A payment link lets a customer pay by card for a booking you made for them, without signing in anywhere. Samba emails the link for you in two situations: when you create a booking, and when you edit one and the price goes up.
Before you start
A live Stripe account must be connected. See Connecting Stripe.
Until it is, Samba sends no customer emails at all, payment links included. See Why can't I message my customers yet?
For a new booking
Go to Bookings → New Booking and complete the Customer, Trip and Participants steps. See Create a booking for a customer.
On the Payment step, choose Collect payment with Samba.
When the trip has a payment plan, choose between the deposit with scheduled installments and payment in full.
Create the booking. The customer is emailed the link straight away.
The booking stays Pending until the customer pays.
A Pending booking does not hold seats. If the departure sells out before the customer pays, their payment still confirms the booking, as an overbooking.
For an extra amount on an existing booking
Open the booking and select Actions → Edit booking.
Make the change. When the price goes up and no installment is left to carry it, choose to apply the change and request payment by link.
Select Apply changes. The "booking updated" email carries the link.
See Edit a booking.
What the customer pays
Booking | The page collects |
No payment plan | The full amount due |
Payment plan with a deposit | The deposit |
Payment plan with no deposit | Nothing today. The card is saved for the scheduled installments |
Already paid, then made more expensive by an edit | The difference |
The customer sees the order summary and your cancellation policy, accepts the terms, and pays. Discount codes cannot be entered on this page: apply the code when you create the booking.
What happens next
Paying confirms a Pending booking and sends the confirmation email. Paying a difference on a booking that is already confirmed sends no second confirmation.
A link lasts 30 days.
Canceling or fully refunding the booking switches the link off.
When nothing is due any more, the link opens a thank-you page instead of a payment form, so an old link cannot cause a double payment.