Embedded paymentsEarly access
Payments
Stripe’s rate for the card, plus 0.40%.
No other fees.
Card payments inside the system that runs the stay. A hold at check-in, the bill settled at check-out, a deposit paid by link, a no-show fee collected after the audit, a refund or a chargeback on the payment it concerns — and the money in your bank matching the bills on your desk, line for line.
Built on Stripe. Your hotel is the merchant and the money goes to your bank. Aerandil never holds it.
- No reserve, by defaultNone of your money held back. Four published triggers, every hold dated.
- A lost fight we built costs you nothingCounter with our packet and lose: neither of Stripe's fees reaches you.
- A refund returns the whole feeStripe's share included. Mews, Cloudbeds and Stripe itself keep theirs.
- Leave with your cardsNo term, no exit fee. Your stored cards go to your next processor on request.
What you payA UK hotel
The card's rate, published.
Stripe publishes what each kind of card costs. You pay that rate plus 0.40% — the whole of our fee — and nothing else.
| Card | Online and card on file | At the terminal |
|---|---|---|
| UK cards | 1.9% + 20p | 1.8% + 10p |
| European (EEA) cards | 2.9% + 20p | 1.8% + 10p |
| International cards | 3.55% + 20p | 3.3% + 10p |
Nothing for
- a monthly or setup fee
- a void, or a card that was declined
- storing a card on file — kept once per card, not every time it is typed
- a refund
- a contract term, or leaving
A chargeback costs Stripe's fee: £20 when a dispute arrives, £20 more if you counter it, which comes back if you win. Nothing from us, and nothing at all on a lost case we built. A refund gives the whole fee back, Stripe's share included. Stripe adds 2% where a currency has to be converted.
Hotel software vendors charge for a void, for storing a card, keep the processing fee on a refund, keep the chargeback fee whatever the outcome, and publish no rate at all; the table below has the sources. A hotel outside the UK opens on Stripe's table for its own country plus the same 0.40%; once Stripe grants the platform interchange-plus, you move to interchange plus 0.40%.
In writingFour policies
What we put in writing.
The things hotels find out about a payments vendor after they have signed: whether money is held back, who pays when a dispute is lost, what leaving costs, and whether the cards leave with you. Each one has an answer here, and the answer is the policy.
No reserve, by defaultWe hold none of your money back. We would, and would tell you the day it happened with the amount, the reason and the release date, on four triggers only: a dispute ratio above the card schemes' monitoring threshold; a negative balance not cleared within seven days; notice that the hotel is closing or insolvent; a hold Stripe itself imposes, which we pass on dated. When you leave, we hold only what covers open disputes and deposits for stays not yet delivered, released as each stay is delivered.
A lost fight we built costs you nothingCounter a dispute with the packet the system built, complete and before the deadline, and if the issuer still rules against you, neither of Stripe's two fees is passed on. The conditions: Stripe's fraud screen rated the payment normal and the desk did not override a warning; the card was not keyed by hand; the dispute is for fraud, an unrecognised charge, a refund the guest says never came, a no-show or a cancellation, or a duplicate, not “not as described”; and the account's dispute ratio is under the schemes' threshold. Capped at a quarter of the year's platform fees and never fewer than five cases. The disputed amount itself stays yours to win or lose. Reviewed each year.
Leave with your cardsNo contract term and no exit fee. On request we send your guests' stored cards to your next processor at no charge: Stripe to Stripe by Stripe's own copy, anywhere else through Stripe's PCI export to the receiver. We commit to the date we file, not the date it arrives.
Your own processor, if you have oneKeep it. We charge a flat monthly fee per property instead of the 0.40%, and we publish which actions work on each processor: hold, top-up, capture, refund, no-show fee, dispute evidence. Your own Stripe account comes first; other acquirers on request.
What works on your own processor — the list the fourth policy promises
- Hold at check-in, sized by your rule
- Top-up as the bill grows
- Capture at check-out, the rest released
- Refund, the whole fee returned
- No-show fee, off-session with the SCA chase
- Cancellation fee, off-session with the SCA chase
- Dispute evidence, assembled and submitted
- Payouts matched to the bills
Aerandil PaymentsAll of it, today.
Your own Stripe accountNot yet. The first bridge we build, by OAuth: your account, our application fee, your cards on your account.
Another acquirerOn request, through Stripe's Vault and Forward, with the list above re-published for that acquirer before you rely on it.
Side by sideRead 2026-10-22, re-read 2026-10-27
The same lines, from the vendors' own pages.
Every cell is a quotation from the vendor's published terms or help centre, a published number, or “unpublished” where the vendor publishes nothing. No figure from a forum is quoted as a price. If one of these has changed, tell us and we will correct it.
