Payments: FAQs (2024)

To find out if your property is active or eligible for Payments by Booking.com, log in to the extranet and click onFinanceto see the drop down menu.

• If theGetting paid option appears, it means you’re already active on Payments by Booking.com. Click on it to learn more.
• If thePayments by Booking.com option appears, you’re eligible for the service, but it’s not yet active. To activate it, select the option and click onYes, sign me up now at the bottom of the page.

If neither theGetting paid nor thePayments by Booking.com options appear in the drop-down menu, your property isn’t eligible for this service.

We can facilitate guest payments for you in a way that suits your property’s needs. We can pay you either by virtual credit card (VCC) or via bank transfer. To know which option is available for your property, go to the extranet and then toFinance >Payments by Booking.com.

In the past, international travellers may have been unable to book a stay at your property because their preferred payment options weren’t available. Depending on the country you’re operating in, we now support the following payment solutions so more guests can book with you:

Credit, debit and prepaid cards:

• Visa
• Mastercard
• American Express
• China UnionPay
• JCB
• Diners Club International
• Discover
• Carte Bancaire

Global payment methods

• PayPal
• Apple Pay
• Google Pay
• Alipay
• WeChat Pay
• iDeal
• SOFORT

To learn more about our payment solutions and how to join them,take a look at this article.

You can opt out of Payments by Booking.com by doing the following:

1. Log in to the extranet
2. Click onFinance thenGetting paid
3. Click onWant to deactivate Payments by Booking.com? and follow the steps to proceed with the deactivation
4. Click onYes, deactivate to confirm your changes

Read more aboutopting out of Payments by Booking.com.

If you are having issues seeing the information required, contact your Connectivity provider and ask them about the following features:

• Extra information about the reservation (res_extra_info): this feature allows your channel manager or PMS to indicate which reservation payments are facilitated by us.
• Payments Clarity Package: this feature lets you see your virtual credit cards’ balances, activations and expiration dates in your channel manager or PMS.

We charge guests based on your policies and guarantee that guests will make full payment before they arrive at your property. If the credit card information a guest provides is invalid – and they don’t update it or provide valid card information within 24 hours – we’ll automatically cancel the reservation. We won’t charge you a commission for that booking if this happens.

You need to provide your guests with an invoice when they check out. This is because the reservation agreement is a direct transaction between you and your guest, not a transaction with Booking.com. You can provide the invoice on paper, by email or both.

Here’s some other important information about invoices:

• We hold no responsibility for invoicing, and we don’t send invoices for any reservation to you or your guest.
• Make sure you issue invoices in your guest’s name, or another name you’ve agreed with them.
• For payouts you receive by VCC, the cardholder name will always beBooking.com (Agent).
• When we charge a guest, there may be tax implications for you. To find out more about local taxes,take a look at this article.
• You can export your invoices to use for tax declarations or other record keeping purposes.

For more information about invoices,take a look at this article.

If you decide to refund a guest and we haven’t paid you for the reservation, we simply won’t transfer the payout to you. Instead of paying you, we’ll refund the guest on your behalf.

If we’ve already paid you for the booking by bank transfer, we’ll deduct the amount we refund the guest from your next payout via bank transfer. If you’re not due to receive a payout at that time, you’ll need to pay us the amount we refunded to the guest. We’ll send you a debit note to let you know about this.

If we’ve already paid you for the booking using a virtual credit card – and you’ve already charged the VCC – you’ll need to refund it. To find out more about refunding VCCs,take a look at this article. If you haven’t charged the VCC yet, you don’t need to do anything.

A virtual credit card (VCC) is a temporary digital Mastercard linked to an existing credit card. It functions like a regular credit card and helps guests make secure online payments.

Here’s what you need to know about charging VCCs:

• For every relevant booking you receive, we’ll send you a new VCC.
• As long as each VCC remains active, you can charge it as many times as you like until the balance reaches zero.
• Each VCC has an activation date that's determined by whether the booking is refundable or not.

You can find moreinformation about VCCs here.

Here’s how to charge a VCC for a reservation that the guest paid for online:

1. Log in to the extranet and click onReservations
2. Click on the guest’s name or reservation number to view theReservation details page
3. Click onView credit card details
4. Enter the VCC details using your Point of Sale (POS) machine
5. Charge the availableamount displayed

For a more detailed explanation of how to charge VCCs,watch this tutorial video. If you use a channel manager or property management system (PMS), learn more about charging VCCsin this article.

If you’ve already charged a virtual credit card (VCC), there are two situations when you may need to refund it:

1. You or your guest cancel or modify a booking or the guest doesn’t show up, and you agree to waive any fees that would apply.
2. A reservation is cancelled due to Force Majeure – in these cases, guests shouldn’t be charged for stays they can’t make and we waive commission on the affected reservations.

