Introduction to Protect

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

1. Uplisting takes a hold (pre-auth) for all bookings
2. If the booking is 5 days or longer, Uplisting attempts to re-auth on day 5 (before the hold expires).
3. If successful, repeat every 5 days.
4. If unsuccessful, take full payment.

The blue checks on the diagram below indicate when the hold is automatically released in the example booking durations.

Here's how the mechanism of the security deposit charging works:

We give you at least 48 hours to check the property before a security deposit is released.
This means that if a booking is for 5 nights, say from 11.03.2022 to 16.03.2022 (dd.mm.yy), with arrival time 16:00 and departure time 10:00:

• 10.03.2022 @ 16:00: security deposit is authorised 24h before check-in
  This first authorisation expires on 17.03.2022 @ 16:00, which is 30 hours after the check out on 16.03.2022 @ 10:00.
  This means that we would need to reauthorise the security deposit
• 11.03.2022 @ 16:00: the booking checks in
• 16.03.2022 @ 10:00: the booking checks out
• 16.03.2022 @ 16:00: security deposit is reauthorised, 24h before it expires
• 17.03.2022 @ 16:00: the initial authorisation expires
• 23.03.2022 @ 16:00: the second authorisation expires

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.