Channel-booking cards and auto-charge
Bookings that arrive through a connected channel — Booking.com and similar, via Channex — don't come with a card the way a booking made directly through your site does: the guest paid the channel, not you. To still be able to take a deposit or balance payment on these bookings, Stayant can fetch a chargeable card for them automatically.
This only applies to bookings from a channel (their Source shows the originating OTA — Booking.com, Airbnb, and so on — or Channel when the OTA isn't known), and only once you've connected Stripe and it is verified — see Connecting Stripe. It never applies to a booking the OTA has already collected payment for (see Bookings paid via an OTA): there's nothing left to charge, so Stayant doesn't fetch a card for it and it shows no badge.
How the card gets there
For an eligible channel booking, Stayant asks Channex for a tokenized card and moves it into your connected Stripe account so it's chargeable the same way a card taken directly would be. This happens automatically in the background — there's nothing for you to do to trigger it.
The card-on-file badge
Open a channel booking's detail panel and you'll see a badge showing where that process is up to:
| Badge | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Fetching card… | Stayant hasn't finished trying to fetch a card for this booking yet. |
| Card on file | A chargeable card is saved. It's charged only if the toggle below is on; there's no manual charge action. |
| No card | The channel reported no card available for this booking (common for prepaid or virtual-card reservations). You'll need to arrange payment another way. |
| Card fetch failed | Stayant tried repeatedly and couldn't fetch a card. Contact support if this persists. |
(Screenshot: the card-on-file badge on a channel booking's detail panel — to be added once available.)
A booking that arrived before you connected Stripe won't get a badge retroactively — only bookings that came in after you connected are eligible.
Charging a channel booking
There is no "charge this card now" button. A saved card can only be charged by the automatic run described below. To collect payment yourself, either send the guest a Stripe payment link from the booking (Payment link), or take payment another way and log it with Record payment.
Automatic charging (off by default)
Open Settings → Payment schedule (/settings/payment-schedule). Near the bottom of the page:
Automatically charge cards saved from channel bookings (Booking.com etc.) on their due dates
This is off by default. With it off, channel bookings with a card on file still show the badge, but nothing is ever charged to that card — it just isn't picked up by the automatic deposit/balance charging that already runs for your direct bookings.
Turn it on if you want channel bookings to be charged automatically on the same schedule as your direct bookings, once a real card has been fetched and saved. It's off by default because channel bookings are more likely to be prepaid already or backed by a virtual card with limited validity — review a few channel bookings' payment history before turning this on so you know what to expect.