Card-imprint guarantees

A card imprint saves the guest’s card when they book. No amount is held and nothing is charged: the card is simply kept, and is charged only if the guest does not show up or cancels late. The “hold” is a figure of speech, not money set aside on the guest’s account.

Ask for an imprint on a service

The guarantee is set per service, in the booking rules, under Booking guarantee.

Settings → Service schedule → Booking rules

There are three modes. No guarantee confirms bookings without a card. Card imprint saves a card at booking. Prepayment is shown with a Coming soon note and cannot be chosen yet.

DesktopMobile

Once Card imprint is chosen, the block reveals the settings to fill in:

• the Amount per guest, multiplied by the party size to give the consented total;
• When to require it — All bookings, or Parties of a certain size or more with a threshold you choose;
• Free cancellation until a number of hours before the reservation, after which a cancellation counts as late.

DesktopMobile

An imprint needs an active payment account. Until payments are turned on, the block stays locked — see Turn on payments.

What happens next

At booking, the guest is sent a link to save their card. The reservation stays Awaiting card until they do, then moves to Card secured. On the reservation, an icon shows its guarantee’s state; on hover, it gives the amount and the free-cancellation deadline. If they do not save a card in time, the reservation is cancelled. A guarantee’s other states are described in The guarantees to handle.

An imprint and validation on the same service

A service can require both an imprint and your validation. When it does, the card is collected first: until it’s saved, the reservation stays Awaiting card. Once the card is saved, the reservation doesn’t go straight to confirmed — it joins your requests-to-validate queue, like any other request for that service. In other words the imprint comes before the validation; it’s still up to you to confirm or decline.

When the guarantee can’t be collected

One useful exception to know: if a guarantee is expected but the payment account cannot charge at the time of booking, the reservation is still confirmed, without a guarantee. This happens when the payment account isn’t in a state to collect — for example because its Stripe activation isn’t finished, verification documents or information are still outstanding, or Stripe has temporarily suspended charging. A reservation is never refused for want of saving a card: the priority is not to lose the guest.