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Virtual Credit Card

Hi All,

I recently had a 'congratulatory' note from Booking.com advising I had received my first virtual credit card payment made online by guest.  Thinking this was good not having to ask guest for payment, I proceeded to process the guest's payment via the details provided on her reservation.

Hmmm, what is wrong?  What have I done wrong? What's going on?  It's not working.  After hours and hours of trying to process the payment, I then decided to try using my own credit card ($1) to test my POS device.  Okay, worked for mine.  Still after 3 days, I am unable to process payment.  Contacted Booking.com, spoke to someone there and am now awaiting a response to my email.  

I have read up on anything I could find about 'virtual credit card payment'.

The below is part of the message received from Booking.com regarding virtual credit card payment.

"The virtual credit card details can be viewed as many times as you want for up to two months after the guest has checked out. However, you can still charge the card for up to six months after the check-out date. Just check the expiration date on the card."

The other thing is you can't mark it as an invalid credit card.  Just doesn't let you.  

The only amusing thing about it is that the name on the credit card is 'Booking.com (Agent)'.

Anyone got any ideas on how to fix this?  Has anyone else had the same issue with non-payment via virtual c/card?

Any response would be appreciated.

Thanks ......


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Rita Strachan 6 years ago

Make sure you can charge the card before guest arrival and that card is not opened just on the day of the arrival of the guest? I know that is the way Agoda / Expedia virtual cards work - you can only charge the card on the day that the guest arrive (or after date of arrival) not before.

Hope this helps?

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Sylvia Jackson 6 years ago

Hi Glennys, I had the same trouble at first all you do is put the amount then the card details and expiry date as usual but do not put the CVC numbers in just press enter and it does it straight away for you. Hope this helps.

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Dee May 6 years ago

I was told by Booking.com staff that the payment would be credited on my commission statement When it did not show up I contacted them again. They said to enter the payment details under the financial tab but it would not accept the banking info. Still waiting for them to resolve this. Was not aware that I was suppose to charge the credit card on my end. Have since asked them to cancel this option as I was never asked if I wanted to participate.

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Houseboat Prin… 4 years ago

You have to pay 3,5 %. I am so angry at Booking at the moment.

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Ron Hunter 6 years ago

We would like to see the pre-paid booking confirmations to be more clearly identified. Currently they are difficult to differentiated from the non-paid booking confirmations.

We do not get many but we have twice tried to have the guest pay again on arrival!!

Rgds, Ron

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Chris Scregg 6 years ago

My understanding is you can only charge a virtual card on the ARRIVAL date of the guests or sometime after, not on the date of booking unless the booking and arrival date are the same.

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Chris Gregg 6 years ago

I've took a few VR cards and yes you can only take payment on the day.

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Gary & Lynne Franks 6 years ago

We have had only 2 bookings use this virtual credit card option and it does irritate us.

Our understanding of how it works is that B.C charge the guest the total amount when the guest books, then keep the payment in their account until the day of arrival, when we (host) are allowed to process the payment through the virtual credit card.

We have just complained to B.C about the unfairness of this, will be interesting to see the response.

Surely it would be more fair to allow us as hosts to receive our normal 50% deposit when the guest books, and the balance on arrival?

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Brooke - Commu…
6 years ago

Thanks for all your comments, check out some updates our product teams have made in response to your feedback here.

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Jane of KeySta… 6 years ago

Hi

I have an issue with virtual card payments too.( although its a big improvement from before ) ie bookings used to be confirmed without receipt of payment.!

It makes it very stressful to take payment on the day of arrival ( usually a Friday) as if we dont have enough to do!

We have chosen a 30% down payment to confirm a booking with balance payment 28 days prior to arrival ( for Holiday Apartment) so we should be able to take payment from booking.com (BDC) according to this chosen policy terms?

