Credit Card for Security Deposit entered by guest

Hi Claudia,

Yes, there is a way to do that.

There is a hidden security deposit form that the system uses whenever someone's security deposit fails. You can use that. To find the hidden security deposit form, do these steps:

1) Open the booking
2) Click on the Legal tab
3) Click on "Email a link to guest" link
4) In the subject body, you'll see a link showing where the guest can sign the renter agreement. Copy that link into a new browser window or tab.
5) Change the end of the link from "legal" to "securitydeposit/add" and click enter to load it. I'm referring to the part after the last slash.
6) You'll notice that it shows a form where they can submit a security deposit
7) Send this link to the guest so they can use it to submit a credit card security deposit

Again, this is a hidden form that is only usually emailed to guest when their automatic security deposit fails and the system is asking them to try a different card.

Keep in mind that this will reserve a security deposit *immediately* when they submit the form, so they should only submit the form when their ready for the security deposit to be reserved.

You can also call them on the phone and reserve their security deposit manually. To process a manual security deposit, open the Booking, click the Security Deposits tab, click on Reserve and put in their card info.

Hope this helps,

-Michelle

I'm sorry - you're right. That form checks first to see if a security deposit was scheduled, which isn't really necessary for the form to function. We should yank out that check. If they have no credit card on file at all, you'll have to call for the security deposit. Sorry for the misinformation. I believe the payment form (which works similar to this) does allow credit card payments for previous-check payers.

We plan on providing scheduled reminders for payments and security deposits where non-CC payers get reminders and/or can update their card info, switch to card (from check) and other things. At the moment, we're focusing quite a bit on the email and inquiry areas.

Let me see if we can just remove that scheduled check so that the form can be used by anyone (any booking without a reserved security deposit, that is). If it's easy, we'll try to squeeze it into one of the next few releases.

Yes, I'm going to check with the devs to see if we can remove that check. If so, the fix may go out very quickly. :-)

FYI - that fix went out in tonight's release. Also, the security deposit and payment pages now show the URLs you can use for public forms. Just copy that URL and give it your guest for payment or security deposit. ~Sam