Travelers book from your trip page or from a widget on your website. Both lead to the same checkout. The card is charged only once every check has passed and the booking exists, so a traveler never pays for seats they did not get.
What the traveler chooses
Multi-day trip | Day tour | |
Price | A package for each participant | A number of each participant type (2 adults, 1 child), or one total for the party when you price by party size |
Participants | Named | Not named |
Pickup point | — | Chosen when the tour has pickup points |
Payment | In full, or on a payment plan when the trip has one | Always in full |
Add-ons and discount code | Yes | Yes |
Departures inside your booking cutoff are not offered. Without a cutoff, a departure stops being bookable 1 day before it starts.
From cart to confirmed booking
Checks first. Before the card is touched, Samba checks the seats, the party size, the add-ons and their stock, and the discount code.
Seats are held for 15 minutes when the traveler reaches the payment step. Other travelers see fewer seats meanwhile. If the hold runs out, the seats are freed and the traveler checks availability again.
The card is authorized, not charged — for the deposit on a payment plan, otherwise for the total. If the bank asks for extra verification, it happens on the same page.
The booking is created and confirmed, then the money is taken. If anything fails before that last step, nothing is charged.
Emails go out. The traveler receives the booking confirmation. Team members who subscribed to new-booking alerts are emailed too.
The card is saved for later installments. Apple Pay and Google Pay appear when they are active for your workspace. See Apple Pay and Google Pay.
What is locked in at booking
A booking keeps the prices it was sold at, its cancellation policy, and whether it was non-refundable. Editing your packages, participant types, add-ons or policies later never changes a booking already placed. For a pickup point, the booking keeps its name, address and time.
When a checkout fails
Situation | What the traveler sees |
The last seats sold while they were paying | The booking fails and no money is taken |
The price changed while their card was being verified | The hold on the card is released and they are asked to review and pay at the new price |
They clicked pay twice | One booking and one charge |
Your Stripe connection is broken | Checkout is blocked. See Reconnecting Stripe |
Travelers can never book more than the remaining seats. Only you can overbook, by creating the booking yourself.