What is Mews Merchant?
Mews Merchant is your virtual payment terminal which is is built directly inside of the Mews Commander, basically replacing your physical terminal.
Who are the Mews Merchant payment providers?
We are currently working with two partners - Stripe and Adyen. They have minor differences in terms of pay-outs and way of processing the credit cards cards. To find out, who is your provider - check with support@mewssystems.com.
How does Mews Merchant receive the customer payment card?
Mews Merchant would acquire all the cards that were created from OTAs through the Channel Manager. Any cards added by the guests would be received through our Booking Engine - Mews Distributor. Credit cards are also received from the Online Check-In process or they could be directly added by you anytime in the Guest Profile in Mews Commander.
Why are some cards declined?
Mews Merchant verifies every single card added to your system. It verifies if the card is valid ( not stolen for example) and chargeable. In case the card is invalid or the amount charged from the card is higher than the balance accounts for, Mews Merchant would disable the card right away, so you could follow-up with the guest to request a new card.
Does Mews Merchant support Virtual Cards?
Yes, but partially. Mews Merchant currently has two payment providers - Adyen and Stripe. Due to the different ways of processing of these cards by he providers, Virtual Cards added by Adyen wouldn't automatically be added, as the cards mostly are not active yet at the time of the reservation creation, in addition to that you would need to whitelist Mews Merchant with card issuer (i.e. Expedia, Agoda etc.) so card would be chargeable. Stripe would add these cards, but they wouldn’t be chargeable until the time of check-in.
In case of Adyen, you would be able to add the card manually at the day of the check-in and process the payment. In case of Stripe, at the time of check-in you just need to press payment button at the guest billing.
How does Automatic Charging work?
Using the different settings of Rate Groups, we are able to set the automatic charging directly in the Mews Commander. You could setup the automatic charging for all your non-refundable reservations at the time of reservation creation or as well partial percentage reservation settlement for any rate type at any offset from creation date, check-in or check-out time.
How to match Mews Merchant Payouts with actual card transactions done in the system?
We have a separate FAQ for you here: https://help.mewssystems.com/support/solutions/articles/31000129688-how-to-check-the-merchant-paid-out-in-the-system-
How to act in case the OTA is not providing you with a CVV code for CC payment?
Contact the OTA provider to activate the CVV delivery for Virtual Cards at the time of reservation creation. By default many of them will already have it activated, but in case not - their support team would be able to assist you.
Which fees are applied on my Mews Merchant transactions?
- Storage fee. This fee is taken by the payment processor provider to keep the cards chargeable at any time from the time the card is created in the system till the time the card is active (card could be deactivated at the card expiration date or in case issuer bank would deactivate the card).
- Merchant fee - is the contractual rate for Mews Merchant payment processing. In your contract you could find these rates as agreed during Sales process.
- Interchange and Scheme fees - they are the fees that a merchant's bank pays a customer's bank to process the payments. They vary based on the type of the card (corporate or personal), issuer bank and countries between which the transaction is happening. These fees because of this varies for every single transactions, and would be defined after the payment settlement. In EU interchange fees are regulated by EU directly and could be found online.
Are there any fees for pre-authorizations done via the Merchant? Even for higher amount?
There is no fee for pre-authorization or payment. The only fee is for credit card storage. Commissions are charged separately for payments.
Where can I find the total transaction fee?
Merchant, Interchange and Scheme fees would be added up and added to you financial transactions report export. FAQ of getting the right report could be found here: https://help.mewssystems.com/support/solutions/articles/31000129688-how-to-check-the-merchant-paid-out-in-the-system-
Card storage fee could be retrieved from Credit Card report as per FAQ here: https://help.mewssystems.com/support/solutions/articles/31000130307-mews-merchant-storage-fee-report
In case we want to charge reservations from channel manager manually, do we have to pay the storage fee for every card coming from the channel manager? Is there any way to insert credit card number in Mews and it stays visible?
If you want to enter manually a credit card, you have 2 options and the screen is divided in 2: left one is for merchant where the card will be stored and fee applies, right one is for manual input in Mews. There are no fees but you cannot see the whole number. You are not even entering the whole number but only the last 4 digits. In compliance with safety data regulations we cannot provide visible cc number in the system.