If Booking.com wishes to compete with AirBnb et al we should receive payment in advance of arrival or BDC should transfer booking funds less commission automatically on the day to our bank account or chosen method Label the transaction with a booking reference number and deduct commission at source (then there would be no need to invoice or take payment from us Its all about streamlining and reducing admin time/ effort/ calls to BDC ...

If the card details dont work on the day ( eg if the date/ year format is wrong or if Booking.com(Agent) format with brackets and full stop is rejected by the payment terminal we have to call and chase BDC for payment all on a Friday when many guests are checking in = Stress

Please Booking.com can you continue to review how you take payments please!

Jane

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Nancy Wratten 6 years ago

Hi,

has anyone tried to use the virtual credit card on a Square Point of Sale device? Not sure what I am doing wrong but it keeps declining the information and I have double and triple checked the details.

This is my first booking using the virtual cc.

Thanks,

Nancy

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Cbsuper8 2 years ago

I know this is an old comment, but in case you didn't find out why, the reason is Square charges a transaction fee to the credit card you are running. This is exceeding the credit limit of the virtual credit card. You need to calculate and remove this fee from the charge you are making via Square to get an approval.

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Elaine Sim 2 years ago

Hi I’ve just started taking payments on Square point of sale and like you it hasn’t accepted the card.

My guests arrived end of May and I have phoned Booking.com three times now and still not received payment.

Can you please tell me if and how you managed to get payment please.

Many thanks

Elaine.

 

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Glenys Matthiesson 6 years ago

Hi All,

I started this thread 4 months ago. Booking.com ended up paying me the amount into my bank account after I gave them my bank details. On calling them, they were unable to explain why I was not able to process the Virtual Credit Card. I advised Booking.com I no longer wanted to participate in that method of payment as it caused too much grief / frustration.

In answer to Nancy's comment above, I too use a Square POS. I don't think it had anything to do with Square why we couldn't process with VCC.

I use Expedia as well and had 3 bookings using VCC. I also had problems with their VCC and once it was revealed which code was used (Merchant Category Code), they ended up changing their code to allow me to process the VCC payments. Once that was done, I was able to process and collect the funds owed.

Virtual Credit Card is good and easy .......... when it works and all teething problems are sorted out.

Nancy, ask Booking.com to check which Merchant Category Code they are using. It should correlate with Square and then should work, otherwise, ask them for payment into your account.

Square Support got back to me and advised I was set up with a MCC of Individual Use 7299. Advised Expedia of this and a day later they had changed the 3 bookings that owed me to 7299. I then successfully processed the 3 payments via VCC.

Hope this helps. Regards, Glenys

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Nadiawatkins 6 years ago

Can't view virtual credit card details, tells me my account is not set up to view this information.

Where do I find a phone number to talk to someone at Booking.com PLEASE

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Lyntonhouse 6 years ago

we have anz Fastpay, only works with credit card present,am still waiting for first and only virtual prepaid booking (we have disabled this method on our page) booking.com has had money since dec last and we are still waiting for them to do a banktransfer,there is no invoice showing in our box that says they owe the money to us yet ,we wont be using this facility again and yes we didn't realise we could opt out of it until this booking came in .hope this helps

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Lyntonhouse 6 years ago

Glenise

we have contacted booking.com re our virtual payment they have said after our invoices are settled they will pay to us by bank transfer ,there is supposed to be a section in your invoices where it shows money owing to you by booking.com ,it does not show in our invoices only the ones we owe to booking.com which are all up to date .

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Nancy Wratten 6 years ago

Thank you all for your advice.

If I don't get an answer from B.C soon I shall apply for the payments to be made into my account, seems the simplest method, as long as you don't have to wait as long as some obviously have.

Just thought I would try one more time just in case, but the card has been declined once more.

Thanks again,

Nancy

Treetops Cottage

Perth, Western Australia.

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Nancy Wratten 6 years ago

Nadia Watkins

If you go to the bottom of this page click on the contact us button which takes you through to what I have pasted here.

