Guest Payments & Deposits

Airflow Direct — Collect payments directly from your guests. Deposits at booking, balance before arrival — all tracked automatically.

Get paid directly — not via an OTA

When guests book through your Airflow Direct website, you own the payment relationship. No OTA holding your money for weeks. No mysterious "adjustments" to your payout. The guest pays you, and you see it immediately.

How payment collection works

Airflow supports a flexible payment model that matches how hospitality businesses actually operate:

At booking

When a guest completes their booking on your website, they can pay:

Full amount — the total booking value upfront
Deposit — a percentage of the total (you configure the deposit percentage in your settings)

Before arrival

If a deposit was collected, the remaining balance is due before check-in. The guest portal shows:

The amount already paid
The remaining balance
The due date (typically 14 days before check-in)
A "Pay Now" button to complete the payment

Payment confirmation

When a payment completes — whether at booking or later via the portal — both sides are updated:

Guest receives a payment receipt and updated booking confirmation
Host sees the payment reflected on their dashboard with a green indicator
Booking status updates to "confirmed" (or "fully paid" for balance payments)
Accounting — if connected, the invoice is updated with payment details

Supported payment methods

You choose which payment methods to offer, based on your market:

Stripe (card payments)

Connect your own Stripe account from the Connections page. Guests pay by card through Stripe's secure checkout. Funds go directly to your Stripe account — Airflow never holds your money.

Paystack

Popular across Africa, particularly Kenya. Connect your Paystack merchant account and guests can pay via card, M-Pesa, or bank transfer through Paystack's checkout. You own the merchant relationship — Airflow facilitates, not intermediates.

Manual payment methods

For markets where card payments aren't the norm, you can display:

Bank transfer details — your account number and bank name
M-Pesa — your M-Pesa number with FX conversion to local currency

For manual methods, you mark the payment as received in your portal once funds arrive.

How Airflow earns on direct bookings

Airflow charges a 6% commission on direct bookings — significantly less than OTA commission. The commission is collected automatically as a Stripe application fee at the time of payment, so it's deducted from your payout rather than billed as a separate charge. Your dashboard and owner notifications break it down clearly: the booking total, the 6% commission, and your net payout. (On marketplace bookings that come through the Airflow discovery channel, the rate is 12%.)

Payment security

All card payments are processed through Stripe or Paystack's PCI-compliant infrastructure. Airflow never sees or stores card numbers. Guest portal payment links use the same HMAC-signed tokens as the rest of the portal — secure, time-limited, and unique to each booking.