HOTEL PAYMENT PROCESSING

By implementing an online payment system on your website’s booking engine, you can take payments from guests in any currency 24/7, increasing your reservations and revenue. With a website booking engine showing your pricing and availability in real-time and integrated with your payments system and PMS, you’ll receive direct reservations while you sleep! Plus, payments from these online bookings will be processed more efficiently and promptly.

In the hospitality industry, a payment solution that combines a payment processor, payment gateway, and merchant account and is integrated with your PMS is the best type of payment setup. This is because all of your data and services will be in one place and your guest payment data will be synced with your PMS, eliminating errors from manual entry and reporting transactions in multiple platforms. Companies like Stripe, Square, and PayPal can act as both a payment processor and a payment gateway. In the hotel industry, technology companies like Cloudbeds do so as well, helping hotels save costs and bypass the need for a merchant bank account.

Additionally, an ideal payment processing software provider should specialize in hospitality-based payments and provide risk analysis and support services for resolving disputes. This is because the travel industry is infamous for having one of the highest rates of fraud and chargebacks among major sectors due to the high proportion of card-not-present transactions, relatively high transaction amounts, and lag time between bookings and stays. A partner like Cloudbeds that has an in-house team dedicated to minimizing chargebacks and promptly notifying you of any disputes can save you time and money and reduce the amount of unwarranted refunds issued to guests by their banks.

For online payments, a payment gateway is an entity that collects credit card information and transfers it securely to the payment processor. Alternatively, the payment processor is the provider of the hardware and software needed to process payment transactions and facilitate the transfer of funds.

Payment methods and preferences are always evolving, and by giving your guest many payment options, you enhance your guest experience. The most popular payment methods include cash, credit or debit cards, mobile wallet, and virtual payment.

The major, global credit card providers include Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.

A mobile or digital wallet (sometimes also called an e-wallet) is an application like Apple Pay, Google Pay, or Samsung Pay that stores payment method information on a mobile device to allow for contactless and cashless payments.

A virtual payment or a virtual credit card (VCC) is a temporary credit card number issued by a bank, allowing people and businesses to make online payments without revealing actual card details. OTAs like Booking.com and Expedia often use VCCs to send payments to hotels.

We support credit cards, Pay by Link, mobile wallets, and regional services, and our hospitality underwriting helps with authorization. Payments are safe and easy and all transactions are managed in the Cloudbeds platform.

Cloudbeds Payments is currently available in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore, with more countries and regions being added regularly.