Call

If you have an urgent question, you can call the dedicated phone number* found in your extranet Inboxtab. Follow the voice prompts to get in touch with the right department.

For more general info you can contact one of our main lines for help.


Got a specific financial question?

Call the dedicated Finance phone number* found in the ‘Financial Overview’ section of the ‘Finance’ tab in your extranet. Please note that our finance team is available during business hours, Monday to Friday only.

*These phone lines are available to current partners of Booking.com only, which is why we share them privately.

Nancy

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Lyntonhouse 6 years ago

Nadia

Note; I have tried phone contact always busy,so have sent another message re the virtual booking that booking.com took payment for from our customer on dec 15th 2017 and we are still waiting for payment ,we have also paid the commission on this booking in our last statement, booking .com said they would after invoice were paid we are still waiting not happy as now had no contact or money to our bank by banktransfer for 4 days ,don't know what avenue to take now re this one and only virtual booking we will ever have from b.com as we have blocked this out on our xtranet site rgards Tony Lyntonhouse New Zealand

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Lyntonhouse 6 years ago

note we got a question 4 days ago re when did we update our bank details,we were asked by the one phone discussion we have had to reenter the details of our bank,we never changed the details so i consider this to be just a method of slowing the payment down very annoying we need action ASAP from booking.com

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Lyntonhouse 6 years ago

now had another inbox reply saying that it takes up to 8 weeks to get paid and to contact b.com again if payment not made by end feb ? wow what a nightmare we are talking about $740 not good enough

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David Wendt 6 years ago

I have similar issues with Virtual Credit Card payments using "Square" Point of Sale Device. The credit card details although entered correctly are not recognised by B.C.

I have spoken to B.C support and they advise me that the Square Merchant Code needs to be setup as an "Accommodation" business in the Square settings / setup.

I am in the process of asking Square to change this for me as I have checked and my merchant code is an optional entry.

I will update if this works once all the changes are made.

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David Wendt 6 years ago

Further Update from Square with regards to Virtual Credit Card Payments.

Their answer is that they"Can't guarantee acceptance of Virtual credit cards with Square".

The Merchant category Code (MCC) that some accommodation booking sites are issued with are MCC 7011- Hotels Motels and Resorts This MCC is not available in the Square system, but they are working to acquire the additional codes through the various credit card networks, but this is a lengthy process.

Square have MCC 4722 - Tourism. If the Virtual Credit Card does not recognise this MCC then there is a mismatch and the cards are being declined.

Needless to say I tried using Square today and the credit card transaction was approved, so Square must have set up my merchant code MCC-4722 which worked with the Virtual credit card payment from Booking.COM.

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Nancy Wratten 6 years ago

Hi all,

after reading David's comment I tried again to process the vcc and it finally worked!!!!!

Booking.com must have addressed the merchant number problem and they now match with Square. Booking.com said they do not have the capacity to pay direct into our accounts in Australia but are trying to set something up which will take a while.

Thanks for your help everyone,

regards,

Nancy Wratten

Treetops Cottage, Perth.

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Lyntonhouse 6 years ago

Hi All

our systems in nz don't work with virtual credit card so here we are into march still waiting to be paid from b.com for a booking they took payment for in dec last year ?? So t after talking to one of their reps on the phone in JAN and establishing that the only virtual cc booking we will ever have will be paid by bank transfer this was over a month ago ,so in the interim we have received a email stating that if it has not been paid by march to ring them ,so we did and now we are told that there rep whom is spoke to in early jan did not set up the bank transfer as they said they would and they will do it now this is from Orlando in florida ,the transfer details have to be sent to Amsterdam and action from there i have givien them 48hours to confirm that the transfer has been actioned,absolutely slack of book.com to drag the payment for this accom provided for now 3 months .

TONY

LYNTONHOUSE

NEW ZEALAND

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Francofuji 6 years ago

Why is so hard for everybody to charge the Virtual Credit Card. B.C. should be responsible of provide some proved method or guide of how to charge the VCC. I have 5 reservations already payed and I am not able still of charge any of the VCC provided by B.C. Somebody from B.C can help me?

