So over the Christmas break i had two bookings for vrbo and the security deposit was collected and also returned to the customer before I had a chance to even notice it… I didn’t have to do anything

This post may be older. The way stripe currently works for security deposit is to run a pre authorization only. No charge sticks / posts as it is ‘uncaptured’. If there is a problem at checkout and need to then go do partial refund to hit their security deposit, that requires owner / hosts action. If you do nothing, that pre authorization will never post and falls off guests credit card in 5 business days. I don’t mind the longer timeframe as it gives some time to sort out what happened, possibly get quote from handyman etc. If it’s too short, we lose our flexibility / leverage. This variable of a pre authorization timeline is probably something only under control by stripe for all their clients, and not in control of uplisting.io. 1 out of maybe 200 guests is this a problem that run their life right up against their credit limit and they need us to clear the pre authorization as it disrupts their life somehow. For everybody else, a simple explanation in your automated checkout instructions satisfies. The thing that begs the most questions is for VRBO listing, uplisting / us keeping our own security deposit somehow shows ip on VRBO listings as ‘host will collect security deposit physically’. I get questions from guests that think I am going to meet them and want check or cash somehow. Lol. So fixing that integration with VRBO for clarity and less confusion would be great. For the rest, I and guests find it no problem to just let the pre authorization expire and requires no time or effort.

I really do not like your team notifications and reminders. I was with hospitable before, and they were awesome! I could set reminders (email and text) to them as many times as I wanted. Now, I get complaints that they are not getting anything. They get reminded once as the property books I believe, and if they missed it somehow (especially early bookings) then my properties may sit w/o being cleaned. That is really bad. I cannot imagine that if hospitable (being such a limited company can provide that to their clients and uplisting is not able to).

oh shiiite, I didn't know this wasn't happening already, so we have been keeping security deposits from guests, uh ohs. Ya, I don't know how this wasn't part of v1 here, the name of what it is even implies its temporary. I bet the majority of Uplisting users doing direct bookings don't know this isn't happening automatically right now. Would highly recommend a band-aid feature to clarify this, even if it's just an email to admin's when a direct booking is over, asking if they want to refund the security deposit or keep it, then the link just pushes us to the stripe page for the deposit. Then we know to either refund if there wasn't an issue, or just do nothing, and then we keep it.

I would rather a customizable timeframe for the automatic refund. 5 gotta seems too short and I would rather 24/48 hrs.

If you add emails to your new messaging update then at least we could email ourselves a reminder to refund security deposits (therefore also could turn into a task for any program with zapier)

I am a new user and I haven't had to return a security deposit yet. But from what I understand from my previous provider, the Stripe security deposit automatically falls off after 7-days. As a result of COVID, guests are booking for longer periods. So, does the Protect system renew the security deposit for longer stays? If not, the security deposit would drop off before check-out. Nevertheless, for shorter stays I would prefer option 1. To provide more flexibility, there could be the option to automatically return 24-, 48-, or 72-hours after check-out.