CC Authorization Release
1 Comment
Sarah Abdul Manaf
said
about 2 months ago
Mint House take a pre-authorization (aka a Security Deposit) from each guest when they make a reservation to cover potential damages. Currently, when the guest checks out, this pre-authorization is released and the hold is removed from their credit card
There is a gap in time between when a guest completes check out in Stayntouch and when property team physically inspects a room. If the property finds damages, calculate the amount and determine that the guest is liable, they are unable to charge the guest as the pre-authorization has already been released.
As many of Mint House properties do not have employees on site, the guest can leave and check out happens automatically. They need credit card authorizations to be held for longer.
At guest check out(when they stop at front desk, turn in keys and request a zeroed out folio), SNT should NOT release the full credit card authorization right then. In our case, we have items we sell in the room(read: minibar) and sometimes there are damages to the room that housekeeping discovers later, that we can not charge on thew guest's card, because the deposit authorization was released with check-out.
Currently the only way around this; we can not check anybody out until house keeping has checked all the rooms and verified that there are no extra charges to each guests deposit authorization. This backs us up a lot, we are not efficient by doing this. Housekeeping often starts (and finishes) cleaning rooms, but their updates to room status are void, when we still have check-outs to process, which then change room status back to dirty. if there was a function where we can check out a guest and only room and taxes are posted yet not release the extra deposit authorization, so then we can later go back to the guest folio and charge any extra charges. If SNT could release all Authorizations at EOD with Audit, this issue would be fixed.