Thank you.

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Francofuji 6 years ago

Is there some guide of how to use Square to charge VCC?

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Lyntonhouse 6 years ago

Basically I think that b.c are a bunch of tossers. and if we don't. Get our only Vcc. booking paid this. Month we are going to seve ties with b.c w have had a gutsfullof Ther f........kin excuses why they can't pay us .

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Lyntonhouse 6 years ago

wow overnight B.COM finally paid us on the extranet,and in our finance section an area has appeared like magic now shows where they pay us unbelievable after all this time to finally get a result,many emails and phone calls later and 3 months after booking was done and dusted

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Ken 6 years ago

This is a real scam by booking.com. They get the payment from the guest when the guest books and we do not get it until they check-in. This can be months booking.com gets to use the money rather than the accommodation. We personally have a 60 day cancellation policy and cancellations within 60 days prior to arrival are 100% non refundable but yet booking.com does not allow us to access payment until the guest checks in. This is not good for anyone. We do not have an option as far as I can see to opt out of this program.

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Lyntonhouse 6 years ago

Ken

my suggestion to you is go to finance section in b.c and make sure your online payments is inactive then scroll up to Vcc and make sure that is inactive ,you will then Have to process your customers when the arrive as we do,

,so this way b.c will not get money on your behalf,unfortunately if you require payment 60 days out this won't work for you unless the custermer is booking direct with you we allow all our custermers to book without a deposit and we have hardly any no shows hope this helps Regards Tony &Lynn

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Admin 5 years ago

Just received a virtual credit card booking for today. Went to take the money, declined!!

Phoned booking.com waited ten minutes for an answer and was told to try later.

NOT GOOD ENOUGH!! I checked on the booking and the message I got was incorrect cvc number,

I will try later but if it doesn't go through then I will be ticked off.

Bad enough when guest's cards are declined you don't expect it with booking.com

I have better things to do than chase booking.com for payment.

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Info 5 years ago

Thanks for your advice Lynton house about how to deactivate virtual credit card payments. I've just changed my settings as you suggested to make online payments inactive. Let's see what happens. WHAT a ridiculous and expensive system!!!!

Ken, I agree with you, it is a scam.

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Oscarmp4 5 years ago

Hello there!

My business is in Cuba, but I do have Bank acct in the US.

After reading all the posts, I'm exactly in the same situation.

Please, I need help on this.....how to transfer the Virtual Mastercard funds from B.com to my Bank acct?

I do have Square but, requests ZIP code, which the VCC doesn't have.

Is there any app I can use to transfer the funds?

Thanks a million in advance for any help!!

Regards,

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Lyntonhouse 5 years ago

best thing to do is de avtivate your acceptance that allows b.com to take payments on your behalf,we finally had our only vcc amount credited back to us last month off our existing commissions owing,however b.com still owes us $69.32c (from the dec Booking) which we have deducted off our commission payments this month so we are finally correct after waiting approx 4 months to be paid from b.com

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pibomarco 5 years ago

@info You'll see when you will receive late cancelations and no-shows, and you won't get paid for that. :)

@oscarmp4 I have a property in Slovenia and wanted to add German bank account, but it is not possible. Property location and bank location must be the same. (to reduce avoiding paying taxes and local officials). You should activate online payments and get yourself a POS terminal. If this is not an option, then you should stick to home rentals platfrom such as AirBnB who are more fleksible regarding payout methods etc..

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Veva 5 years ago

I have just received a newsletter from Booking.com 2 days ago, saying: Congratulations, you've received your first payment from a guest that uses a virtual credit card.

In fact they I have received virtual online payments for over a year, and I did not choose to do so, it goes automatically, you have to explicitly change the terms if you don not want to receive them.

They started to send information about the virtual payments 2 days ago, by a newsletter.