How does the guest receive their payment slip?
In case your guest already has an e-mail in his profile added, he would receive it automatically from the system right after the transaction has been made. In case your guest will not have an email in his profile, his bill that you could print out would serve as payment confirmation.
How could I see what was sent to my guest?
We could setup email delivery for all payment slips that we are sending out. In case you would like to receive a copy, this is done in the "options" section of the payment integration. Alternatively contact support@mewssystems.com so that we can help you set this up.
How do I prevent a payment slip from being sent to a guest?
All of your guests should receive their payment slips to get an overview of all their transactions made. Though in case of the virtual cards usage, you have to prevent the system from doing that as you cannot disclosure to the guest the amount he has paid. To do so, you just need to tick the box “Issues Virtual Cards” in the Travel Agency contract profile, or during payment card creation process in the dropdown list choose cart type “Virtual”
Why does the reservation report show that the credit card is invalid if the card is virtual?
As the card was not active at the time of Reservation process, it hasn’t passed the validation of the bank. This would happen with most Mews Merchant transactions provided by Adyen.
How is the hotel / guest notified about a failed card?
The hotel could retrieve the Reservation Report grouped by “Credit Card” and we advise to do this daily. In this report you would see all created reservations separated by the presence of the card. In case of reservations with failed cards, you would need to follow up with guest directly through the OTA Extranet interface or via email in case of direct booking through Mews Distributor. In addition to all of that, your guest would also receive an online check-in email where he also could add new card directly in Mews Navigator.
Will the guest be able to make a booking through the Mews Distributor with a fake card?
Yes, the booking would be confirmed by the system, though your guest would still get an email to add the new card at online check-in process. In addition to that you would see their reservation in Reservation Report as procedure described above so you also could follow-up directly with the guest.
In case an OTA is sending us both Virtual and Physical cards, can Mews Merchant differentiate them?
No. In principal, Virtual and Physical cards have no difference at all. We are working on a way to differentiate them, but currently it is not supported. In case your OTA has an option of sending VCC, don’t forget to tick “Issues Virtual Cards” at the Travel Agency Contact profile.
How often would I receive my settlements from Mews Merchant?
This depends on the payment provider, you would receive it once per week (Adyen) or every business day (Stripe). In case of Stripe, we could make the payment less frequent as well.
Can Mews Merchant automatically charge Cancellation or No-show fees?
Currently not. From our own experience hotels intend to waive these fees more often than actually charge them. You are able to do that manually though, as the card would be available for you even after cancellation of the reservation.
Can Mews Merchant process preauthorisations?
Yes, though it is worth mentioning that this process is manual and Mews Commander does not capture preauthorisation automatically. Please also note that preauthorisation is not a financial transaction, but just a request towards issuer bank to block particular amount of money at the client account. When you are asking to release this money, only issuer bank could decide when to do that and it might take from 3 to 30 days depends on the guest’s bank.
Can Mews Merchant cancel preauthorisations automatically or manually?
Yes, however this process would depend on the guest bank only. In case a property hasn’t manually cancelled the preauthorisation, we would do it automatically after 7 or 14 days, depending on the issuer bank.
Which card are supported by Mews Merchant?
Depends on your contract and payment provider that varies from property to property. Visa and Mastercard are always supported. All other card could be agreed at the Sales process.
Are debit cards supported by Mews Merchant?
Depends on the card issuer. In case card is co-branded with Visa or Mastercard (Visa Electron, Maestro) and has standard card number on it and not iBAN number only - it would be supported by Merchant.
Will iBAN cards be supported by Mews Merchant?
Currently we are working out the way to process them. Limit to that card is that they cannot be added to the system for multiply transactions, which makes them not really useful for the property as no late charges or charges after one settlement could be done.
Are Apple Pay / Android Pay / Paypal and other online processors supported by Mews Merchant?
Currently not, but we are looking for a way to process them. Similar to iBAN limits, they cannot be added to the system for multiply transactions.
Can I do refund via Mews Merchant?
Any transaction made via Mews Merchant could be refunded on the "Payments" tab. Please note that according to financial laws, refunds can only be done using same way the original charge was done. You cannot charge one card and refund it to the other one, take cash and refund it to card, or charge via physical terminal and refund it via Mews Merchant.