Handling invalid credit cards

You can report invalid credit cards in the extranet or Pulse app. The Reservations section of the extranet has an overview of bookings made with invalid credit cards. You'll also receive email notifications about this. You can read more about card validation here. 

What’s in this article:

Marking a credit card as invalid

You can mark a credit card as invalid if you can't charge it for a reservation. By doing so, we won't charge you a commission for the booking. Here's how to mark a card as invalid:

1. Log in to the extranet
2. Click on Reservations, then click on the guest name or reservation number
3. Select Mark credit card as invalid

Follow these steps to mark a credit card as invalid on the Pulse app:

1. Log in to the Pulse app on your mobile device
2. Tap Bookings, then click on the guest’s name
3. Scroll down to Payment - Credit card
4. Tap Mark credit card as invalid

Once you mark the credit card as invalid, your guest will receive an email and a text message asking them to provide new details within 24 hours. Once your guest has updated these details, we’ll notify you via email.

Cancelling bookings made with invalid cards

You can cancel bookings made with invalid credit cards in the extranet or Pulse app. Keep in mind that this depends on whether the booking has met the conditions for being cancelled described in this article.

Follow these steps to cancel bookings in the extranet:

1. Log in to the extranet
2. Click on Reservations, then click on the guest name or reservation number
3. When a booking is eligible for cancellation, you can click on Cancel this reservation 

Follow these steps to cancel a booking on the Pulse app:

1. Log in to the Pulse app on your mobile device
2. Tap Bookings, then click on the guest’s name
3. Scroll down and tap on Request to cancel reservation

Conditions for cancelling bookings

You can cancel bookings with invalid credit card details in the following situations:

If credit card details remain invalid

If you mark a credit card as invalid, but your guest doesn’t send updated details within 24 hours, or if they provide invalid credit card details again, you can cancel the booking until 15:00 (in your property’s local time) on the planned check-in day.

Bookings made within 48 hours of check-in

If you mark a credit card as invalid for bookings made within 48 hours of the planned check-in time, your guest has 12 hours instead of 24 hours to provide updated credit card details - or until 15:00 (in your property’s local time) on the planned check-in day, whichever is earlier. If they don’t provide updated details in time, you can cancel the booking.

Last-minute bookings

If you mark a credit card as invalid for last-minute bookings for ten or more nights, your guests will have two hours instead of 24 hours to provide updated credit card details. If they don’t provide updated details in time, you can cancel the booking.

Note that if you're part of Payments by Booking.com, and you're located in the European Economic Area (EEA), we'll automatically validate credit cards. We'll allow you to cancel reservations if guests cannot provide valid credit card details within 24 hours for non-prepaid reservations.