The improvements include:
- Take pre-authorisations closer to the pickup time to reduce the risk of them expiring
- Greater control over when pre-authorisations are triggered
- Additional controls for Apple Pay and Google Pay on bookings made well in advance
- Support for Incremental Payments, allowing an existing authorised amount to be increased as the journey changes
Incremental Payments are particularly useful when the final cost of a journey isn't known at the point of booking.
For example, a card may initially be pre-authorised for the expected journey price. If additional waiting time, a route change, a tip or another charge is added later, the authorised amount can be increased to reflect the new total.
This allows additional charges to remain part of the same payment transaction rather than requiring the operator to process a separate payment.
For ride hailing, chauffeur services, airport transfers and other passenger transport operations where journey prices can change after a booking has been made, this provides a more practical way to manage variable charges.
The result is:
- Fewer failed collections
- Reduced manual payment follow-up
- More reliable handling of changing journey costs
- A simpler payment process for both operators and passengers
Credit Card Improvements and Incremental Payments give operators greater control over payment handling while helping ensure the final amount collected more accurately reflects the journey that was actually delivered.