In both cases, we’ll refund the guest, and you’ll need to refund the same VCC you originally charged. To learn more about how to do this,take a look at this article.

If you meet the following criteria, you can charge VCCs as soon as the reservation becomes non-refundable:

• You have no outstanding VCCs older than 60 days and requiring a guest refund
• You’ve paid your invoices on time for the last 12 months, according to the payment due dates
• You’ve been working with us for at least six months and have validated guest stays and reviews

We'll notify you via email if you qualify to charge your virtual credit cards before check-in.We’ll review whether or not you meet these criteria every four months and will email you if anything changes.If you don’t meet the criteria during our periodic review, then you can charge the VCCs one day after check-in, or at check-in for US properties.

We’ll send you an email once a VCC is activated. You’ll have 365 days after the check-out date to charge the VCC – after that, the funds will belong to us as they’ll be considered financial breakage (revenue from services that are paid for but not used).

We’ll email you a weekly summary showing VCCs from checkouts in the last week with open balances. This is not a cumulative report with all uncharged VCCs, it's only about the previous week. You’ll be able to see the transaction details in the extranet for 547 days (18 months) after the check-out date.

Exchange rates don’t affect your payments if you've set the price of your rooms in the same currency you use to charge virtual credit cards (VCC).

If you receive a VCC in one currency but charge it in a different one, Mastercard will convert the amount using its own exchange rate. You can find out what this ison the Mastercard website.

No. To find out if your property is eligible for payments, the costs involved and to sign up, follow these steps:

1. Log in to the extranet.
2. Click onFinance, thenPayments by Booking.com.
3. UnderPayments by Booking.com, you'll see details of our payment service.
4. Click on the sign-up button to complete the registration process.

After registering, you’ll be activated for Payments by Booking.com. We’ll also email you more information about our payment service.

This depends on the payment schedule you've set up and your bank. It can take a few days before the payment will arrive in your account.

• If you’re set up for monthly payments,we’ll process payments no later than the 15th day of the month after the guest checks out.
• If you’re set up for weekly payments, we’ll process payments every Thursday for reservations where the guest checked out during the previous week, which runs from Thursday until Wednesday. If the Thursday when we'd usually process your payment is a public holiday, we’ll process it on the next working day.

To check or change your payment schedule, log in to the extranet, click onFinance and select eitherGetting paid orFinance settings(depending on your settings), and then eitherYour payout settings orPayout timing to select the payout schedule.

Here’s how to download your commission invoices:

1. Log in to the extranet
2. Go toFinanceand then click onInvoices
3. Choose the year you want to filter by
4. Click on ‘Download pdf’ beneath the number of the invoice you want to download

To see the reservations included in each invoice, click onView statement beneath the invoice amount.

Each month, we’ll also email you payout documents with details of reservations that guests paid for online plus any refunds. To download these payout documents:

1. Log in to the extranet
2. Go toFinanceand then click onPayout information
3. Click on the arrow next to the period you’re interested in to see a list of reservations

Click onPDForCSVto download the payout document

Depending on the country you’re located in and the payment model you’re using, we’ll pay you either a gross or net amount.

If you receive a gross payout, we’ll pay you the total amount of your reservations. We’ll then invoice you for commission normally. Your commission invoice will include all bookings from the previous period, including any bookings that weren’t paid for online.

If you receive a net payout, we’ll pay you the total amount of your reservations minus the total amount of all your invoices. You won’t have to pay commission separately.

Here’s how to change the bank details we use to pay you:

1. Log in to the extranet
2. Go toFinanceand then click on Bank detailsor Finance settings
3. Under Receiving payouts from Booking.com, click on ‘Add bank details’or ‘Edit bank details’
4. Enter your new bank details
5. Click on ‘Update bank details’

Keep in mind that it can take up to six working days for your bank details to be fully updated in our system. To learn more about updating your bank details,watch this tutorial video.

Exchange rates don’t affect your payments if you set the price of your rooms in the same currency as we make your bank transfer payment. If the currency you set your rooms in isn’t the same as the currency we make your bank transfer payment in, we’ll convert the amount usingBloomberg’s exchange rate the day before we send your remittance advice.

If we make your bank transfer payment in a different currency from the currency of your bank account, your bank will convert the amount using their own exchange rate. To find out what this is, contact your bank directly.

To find out which currency we’ll make your bank transfer payment in, check the payout document we email you each month. To download these payout documents, please do the following:

1. Log in to the extranet
2. Click onFinanceand then click onPayout information
3. Click on the arrow next to the period you’re interested in to see a list of reservations

Click onPDForCSVto download the payout document

If the amount of your commission invoice is higher than the amount we pay you by bank transfer, we’ll collect the difference from your bank account. We need you to set up a Direct Debit to allow us to do this unless Direct Debits aren’t available in your country.

To find out more about paying your commission invoice by Direct Debit,take a look at this article.