A security deposit is a temporary hold of funds on the guest's credit card that can be used to cover any incidentals or damages that may occur during their stay. The security deposit is typically processed on the day of arrival and refunded on the day of departure, after the unit has been inspected and no damages are found.

You can set a security deposit up against each listing that'll apply to your Vrbo reservations.

To do so, follow these steps:

From here, you can specify a security deposit option. If you are signed up with Generali Travel Insurance, you can choose to show a security deposit and/or Generali Damage Protection on your website. If you are not signed up with Generali Travel Insurance, you can choose the "Security Deposit Only" option to itemize the deposit on your Vrbo listings.

You'll also need to create a security deposit template where you can input the amount and a description of the deposit. You can do this by clicking on "View/Edit Templates."

After creating the template, assign it to the listing by choosing the applicable template from the dropdown:

Once the security deposit is assigned to the listing, it will be displayed to guests booking on Vrbo. However, it's important to note that the payment is not actually processed at the time of booking. This is because security deposits are typically taken on the day of arrival and are a separate hold of funds.

Since security deposits are typically processed on the day of arrival, it's recommended to use the Reservations List to load all reservations arriving today where the deposits are ready to be processed.

To load arriving reservations:

This will load reservations arriving today into the grid.

From here, open the Reservation Folio by right-clicking on the reservation to open the menu and select Reservation Folio.

If you already have the guest's card on file, scroll down to the "Take Payments' section within the financials tab of the Reservation Folio. Select "Payment Actions" > "Take Payment."

From the popup window, follow these steps:

If successfully processed, a new line item will appear under the payments section to reflect that the security deposit was taken.

If you don't have a credit card on file for the guest, you can send them a secure payment link where they can submit the security deposit instead. To do so, from the Reservation Folio scroll down to the "Take Payments' section within the financials tab and select "Payment Actions" > "Create Payment Link."

From the popup, specify security deposit as the payment tab and enter the amount you'd like the guest to submit. You can view the link in your browser by selecting 'View in Browser" or click copy and then you can paste the link into an email to the guest.

Security deposits submitted from the payment link aren't automatically processed by the system, rather they come through as pending transactions that you'll need to physically process.

Once the guest submits their payment details from the payment page, the credit card information will automatically be saved on file in case you need to process an additional payment at a later time.

For security deposits that aren't automatically processed, such as those that come from the payment link, you'll need to manually process them.

To do so, follow these steps:

Please keep in mind, authorizing the security deposit, just places a hold on the guest's credit card. It does not physically process these funds.

After the guest checks out, if no damages are found, you can release the security deposit hold from their credit card. The process for this varies depending on your merchant processor and credit card type used. We recommend contacting your merchant processor (VRP, Stripe, Authorize.net, etc.) to find out the best process for automatically releasing the holds.