Entering a new credit card for a customer

Sometimes we get a question about entering a new credit card for a customer, usually for long-term residents.  The first attempt usually involves entering it under the Customer Details / Guarantee Info.  However this doesn't necessarily work.  Here's why:

When you make a new payment, it looks for a previous card in a specific order:

•First it looks at previous transactions for the Reservation and will use the last card from the most recent reservation payments made by credit card.

•If no cards are found in reservation transactions, then it will look at Customer transactions (e.g. from other reservations, or done on just the Customer).

•If still no card is found, then it will check the Reservation's Guarantee info, under Reservation Details.  (This is assumed to only be useful when they first make the reservation and have no transactions yet.)

•Finally it will check the Customer's Guarantee info (this is assumed to be oldest, e.g. left over from prior reservations).

So if you're entering the new card under Customer Details, that's going to be the last place it looks.  

While there isn't a specific field for holding credit card information "on file" for a customer, there is a workaround way of doing it if you don't mind losing all of the old information (and the ability to do a refund to the customer's previous card).  You can put the new credit card information in the Customer's Guarantee Info (on the Customer record, not the Reservation record).  This also involves changing the security settings to a minimal level.  In my opinion this is not a good idea -- I would just make the customer produce the credit card the next time they need to make a payment.   However if you want to do it, here are the steps.

First go to Maintenance / Credit Cards / Security Setup, and uncheck (disable) all of the options for removing guarantee info, and also uncheck the option to not retrieve card information from previous transactions or Guarantee info, and uncheck the option to limit retrieval to the current reservation's transactions.  If you're using at least version 6.0, this should leave all boxes unchecked.  Note: If you're using a version prior to version 6, there are other security options noted for PCI compliance.  Do NOT disable those options.

Next, go to Maintenance / Credit Cards / Remove a customer's credit card info.  Find the customer in question and have it remove all past card information.

Finally, go to Customer Details for that customer, click on the "..." button at the end of the Guarantee Info line, and enter the new card information.