise.
Card as a guarantee + Redsys POS
Our system allows you to use one or the other confirmation method depending on the fare conditions. The non-refundable one is charged in advance via POS, while for payment at the hotel, the guarantee data is collected. This is the most common among our clients as it is the most practical.
- Advantages: it adapts to the client's needs and allows to have rates with different payment conditions.
Tokenisation: Stripe
The card details are stored in Stripe, it provides us with a "token" (an ID associated with the card) that we can use to make various charges, acceptable commission 0.8% - 1%. Advantages: the same platform can be used for both non-refundable and "pay at the hotel", the system will charge or not depending on the rate conditions.
Problem: false negatives. We have supported it for 2-3 years but it has not been viable in the hotels that have tried it, 20-30% of customers could not book because Stripe considered it a high risk operation.
Tokenisation: Addon payments
This system is very promising, but we have not yet been able to integrate it as no customer has requested it. For the time being, we have our doubts, as Spanish banks are not known for offering good solutions apart from the old-fashioned virtual POS of Redsys.
- Advantages: with tokenisation, multiple charges can be made.
- Cons: Some cards do not support secure payment. Commission is comparable to virtual POS (0.3 - 0.4%).
Do you already know which payment method is the most suitable for your hotel website? Contact us!
