Mews enabled multiple payment policies so that properties can offer guests a simplified payment experience with automated, flexible payments. You can add more payment policies to existing rate groups or create new rate groups in Mews Operations to differentiate your payment offering. This helps you to:

• attract new revenue streams, 
• configure group bookings with multiple payment policies and allow guests to pay in multiple installments,
• assign flat fees to a particular product, service, or
• add a dedicated new payment policy to incidentals unrelated to the total amount of the reservation.

You can learn more about flexible payments supported use cases here.

In this article you can learn about:

• Pre-requisites
  • Automatic payment
    • Information regarding VCCs
  • Contract type
• How to configure multiple payment policies
• View payment policies
• Modify a payment policy
• Currently unsupported use cases
  • Changes to items included under automatic payment

 

Pre-requisites

Automatic payment

• Mews charges only the payment card assigned to the processed reservation, to prevent unauthorized payments.
• Mews automation cannot charge payment cards that you add manually to the guest's profile.
• For Mews to process automatic payment, you need to assign the card to the reservation via: 
  • Mews Booking Engine: on reservation creation with the card.
  • Channel manager: on reservation creation with the card.
  • Online check-in: here the guest can assign the card to the reservation.

 

Information regarding VCCs

When VCCs (Virtual Credit Cards) are detected, Mews overrides the automatic payment policies configured by the hotel with a system rule based on the VCC allowance.
 

For example:

• If the card is only chargeable at check-in time, Mews adapts the charging to that time.
• If the OTAs do not pass on the information, Mews optimizes the charging to match the check-in time by default.

Note:

• This process can still fail, as we do not always get the correct data from the OTAs. In this case, Mews sends a manual task notification so the front desk can charge the card manually at a different time.
• If you manually charge a payment using a Virtual Credit Card (VCC) and close the order items, you must cancel the scheduled payment to avoid a double charge. The automation does not handle this case, so ensure you use either the automation or manual charge, but not both.

 

Contract type  

Your contract needs to receive new features to benefit from multiple payment policies and flexible payment options.

If you do not see this feature in Mews, it is most likely because your system is no longer receiving new features. Contact your Customer Success Manager to upgrade your Mews contract.

 

How to configure multiple payment policies

You can add multiple payment policies to new or existing rate groups by following these steps:
 

1. In Mews Operations, go to the main menu  > Settings > Services.
2. Click on your bookable service.
3. Click Rate groups.
4. Click on the rate group you wish to modify.
5. Click payment policies.
6. Click the + button to add a new payment policy.
7. Complete the following fields to configure your payment policy:

• Trigger: The time you choose for the system to process the payment. Select:
  • Confirmation: to charge upon reservation confirmation.
  • End: to charge at the departure date, at the official check out time specified in your service settings.
  • End date: to charge at midnight of the departure date.
  • Start: to charge at the arrival date, at the official check in time specified in your service settings.
  • Start date: to charge at midnight of the guests' arrival date.
• Value: The amount you want to charge or preauthorize. Select:
  • Percentage: to configure the percentage of total booking value to charge at payment. Note: You can choose more than 100% to automatically create preauthorizations for including an extra charge in case of damages.
  • Flat amount: to collect a flat amount for a particular product, service, or incidental. Note: Flat amount is unrelated to the total amount of the reservation. Once configured, Mews does not apply billing automations and the entire payment will be charged to the guest.
• Offset: The time adjustment in hours, days or minutes to modify the payment trigger. You can select positive value to add time and a negative value to subtract time. 
• Action: If the rule triggers a payment or preauthorization. Select:
  • Charge payment card: to automatically charge the credit card added to the reservation. 
  • Create preauthorization: to preauthorize the card added to the reservation.

• The employee needs to manually charge the created preauthorization.
• Mews releases the preauthorization 24 hours after your property's configured check-out time.

• Type: The payment type. Select:
  • Automatic: to automatically process the payment or preauthorization.
  • Manual: to allow employees to manually process the payment or preauthorization.

8. Click Save.

Repeat steps 5-8 for every payment policy you want to add to the rate group. 

Note: 

• You can configure up to four payment policies per rate group.
• The payment policies tab is only visible once you create the rate group and configure the first rule. To assign multiple payment policies to new rate groups:

1. Create a new rate group and set the first rule configuration. 
2. Repeat steps 5-8 for every payment policy you want to add to the rate group. 

 

View payment policies

You can view all payment policies added to the rate group by following these steps:
 

1. In Mews Operations, go to the main menu  > Settings > Services.
2. Click on your bookable service.
3. Click Rate groups.
4. Click the rate group you wish to view payment policies for.
5. Click Payment policies.

Note: The list includes the first configured rule on creation of the rate group.

 

Modify a payment policy

1. In Mews Operations, go to the main menu  > Settings > Services.
2. Click on your bookable service.
3. Click Rate groups.
4. Click the rate group you wish to modify payment policies for.
5. Click Payment policies.
6. Click the payment policy you wish to modify.
7. Complete the following fields to configure your payment policy:

• Trigger: The time you choose for the system to process the payment. Select:
  • Confirmation: to charge upon reservation confirmation.
  • End: to charge at the departure date, at the official check out time specified in your service settings.
  • End date: to charge at midnight of the departure date.
  • Start: to charge at the arrival date, at the official check in time specified in your service settings.
  • Start date: to charge at midnight of the guests' arrival date.
• Value: The amount you want to charge or preauthorize. Select:
  • Percentage: to configure the percentage of total booking value to charge at payment. Note: You can choose more than 100% to automatically create preauthorizations for including an extra charge in case of damages.
  • Flat amount: to collect a flat amount for a particular product, service, or incidental. Note: Flat amount is unrelated to the total amount of the reservation. Once configured, Mews does not apply billing automations, and the entire payment will be charged to the guest.
• Offset: The time adjustment in hours, days or minutes to modify the payment trigger. You can select positive value to add time and a negative value to subtract time. 
• Action: If the rule triggers a payment or preauthorization. Select:
  • Charge payment card: to automatically charge the credit card added to the reservation. 
  • Create preauthorization: to preauthorize the card added to the reservation.

• The employee needs to manually charge the created preauthorization.
• Mews releases the preauthorization 24 hours after your property's configured check-out time.

• Type: The payment type. Select:
  • Automatic: to automatically process the payment or preauthorization.
  • Manual: to allow employees to manually process the payment or preauthorization.

8. Click Save.

  

Currently unsupported use cases

Changes to items included under automatic payment  

• If you make changes to any items included under automatic payment after the guest pays one or more payment policies, Mews: 
  • fails any future payment policies attached to the rate group.
  • sends an e-mail/ creates a task prompting the property to handle the remaining payment policies manually. 
• If you make changes to items not included under automatic payment, the payment policy automation remains unaffected.

Note: The property selects items to include under automatic payment in the Extent field when creating the rate group for the first time. The items are:

• Additional expenses
• Days or Nights
• Products 

You can learn more about the Extent field here. 

 

You can learn more about the benefits of flexible payments here.