Why this works the way it does
Hotelia is built around one principle: your guests' money is yours. When a guest books a room through your widget, the charge goes straight to your Stripe account. The funds land in your bank on Stripe's normal payout schedule. Hotelia never holds your money, never takes a commission on a booking, and never sits between you and your guests at checkout.
To make that work, we use something called Stripe Connect. Connect lets Hotelia route payments to your own Stripe account while still giving you the booking management, guest communication, and reporting features that make Hotelia useful. You are the merchant of record on every transaction. Hotelia is just the booking system.
What this means for you in practice:
You sign up for your own Stripe account (or connect an existing one)
Stripe verifies you the same way they would for any merchant
Guests pay you directly. Hotelia processes nothing.
Payouts hit your bank account on Stripe's schedule
If a guest disputes a charge, the dispute goes to you. Stripe gives you tools to respond.
If a guest wants a refund, you issue it from Hotelia and the money comes from your Stripe balance
Before you start
You will need:
Your business's legal name and address
An EIN or SSN (or the equivalent in your country) for tax purposes
A bank account where you want payouts to land
About fifteen minutes for the initial setup
You do not need a Stripe account in advance. If you do not have one, you will create it during the connect flow.
If you prefer to sign up for Stripe in advance, go to Stripe.com and sign up for a free account.
Setting Up Stripe for Your Property
Step 1: Connect Stripe in Hotelia
Log into your Hotelia dashboard
Go to Settings → Integrations → Payments
You will see the Stripe card in a "Not connected" state
Choose your mode: Test or Live
Click Connect Stripe
A Stripe-hosted page opens. This is Stripe's own onboarding flow, not Hotelia's. You will:
Confirm or create your Stripe account
Enter your business information (legal name, address, tax ID, type of business)
Add a bank account for payouts
Verify your identity. Stripe may ask for documents like a driver's license or business filing.
Stripe handles all of this. Your sensitive data goes directly to Stripe, not to Hotelia.
When you finish, Stripe redirects you back to Hotelia. The Stripe card now shows Active with green checkmarks for "Charges enabled" and "Payouts enabled."
You are ready to take bookings.
Test mode vs Live mode
Stripe gives you two parallel environments:
Test mode is for trying things out. You can take fake bookings with a test card number (4242 4242 4242 4242), see the full guest experience, run refunds, and explore the dashboard without moving any real money. Nothing in test mode ever charges a real card or sends real payouts. You can use it to learn the platform and rehearse your workflows.
Live mode is for actual bookings. Real cards, real charges, real payouts.
Most operators start in test mode for a week or two, then switch to live mode when they are confident.
You can switch from test to live, or live to test, by disconnecting and reconnecting.
Step 2: Set your tax rate
To add a tax rate:
Open the Stripe dashboard for your connected account
Navigate to Products → Tax rates
Click + New to create a tax rate
Display name: something clear like "San Diego Hotel Tax"
Percentage: your local rate (for example, 11.75%)
Inclusive or Exclusive: usually Exclusive for hotels, meaning the tax is added on top of the room rate
Region: the state or country where you operate
Active: toggle on
Save
Back in Hotelia, go to Settings → Hotel Configuration → Tax Rate. Your new rate will appear in the dropdown. Select it as your default and save.
From now on, every booking through Hotelia automatically applies your tax rate to the room charge. The guest sees the tax broken out on their booking confirmation, and the full amount lands in your Stripe account.
Step 3: Create promo codes (optional)
If you want to offer discounts, you can create promo codes in Stripe and they will work in your Hotelia booking widget automatically.
In your Stripe dashboard, go to Products → Coupons
Click + New coupon
Type: Percentage or Fixed amount
Value: the discount amount (10% off, $25 off, etc.)
Duration: choose "Once" for booking discounts
Save the coupon
Click into the coupon and create a + Promotion code
Code: the actual code your guests will type (like SUMMER10 or NEWYEAR)
Active: toggle on
You can also set expiration dates, maximum redemptions, or first-time-only restrictions
Guests enter the code in your booking widget. Hotelia validates it against your Stripe account and applies the discount before payment.
How payments flow
Here is what happens when a guest books a room:
Guest opens your booking widget, picks dates, picks a room, optionally applies a promo code
Guest enters their card details directly into a Stripe field. Hotelia never sees the card.
Stripe charges the card and sends the funds to your Stripe balance
Hotelia records the booking with payment status "Paid"
Stripe pays out to your bank account on its normal schedule
If you need to refund a guest later, you can do it from inside Hotelia. The refund pulls from your Stripe balance and reverses the original charge.
If a guest disputes a charge with their card issuer, Stripe notifies you and gives you a window to submit evidence. This is part of being the merchant of record.
All charges, refunds, and deposits will flow through your Stripe account with payouts deposited directly to your linked bank account.
Disconnecting and reconnecting
If you ever need to disconnect Stripe from Hotelia, go to Settings → Integrations → Payments → Disconnect. We require you to type "DISCONNECT" to confirm. After disconnecting:
Future bookings cannot be processed until you reconnect
Existing bookings stay in your dashboard but you cannot charge or refund them through Hotelia
Your Stripe account is unchanged. All your previous transactions, customers, and balance remain in Stripe.
To reconnect, follow the same setup flow as before. You can connect a different Stripe account if you want, or reconnect the same one.
Common reasons to disconnect:
You are switching between test and live mode
You are changing the legal entity that runs the hotel (new ownership, new business structure)
You are pausing online bookings temporarily
Frequently asked questions
How long until I see my money? Stripe holds the first few payouts for two business days. After the first couple of weeks, they typically pay out daily. You can see your payout schedule in your Stripe dashboard under Balance.
What card networks are accepted? Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover by default. You can enable additional payment methods like Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH for higher-value bookings, and international cards inside your Stripe settings.
What does Stripe charge? Stripe's standard processing fee in the United States is 2.9% plus 30¢ per transaction. International cards may have an additional fee. Hotelia does not add anything on top. The fee comes out of each charge before the rest lands in your account.
What happens if Stripe holds funds for review? Stripe occasionally reviews unusual transactions before paying out, especially for new accounts. If this happens, you will get a notification from Stripe and the funds will be released after review, usually within a few days. This is a Stripe process, not a Hotelia process.
Can I use my existing Stripe account? Yes. During the connect flow, you can sign into an existing account instead of creating a new one. Hotelia will connect to that account.
What about international guests? Stripe accepts cards from most countries. You may want to enable multi-currency support in your Stripe settings if you take a lot of international bookings.
What if I want to refund a guest? From inside Hotelia, open the booking details and click Refund. Choose full or partial refund. The money comes from your Stripe balance and reverses to the guest's card within five to ten business days.
What if a guest disputes a charge? Stripe will email you with the dispute details and a deadline to respond. Log into your Stripe dashboard, gather evidence (booking confirmation, communication with the guest, your cancellation policy), and submit it through Stripe.
Is my data secure? Card data never touches Hotelia's servers. It goes directly from the guest's browser to Stripe. Stripe is PCI Level 1 certified, which is the highest level of payment security. Hotelia stores only the last four digits of the card and a token Stripe gives us for future charges.