I think it is very confusing since the status of payment says paid online.

I am a one room hotel and I do not have a POS device to charge cards without the actual card, you need to have a special abonnement for that.

My clients told me that the amount was already withdrawn from their account so I presumed it was ok, but now it occurs that I didn't receive those payments and for some of them I am too late to charge the cards.

I want to know of there are more of you who had this problem, I think Booking.com is not transparant, does not provide enough information and it is misleading that you get a status 'paid online' instead of 'payment ready to be charged'

I have tried to call booking and wrote several messages but in two days, they haven't even replied.

I am not satisfied at all with this way of operating.

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pibomarco 5 years ago

It does not go automaticly 100%. You must have choosed in extranet "Online Payments". I think your terms are kind of mixed up. If you were receiving virtual online payments for over a year, the only way you could collect the money is using POS terminal and charging Booking's virtual card. Only maybe in case if it is optional to the guest what payment method he chooses. And in this case you received first booking in a year where guest choosed to pay online (such as PayPal etc).

Unthick "online payments" in extranet and wait for booking.com's reply. I guess they will send the money to your bank acc.

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Reception 5 years ago

The trouble with virtual cards is if they leave the place in a mess you cant charge them extra Cleaning As i had with one guest as it was left like a pig stray and took 2 and half hours to clean and booking.com said that was alright, if i leave the room like that for next guest (not that we would) booking .com would ask for refund

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pibomarco 5 years ago

My policy is that the final cleaning is optional. (I send them the mail after the booking is made). If the guest tidy their apartment (mainly the kitchen) no cleaning fee is charged. Or if the guest decide not to clean 50,00€ is an additional fee. You can also collect 50,00€ at the check-in for possible damages (refundable). Also we usually never inspect the apartment at the check-out, because this policy is quite good prevention so basicly no big mess is done by the guest. We inspect guests from Izrael and Arabia. :)

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Mim das Tamang 5 years ago

Hello all, I really need help. anyone know where i can make transaction from Virtual service? im from Nepal and i very hard to get POS. Thank you.

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Thuild - Your … 5 years ago

Dear Mim,

You can contact me for that. We offer payment processing for partners.

Send me an e-mail and I can give you some solutions.

Best regards,

Zsolt - www.thuild.com

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Mim das Tamang 5 years ago

Hello Zsolt, I did not see your email address. that is why im replying your message back. so let me know if you have some ideas about it.

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Thuild - Your … 5 years ago

Mim. You have my web site there. Just go to it and you'll find the mail address.

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Mim das Tamang 5 years ago

Hello sir, I just sent you message in your email. can you get back.

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Kimjnoyce 5 years ago

Just got my first virtual credit card 'payment' from a guest. My POS machine doesn't support 'card not present transactions'.

Do I need to have a POS machine that supports this? Or am I missing something?

Thanks

Kim

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Thuild - Your … 5 years ago

Dear Kim,

It will not work if your bank doesn't have such options available.

We offer this as a service to partners, to process their Virtual Cards, so if you're interested, drop us a message through our website.

Best regards,

Zsolt - www.thuild.com

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Marta Tomas Embid 5 years ago

Do I have to leave the commission on the VC or it has been automatically deducted from the payout? Sorry but it is not clear, the invoices received indicate that you have deducted thecommision but in the virtual credit card appears: ¨You can charge this card US$154.50 (which is the total amount without the commision). Do I have to deduct the commision from the total ammount 154.50$ or from 150$??? - 22.50 commision? before getting my money from the virtual credit card?. Please note that my frist guest arrived in november and I have not been able to get payments yet!

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Thuild - Your … 5 years ago

Dear Marta,

Normally you should charge the amount-commission. But it also depends how the invoicing works for your property. You can ask for custom invoicing.

If you have issues charging the Virtual Cards, get in touch with me via my website and we can sort that out.

Best regards,
Zsolt - www.thuild.com