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Hospitality

Check in, hold the card, settle it three days later.

Hotels pre-authorise at check-in and capture at check-out. Short-stay rentals charge cleaning fees and deposits. Spa, restaurant and parking are separate revenue centres billed to the same guest. Surfboard ships those primitives on one API instead of one vendor each.

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  • 1 Guest, several revenue centres
  • Pre-auth Held at check-in, captured later
  • 1 Settlement per outlet, on one integration
A hotel reception desk
I How hospitality operates

Built Around the Hospitality Charging Pattern

Hospitality is one of the few industries where the standard authorize-and-capture-immediately model breaks down. Hotels need to hold a card for the duration of a stay. Short-stay rentals adjust totals as guests add services. Vacation memberships need recurring charges with auto-update on card replacement. Surfboard ships these as first-class flows, not as workarounds.

Pre-authorization at check-in. Adjustment during the stay. Capture at check-out. Tokenization for recurring charges. Identification for tap-to-recognize returning guests. Multi-outlet configuration for properties with multiple revenue centers. Multi-property branding for hotel groups. All composed on a single API surface.

II Hospitality patterns

Hospitality patterns Surfboard handles natively

Six payment patterns hospitality operators run on Surfboard daily. None require custom integration.

  • Pre-Authorization & Delayed Capture

    Hold a card on file at check-in. Settle the actual amount at check-out, including any incidentals, room service, mini-bar, or extra-night extensions. Surfboard's pre-auth and delayed-capture flow is built for the hospitality charging pattern out of the box.

    • Pre-authorize at check-in
    • Adjust the amount during the stay
    • Capture the final total at check-out
    • Partial captures and voids supported

  • Recurring & Subscription Billing

    Long-stay rentals, monthly residents, vacation-club memberships, hotel loyalty subscriptions, all need recurring billing on stored cards. Surfboard's network tokenization handles MIT (merchant-initiated transactions) with automatic card updates when networks reissue.

    No more involuntary churn from expired cards. Subscriptions just keep working.

  • Multi-Property Branding

    Hotel groups with multiple brands under one corporate roof, Surfboard's branding cascade keeps each brand's identity preserved on terminals, hosted check-in pages, receipts, and email confirmations. Override per property or per terminal as needed.

  • Tap-to-Identify at Check-In

    Returning guest taps their card at the check-in kiosk. Surfboard's Identification recognizes the same card token from their previous booking, no QR codes, no app required, no app to install. Profile loaded, room key issued, settled in seconds.

  • Tipping for Hospitality Markets

    North American and transatlantic guests expect tipping prompts at restaurants, room service, valet, and spa. Configure tipping at the merchant or store level via the Tips API, three preset percentages, optional custom entry, percentage-or-amount display.

  • Multi-Outlet Settlement Within One Property

    A hotel with a restaurant, a spa, a gift shop, and a parking garage, different outlets, different revenue centers, often different tax treatments. Multi-store configuration handles them as separate stores under the property merchant, with consolidated reporting at the property level.

III Reach for these first

The hospitality capability stack

Each one is reachable from the integration you have already written. Nothing below is a separate product to buy.

IV Front desk to poolside

From boutique hotel to multi-property hospitality group

Single property, single brand? Configure once, run forever. Hotel group with seven brands across forty properties? Branding cascades from group → brand → property → outlet. Each property keeps its own settlement. Each outlet keeps its own reporting. Each brand keeps its own visual identity. Same platform, same API, same operational model.
V In code

Build hospitality payment flows

Pre-auth at check-in, capture at check-out. Recurring billing on stored tokens. Tap-to-identify returning guests. Configure multi-outlet structures and multi-property branding. All through one API.

Read the Developer docs
// Pre-authorize at check-in
  POST /orders
  {
    "amount": { "total": 250000, "currency": "SEK" },
    "controlFunctions": {
      "delayCapture": true,
      "preAuthorize": true,
      "captureWindow": "30d"
    },
    "customer": {
      "person": { "name": { "firstName": "Anna", "lastName": "Berg" }, "email": "anna@guest.example" }
    }
  }

  // Capture the final total at check-out
  POST /orders/:orderId/capture
  {
    "amount": 312500
  }

Build it yourself

Step-by-step developer guides for everything on this page.

In-store · Guide
Device Registration

Register a terminal to a store before it can take payments or receive a partner POS app. Covers rotating codes, QR/registration links, pre-shipped codes, and in-app registration for SoftPOS.

Read guide In-store · Guide
Tips Configuration

Configure tipping on Surfboard payment terminals at the merchant, store, or terminal level using a hierarchical override model.

Read guide Online · Guide
Product Catalog

Create and manage product catalogs, products, variants, inventory levels, and analytics through the Catalog API.

Read guide In-store · Guide
Receipts

Generate, email, print, and customise receipts for in-store transactions using the Surfboard Receipts API.

Read guide
Browse all developer guides