Payments | March 2, 2012 | 2 min read
Alternate Payment Schedules
You might think, wouldn’t it be nice if I could charge a different deposit amount depending on how many nights the person has selected? Well, now you can, using the Alternate Payment Schedule setting in the Reservation Page settings. For example, for reservations for only one night you might want to charge 100% of the …
You might think, wouldn’t it be nice if I could charge a different deposit amount depending on how many nights the person has selected? Well, now you can, using the Alternate Payment Schedule setting in the Reservation Page settings.
Setup Guide
- Create Two Payment Schedules
- Short stays: Charge 100% (incl. tax) upfront.
- Long stays: Charge 50% deposit at booking and balance 30 days prior. Use the Payment Schedules settings page to configure tiers and timing reservationkey.com+12reservationkey.com+12reservationkey.com+12reservationkey.com.
- Enable Alternate Payment Schedule In the Reservation Page settings, choose your short-stay and long-stay schedules. The system auto-selects the right plan based on nights booked reservationkey.com+6reservationkey.com+6reservationkey.com+6.
- Integrate With PayPal (or Stripe/Square) When using PayPal for secondary payments, ReservationKey ensures the correct schedule is applied at checkout reservationkey.com.
- Manual/Offline Bookings Alternates also apply during internal reservations via your team’s backend—guests land on the correct payment plan on the payment page
To set this up, set up two payment schedules. One schedule for your short stays, and one schedule for your longer stays.
Real-World Workflow
Stay LengthUpfront ChargeSchedule Name1–5 nights100%Full Payment Plan6+ nights50% + 50% laterLong-Stay Deposit
- Setup two distinct Payment Schedules:
- “Full Payment Plan” = 100% due up front.
- “Long-Stay Deposit” = 50% upfront, 50% due X days before arrival.
- In Reservation Page → Alternate Payment Schedule, assign both.
- At checkout, the system auto-chooses the correct plan.
Then, go to your ReservationPage settings, and select the two methods you set up.
Now, the payment schedule will automatically apply depending on how many nights reserved. If you are using PayPal for guests to make a second payment prior to their stay, the system will also determine which payment schedule to use. For reservations made manually, internally, the system will determine which payment schedule to use when the guest loads the payment page.
If you don’t need this functionality, just leave the Alternate Payment Schedule section set to nothing, which is, “– Select–“.