| Fee line | Aerandil | Stripe, direct | Mews Payments | Cloudbeds Payments | OPERA Cloud + OPI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Published UK card rate | Stripe's rate for the card + 0.40% | 1.5% + 20p | None; “1.1 %++” given as an example | None; “illustrative” only | The processor's |
| Monthly or setup fee | None | None | None published; anything owed to Mews is taken from payouts first | Bundled in the plan | OPI licence, unpublished |
| Storing a card on file | None | None | “charged for every card tokenized and stored” | Not named | The processor's |
| Void or uncaptured hold | None | None | Not named | A “Void Fee” | The processor's |
| Refund fee | None | None | “Refund Fee(s)” | Unpublished | The processor's |
| Original fee back on a refund | Yes, all of it | No | No: “not refunded” | No | The processor's |
| Chargeback | Stripe's £20 + £20, the second back if you win; neither on a lost case we built | £20 received + £20 countered, the second back on a win | “a set amount mentioned in the contract” | Unpublished; “not dependent on the outcome” | $15 on the price list |
| Reserve | None by default; four published triggers | Per Stripe's terms | Set by Mews; held for a year after you leave | “up to the full amount”, at “sole and absolute discretion” | The processor's |
| Your own processor | Yes, at a flat monthly fee; the list of what works on it is published above, your own Stripe account first — not live yet | n/a | No: a payment taken elsewhere is keyed by hand, with no status or refund from Mews | A gateway of your own loses capture, refunds and no-show charging | Yes |
| Leaving | No term, no exit fee; the hold bounded to open disputes and undelivered stays | No closure fee | Reserve held “one (1) year after its termination” | A termination payment on POS equipment; a hold of “any funds deemed necessary”, no limit | The processor's contract |
| Your cards when you leave | Sent to your next processor on request, no charge | Moved to any PCI DSS Level 1 processor | Not addressed | “you will not have access to previously stored credit card details” | Bulk retokenisation (OPI 25.5) |
- Stripe: stripe.com/gb/pricing; support.stripe.com, “June 2025 pricing updates for disputes”; docs.stripe.com, “Request a payment data export”.
- Mews: mews.com/en/legal/merchant-terms (v3.0, effective 2026-10-01); mews.com/en/legal/payments-fees; help.mews.com, “Understanding the different items on your Mews invoice” and “Why does a card payment have no identifier or status?”.
- Cloudbeds: cloudbeds.com/terms/cloudbeds-payments/stripe/ (updated 2026-10-07); help centre articles 4410462958875, 44193770363803, 14278190436507, 360058171073 and 31483490034459.
- Oracle: oracle.com/industries/payg-services-price-list; OPI Cloud 25.5 release notes.
What's differentWhat desks complain about
Built against the six complaints.
Hotels resent the lock-in more than the rate. They cannot tie the payout report to the ledger, cannot forecast the next deposit, treat chargebacks as a black box with a fee attached, and field guest complaints about holds that were never released. Each one is a design decision here.
01The bank matches the billsEvery payout Stripe sends is matched to the payments inside it, bill by bill. Under each card payment on the folio sits the guest's gross, the processing fee and the net, so what reached the bank and what the desk took are the same number, computed rather than typed.
02You can see the next payoutWhat is pending, when it becomes available, the schedule, and every payout with its arrival day. A failed payout is a red row with Stripe's reason in words and a link to fix the bank account yourself.
03Chargebacks with the evidence assembledA dispute lands on the payment it contests with its deadline as a clock. The evidence is built from the stay — the signed registration card, the folio, the guest's messages, the key-card taps — and the packet shows what is still missing before you submit.
04Holds that look after themselvesSized by your own rule — the room, the nights, an incidentals allowance — topped up as the bill grows, re-placed before they lapse, and decided at the door: released, taken for what is owed, or kept open for the post-stay window you set.
05No lock-inYour hotel has its own merchant account at Stripe, in its own name, paid to its own bank. If you leave, your cards on file go with you. If you already have a processor, keep it: a flat fee instead of the 0.40%, and a published list of what works on it.
06Strong authentication, handledWhen an issuer insists on the cardholder, the guest gets a link and the desk sees a pending authentication with a deadline and a chase, not a failed charge written off.
One stayBooking → dispute
The money on the same bill as the stay.
Every movement of money is a recorded step on the folio, done by the person who did it. Nothing is keyed twice and nothing is reconciled by hand.
- 01Deposit by linkThe desk sends a payment page; the guest pays, and the card is kept for the stay.
- 02Hold at check-inOne card guarantee in the check-in dialog, sized by the house rule.
- 03Charges on the billRoom, bar, spa, a tap of the key at the pool — all on the one folio.
- 04Settled at check-outThe hold is taken for the balance, the rest released, the invoice issued.
- 05No-show feeAssessed by the night audit, collected on the card the guest left.
- 06RefundIts own leg against the payment it reverses, back the way it came.
- 07DisputeMirrored from the network with its deadline, countered from the stay.
At the outlet
Charge to key. One tap, one confirmation.
The room key is the folio's payment token. A guest taps the key card the desk already cut on the reader at the bar or the spa, staff see “charging to Ada Lovelace, room 204 — correct?”, and the charge posts to the folio. No room number, no name check, no paper docket.
Hotel key cards use the same radio as contactless payment, so the reader that takes a card takes the key.
A card handed overCard-present at the desk and the outlets runs on Adyen terminals. The first device is on the bench now; it is not yet in a hotel.
A card over the phoneThe desk never takes one. It sends a payment page instead, and the card is kept for the stay once the guest has paid.
How it's set upStripe underneath
Your account, your bank, your schedule.
Your own merchant accountStripe verifies the hotel on its own form; card payments settle to your account as the merchant of record, with your name on the cardholder's statement; Stripe pays your bank on the schedule you choose.
Card numbers never reach usStripe's hosted field takes the card and hands back a token. We hold the token against the guest, which keeps the hotel outside the main scope of PCI DSS.
When the rail is downThe desk keeps working. Charges and refunds queue in order and go through when Stripe is back, and the board says what is waiting.
Payments is in early access: the rail runs on Stripe's live platform today and the first hotels go live with us hand in hand. It is the money side of every Aerandil product — Ithaca's desk first.
Private demo
See the money through a day,
end to end.
We set up a hotel shaped like yours and work the day with you live: a deposit paid by link, a hold at check-in, the bill settled at the door, a no-show fee after the audit, and the payout matched to the bills the next morning.
Book a private demoPrivate demos run live, over a video call.