Deposits & instalments

Why take a deposit

Multi-day trips are often booked months ahead. Asking for the full price on day one puts some travellers off, while taking nothing leaves you holding seats for people who may never pay. A deposit sits in between: the traveller commits, you secure the seat, and the balance follows closer to departure.

In Tourtify the deposit is set on each tour option, either as a percentage of the price or as a fixed amount per traveller, together with how many days before departure the balance is due. Take a 20% deposit on a $1,200 trek: the traveller pays $240 at checkout and the remaining $960 is due, say, 45 days before departure. The plugin then handles the rest of the journey: reminders, automatic charges, retries and what happens when a balance is late.

You also decide whether deposits are refundable. The choice is shown to travellers next to the deposit and on their booking. When it is non-refundable and you refund a cancelled booking, the refund dialog suggests keeping the deposit part.

Collecting the balance without chasing

Turn on automatic collection and travellers paying a deposit can agree to keep their card on file. On the due date the balance is charged to that card. A few days before (three by default, up to 14), they get a heads-up email saying how much will be charged, to which card and when. This needs a payment account that supports saved cards, which today means Stripe. Without one, reminders with personal pay links still work.

If a charge fails, the traveller is emailed a secure link to pay or use another card, and Tourtify retries on the schedule you pick: after 1, 3 and 5 days (the default), after 1 and 2 days, after 2, 4 and 7 days, or not at all. Cards that need the bank's confirmation are never retried; the traveller uses the link instead.

Set a grace period after the due date (seven days by default). When it ends, you choose what happens: flag the booking and alert your team, or cancel the booking and release the seats. Cancelling emails the traveller. Money already paid is not refunded automatically, so your team keeps that decision.

Instalment plans

On the Growth plan you can let travellers split the balance into equal scheduled payments, between two and twelve. With a $960 balance and three instalments, that is three payments of $320. Each payment gets its own reminders (7 days before, 3 days before, on the due date and 2 days after, or any mix of these) with a secure pay link, and is charged automatically when the traveller has a card on file.

Payment dates work one of two ways. Spread evenly from the booking date to the final due date, with payments never closer together than the gap you set (21 days by default). Or counted back from the final due date, one every gap, so everyone on a departure shares the same dates. When dates are counted back and a late booker has already missed some, catch-up combines the missed ones into a first payment due straight away; turn it off to spread the balance over the remaining dates instead. Fewer instalments are used when the trip is close.

Plans can change. Your team can reschedule one booking's instalments with new dates and amounts, more or fewer payments, as long as they add up to the same total. Money already received keeps covering the plan in order.

Late bookings, pay-in-full and reserve now, pay later

A deposit makes little sense two weeks before departure. Set “Pay in full when booking within” to, for example, 30 days, and anyone booking inside that window pays everything at checkout. Left at 0, bookings pay in full only once the tour's own balance date has passed.

To encourage travellers to skip the deposit, offer a discount for paying in full, up to 50%. A 5% reward on the $1,200 trek brings it to $1,140 for those who pay upfront. The discount only appears when a deposit was on offer.

For tours with free cancellation, you can also let travellers reserve with a saved card and pay nothing today. The full amount is charged a set number of days before free cancellation ends (three by default), which leaves time to retry a declined card. If it still isn't paid by then, the booking is cancelled and the seats go back on sale.

Setting up Deposits & instalments

1. 1Turn on Deposits & instalments. Open Plugins and switch it on. Until it is on, every new booking is paid in full.
2. 2Set the deposit on each tour option. Choose a percentage or a fixed amount per traveller, and how many days before departure the balance is due.
3. 3Choose your deposit rules. Decide whether deposits are refundable, the lead time for paying in full and any pay-in-full discount.
4. 4Set up automatic collection. With Stripe connected, turn on automatic charges, the heads-up email and the retry schedule.
5. 5Decide what happens to late balances. Pick the grace period and whether to flag the booking or cancel it and release the seats.
6. 6Add instalment plans if you need them. On Growth, set the number of payments, how dates are worked out, the gap and the reminders.