Your uncharged Booking.com cards become Booking's revenue after a year.
Booking.com's partner rules give you 365 days after check-out to charge each virtual card. After that, the unused balance becomes its revenue. Expedia's cards expire at 180.
by Markus Busch
A Sunday check-out. A couple leaves after three nights. They booked on Booking.com and paid in advance, so the desk charges the virtual card on the reservation and prints the folio. The card was loaded with the room and the city tax. The desk charged the room.
The tax is still sitting on the card, and it has a deadline. Booking's partner help page for its payments service gives your hotel 365 days after check-out to charge each card. After that, in Booking's words, "the funds will belong to us," filed as financial breakage. Expedia's developer documentation sets its virtual cards to expire within 180 days of check-out.
Where the money gets left. A guest cuts a night, and Booking emails updated card details that nobody at the desk opens. A cancellation fee is agreed on the phone and never keyed in. A euro card gets charged in francs, and Mastercard's conversion decides what lands in your account. Small amounts, one booking at a time, every week of the year.
HSMAI's distribution board looked at the same problem in a piece written by Marriott's senior director of distribution. It traces most of the loss to the front desk and to charge windows that close before anyone checks. Accounting rules let a distributor book the leftover as its own revenue once collection looks unlikely, and the board's members split on whether it should count as revenue or as a debt owed to the hotel.
Pull the list. Booking sends a weekly email of last week's check-outs with open card balances. By its own description, the email is not cumulative. A card missed in March never comes back in April.
The record is still there. Booking's extranet keeps card transaction details for 18 months after check-out, six months longer than the money stays yours. In Expedia Partner Central, the remaining balance shows on each reservation's card, so someone opens them one booking at a time. For most independents, that is a morning of the controller's week.
What it buys. Money for stays you already delivered. Firms that recover these balances for hotels keep up to 25% of what they find, according to the HSMAI piece. Doing it in-house keeps all of it, minus the processor fee of 2% to 3% you pay on any card.
The limits. Booking's weekly email and the 18-month record are tools it built for exactly this job. Expedia lets a hotel take an expired card to its support team; Booking's page names no such route. Neither company publishes how much money expires on its cards each year, and HSMAI's board offers only an estimate its members pass around, with no study behind it.
Pull both lists this week. Booking's oldest cards come from last October's check-outs. Expedia's run out on April's.
Read also: Mews got a licence to hold your money · BCD is steering corporate bookings away from hotels that fumble virtual cards
Enjoying this analysis?* Hospitality.today delivers daily insights on hotel distribution, AI trends, and travel commerce — straight to your inbox. Subscribe for free at Hospitality.today →