How Booking.com payments work in RoomRaccoon

Depending on your Booking.com setup, you may be receiving payments in different ways:

• Bank Transfers: You receive regular payouts directly from Booking.com.

• Virtual Credit Cards (VCCs): Booking.com provides a one-time charge VCC with a fixed value that you can charge through RoomRaccoon.

• Direct Credit Card Access: Booking.com sends you the real credit card details together with the reservation details, and you can charge them through RoomRaccoon, allowing for custom payment automation and lower transaction fees.

Important: If you are currently receiving bank transfers or VCCs, it means the "Payments by Booking.com" feature is enabled. Switching to RaccoonPay gives you greater flexibility, improves cash flow, and ensures a smoother experience for both you and your guests and requires access to guest credit card details.

Why switch to RaccoonPay?

By opting out of "Payments by Booking.com" and using RaccoonPay, you unlock several advantages:

• Automate prepayments and deposits

• Reduce transaction fees with real card processing

• Customise your prepayment terms by rate plan

• Improve cash flow with payments collected upfront or before arrival

• Reduce dependency on OTAs and increase your autonomy

How to switch from “Payments by Booking.com” to RaccoonPay

Step 1: Confirm Access to Guest Credit Cards

If you currently receive payments by bank transfer or VCC:

1. Contact Booking.com requesting confirmation that your account allows direct access to client credit cards, as you would like to confirm this before deactivating the "Payments by Booking.com" option.

2.  If Booking.com confirms, proceed to Step 2. If access is denied, retry after a few weeks.

Step 2: Deactivate Payments by Booking.com

Once you have access to guest credit cards:

1. In your Booking.com extranet

   • Go to Finance > Finance Settings

     1. Deactivate “Payments by Booking.com” and follow the steps to proceed with deactivation.

     2. Click Deactivate payments to confirm your changes

   • Go to Property > Policies > Other policies

     1. Under "Guest payment options," enable credit cards (not just cash)

2. Make sure to confirm with Booking.com that they are sending the credit card details to RoomRaccoon together with the reservation details.

Automating Prepayments in RoomRaccoon

With RaccoonPay, you can set up automatic prepayment requests based on your terms. 

How to Configure Prepayments

Please refer to this article about configuring prepayments. 

1. Go to the My Property module.

2. Select or create the relevant Rate Plan.

3. Scroll down to the Prepayments section.

4. Choose how much to charge (from 10% to 100%).

5. Set your preferred timing in the ‘charge payment details’:

   • On Booking: Require payment before the reservation is confirmed.

   • X Days Before Arrival: Automatically send a payment request at a set time before check-in. The Booker will receive the payment request from that configured day until the reservation due amount is 0 or the check-in date arrives - whichever comes first. If a reservation is booked within the prepayment period, the booker is required to prepay 100% before the reservation is confirmed.

Final Tip

Before switching off “Payments by Booking.com,” ensure you have properly set up your rate plans in RoomRaccoon, enabled credit card options in Booking.com and that they are sending the card details together with the reservation details to RoomRaccoon.