What does the customer see when paying a deposit or saving a card?

What happens at the payment step of online booking — deposits and full payments are charged immediately, no-show protection only saves a card.

A customer booking online sees at most one payment step. What it does depends on the booking: it either takes a payment (a deposit, the full booking price, or paid extras) or saves a card for no-show protection — and where the restaurant offers extras, any paid extras simply join that one step's charge.

If the booking needs a deposit — or is paid in full

The customer pays by card before the booking is confirmed — Apple Pay and Google Pay work too. This is a real, immediate payment (not a hold): the money goes straight to the restaurant's own Stripe account. For a deposit the step is headed Deposit Payment; where the restaurant requires the whole booking price up front it's headed Full Payment and shows a Total to Pay, with the customer told on the first step — "This booking is paid in full when you book — £X per person" (or "£X for the booking"). Dishes a customer chooses while booking are always called their food order — never a deposit — and the page only says there's nothing to pay now when nothing is taken. Any paid extras the customer chose are itemised in the same breakdown and charged in the same payment. The confirmation screen and email show what was paid, and any refund later follows the restaurant's cancellation policy — the manage-booking page always warns the customer of the exact amount they'd lose before a cancellation goes through. Where the restaurant offers a My account page (Pro and above, or with the Loyalty product), the customer's booking card there also shows what they paid and any refund — "£20.00 deposit paid", "£10.00 of £20.00 refunded", "Refunded in full" (see What can customers do in the customer portal?).

A paid extra on a booking that otherwise needs no payment still brings up the card step — the payment is just the extras.

If the booking qualifies for no-show protection instead

The customer is asked to save a card — and nothing is charged. The venue may ask for a card every day, only at certain days and times, or on a special date with its own fee; the booking page asks only when the date and time the customer chose needs one. The card sits on file purely as no-show cover. It can only ever be charged if:

• the restaurant's team deliberately mark the booking as a no-show and choose to charge the no-show fee — a flat fee for the booking, or a fee per guest, shown to the customer before they save the card (an automatic system never charges, and a customer who turns up is never charged), or
• the restaurant has switched on late-cancellation charging and the customer cancels inside the venue's cancellation deadline — never as a surprise: the manage-booking page names the exact fee and the customer must confirm it before the cancellation goes through.

If the fee is charged, the customer receives an email explaining it.

The card is only ever held while the booking is live: as a privacy protection, it's released automatically as soon as the booking is completed, cleared or cancelled — after that point no fee can be charged to it.

Booking payments and no-show protection never combine

A booking that pays a deposit or is paid in full is never also asked to save a card — the payment already covers the no-show risk. Where a booking qualifies for both, the payment takes priority (pay-in-full beats a deposit, and either beats the card save). The one combination that does happen: a customer buying paid extras on a booking that qualifies for no-show protection completes a single card step that charges the extras and saves the card.

If the booking options change while the customer is filling in the form

The booking page checks the latest options before continuing to payment and again before confirming a card or wallet payment. If the venue changes its booking rules, the customer is asked to review the available times, choices and payment. Their contact details and notes stay in the form. A failed check lets them retry without starting the payment.

A confirmed booking keeps its agreed terms. If a paid-in-full booking grows, its top-up uses the booking's saved per-person rate; a booking paid in full per booking moves no money when its party changes. A competing booking edit or an unavailable table can stop the pending change; a payment that has already succeeded then goes through the existing refund process instead of applying an unavailable change. Opening a payment link does not hold a table.

Who the money goes to

All customer payments — deposits, pay-in-full bookings, paid extras, payment links, no-show fees and event tickets — are paid directly to the restaurant's own Stripe account. On a bank statement the charge comes from the restaurant, not from ResoFlow.

Related: How do I take booking deposits? · How do pay-in-full bookings work? · How do I sell extras with bookings? · How do I charge no-show fees? · How do I share my online booking page? · What can customers do in the customer portal?

A booking refund returned on a linked gift card

If the original gift card cannot receive an agreed booking refund, authorised staff can review the gift amount still owed in Booking refund reviews. ResoFlow checks the original spend, earlier returns and any gift-card purchase refund. A verified replacement covers only that saved refund’s remaining gift portion, preserves the original expiry and records the original and replacement returns separately. An expired card still needs an explicit authorised expiry extension before use.

The action requires both booking-refund and gift-refund permissions, plus fresh password or authorised manager PIN confirmation. Staff receive the new code once to save or print and hand to the guest; the action does not email the code. A lost code can be replaced from the booking details with another fresh confirmation, without adding value. Missing or conflicting evidence stays open for review. Replacement gift value is not a bank refund or a new gift-card sale.