Why collect security deposits?
Our thoughts on the benefits of security deposits
Peace of mind. Here are a few benefits:
🛡Protection against damage and misuse.
🙋♀️Guests feel more responsible. Honest guests aren't discouraged with a reasonable security deposit. It also deters unsuitable guests.
🏃♀️Fastest way to collect funds to pay for repairs before your next guest arrives. Insurance may pay out but can take weeks or months.
🤖Automated collection. With Uplisting's Automated Security Deposit collection for Booking.com, Vrbo and direct bookings (via your Uplisting website) you only get involved if a guest doesn't provide valid payment.
Video introduction to Protect
How Uplisting Automated Security Deposits work
Very simply Automated Security Deposits collect a security deposit from your Booking.com, Vrbo and direct booking guests. You can enable/disable security deposits and determine the amount you wish to charge for each property.
If a guest does not provide a security deposit (either a payment method is not provided, or the payment method doesn't have sufficient funds), you are alerted via email and can handle the booking as you see fit.
Does Uplisting take full payment or pre-authorise the card?
We've upgraded the security deposit collection feature to save you as much money as possible. We are now pre-authorizing the card for all bookings.
Uplisting smart collection
Uplisting takes a hold (pre-auth) for all bookings.
Uplisting attempts to re-auth 24 hours before the hold expires (3 days and 18 hours for VISA, 6 days for all other payment providers)
If successful, repeat 24 hours before the next hold expiration.
If unsuccessful, take full payment.
Here's how the mechanism of the security deposit charging works:
Understanding Our Security Deposit Process
We pre-authorize a booking 24 hours before check-in and then re-authorize 24 hours before a hold expires. This ensures that the security deposit is held throughout the duration of the booking. Additionally, we give you at least 48 hours to check the property before a security deposit is released.
Key Points:
Initial Authorization: Occurs 24 hours before check-in and lasts for up to 6 days.
Re-Authorization: Happens 24 hours before the current authorization expires, ensuring continuous coverage throughout the stay.
48-Hour Window: You have at least 48 hours after check-out to inspect the property before the security deposit is released.
How Uplisting collects payments from guests
Uplisting already has credit card details for Vrbo (HomeAway) and direct bookings via your website. If you use Payments by Booking.com, or if Booking.com don't provide credit card details to Uplisting, we need to collect a credit card from your guest to process the security deposit payment.
The automated security deposit feature works in scenarios. However, you must have at least one Stripe account (you can have multiple) and connect that Stripe account to Uplisting.
This illustration below shows how the feature works, depending on whether Uplisting has access to the guest credit card.
