Travel payment plans: deposit, instalments and balance
In short
A payment plan splits the price of a trip into a deposit, optional intermediate instalments and a balance due a few weeks before departure. Each payment has an amount and a date set at booking. The agency can have the traveller's card debited automatically, with their consent, or send them a link for each instalment. Either way, the payments are attached to the booking and the outstanding balance updates on its own.
A €9,000 trip is rarely paid in one go. The agency asks for a deposit at booking, sometimes a second payment a few months later, then the balance before departure. This breakdown is called a payment plan.
The idea is not new. What changes is who looks after it. Without a tool, someone has to note every date, send every request and chase every late payment. With a scheduled plan, the agency sets it up once and the payments follow. This article explains how to build a plan, how to choose between automatic debits and payment links, and what happens when a payment fails or the trip changes.
What is a payment plan for a trip?
Payment plan
The breakdown of a trip's price into several payments, each with an amount and a date, decided at booking and attached to the same booking.
A plan almost always has three kinds of payment:
- the deposit, paid at booking, which secures the booking;
- intermediate instalments, optional, which spread the price over several months;
- the balance, paid a few weeks before departure.
It is not credit. The traveller pays everything before leaving, and the agency is paid at each instalment. That is the difference with buy now, pay later offers from finance providers: there, the provider pays the merchant straight away and the customer repays it afterwards.
The life cycle of a booking, with its four figures (total, deposit, collected, outstanding), is covered in our guide to travel deposits and balance payments. This article is about scheduling those payments.
How do you build a payment plan for a trip?
By starting from three decisions: the deposit amount, the number of payments and the balance date.
The deposit. It depends on your terms of sale and on what you have to pay your own suppliers. A 30% deposit is common, but nothing requires it.
The number of payments. A trip booked three months ahead often fits in two payments: deposit and balance. A honeymoon booked a year ahead can have four or five. The more instalments there are, the lighter each amount is for the traveller.
The balance date. It is set relative to departure: 30, 45 or 60 days before. It has to fall before your own supplier deadlines. If the traveller pays the balance by SEPA Direct Debit, also allow about six business days for the payment to be confirmed.
Here is an example: a €9,000 trip booked on 1 December, departing on 1 June. The deposit is 30%, followed by two payments, and the balance is due 45 days before departure.
1 December · Deposit
30% deposit: €2,700
- Total
- €9,000
- Collected
- €2,700
- Outstanding
- €6,300
Early February · Instalment
Second payment: €3,150
- Total
- €9,000
- Collected
- €5,850
- Outstanding
- €3,150
17 April · Balance (D-45)
Balance: €3,150
- Total
- €9,000
- Collected
- €9,000
- Outstanding
- €0
Fully paid
What remains after the deposit is split into equal parts, and the intermediate instalment falls halfway between the deposit and the balance. You can still change an amount or a date by hand, for example to line a payment up with a payday.
Automatic debit or payment link: what is the difference?
Once the plan is set, you still need to decide how each instalment will be paid. There are two ways.
Automatic card debit
The traveller saves their card when paying the deposit and agrees to it being debited on the planned dates. They are notified by email 3 days before each debit. They have nothing else to do, and the agency has nothing to send.
Travellers who want to pay once and stop thinking about it
A payment link for each instalment
On each due date, the traveller receives a link and pays by card or SEPA Direct Debit. They stay in control of every payment. The trade-off is that they have to act at every instalment, and late payments are more common.
Travellers who prefer to pay themselves, or by SEPA Direct Debit
Automatic debits only work with cards. In Ezus Pay, SEPA Direct Debit always goes through a link, for each instalment, and only in euros. This is one of the real advantages of cards on a payment plan: they are the only payment method that lets the traveller do nothing more after the deposit. The full comparison between the two methods is in card vs SEPA for travel payments.
How does the traveller give their consent?
When paying the deposit. In Ezus Pay, the payment page shows the plan, then two buttons:
- « Pay €2,700 and activate the payment schedule »: the traveller pays the deposit, their card is saved and the following instalments will be debited automatically;
- « Pay the deposit only »: the traveller pays the deposit without saving their card, and will receive a link for each following instalment.
Just above the buttons, a sentence sums up what the traveller is agreeing to: automatic debits on this card for the instalments shown, an email reminder 3 days before each debit, and the option to withdraw at any time. After paying, they receive an email that repeats the accepted text, the card and the plan.
The traveller can then turn off automatic payments from their payment link. Their card is removed, the remaining instalments switch to links, and the agency is notified.
What does the notice before each debit contain?
Three days before each instalment, the traveller receives an email with the amount, the debit date, the card concerned (network and last four digits) and the label that will appear on their statement. The email also explains how to object to the debit: contact the agency before the date.
No notice sent means no debit.
What happens if an instalment fails?
It depends on why the card was declined. A card declined because the monthly limit has been reached is not handled like a stolen card.
| Situation | What Ezus Pay does | Who is notified |
|---|---|---|
| Temporary decline (spending limit, insufficient funds) | A single retry 3 days later, on the same card | The traveller, with a link to pay straight away. The agency, if the retry fails too |
| Lost, stolen or expired card | The instalment switches to a payment link | The traveller, with a link to pay with another card. The agency, straight away |
| The bank requires authentication | The instalment switches to a payment link | The traveller and the agency |
| The card will have expired by the debit date | Detected 7 days before. This instalment and the following ones switch to links | The traveller |
In the last case, the card the traveller pays with next is saved for the rest of the plan.
To understand decline reasons and know what to tell the traveller, our guide to declined card payments in travel agencies covers each case.
How do you chase payments without spending your days on it?
By letting the plan send the reminders for you. It matters most in link mode, where the traveller has to act at every instalment.
In Ezus Pay, every instalment in link mode follows the same sequence:
- On the due date, the traveller receives their payment link.
- Three days later, if nothing has been paid, a reminder goes out. The agency is notified by email and in the app, and the instalment shows as unpaid.
Two extra reminders can be switched on: 7 days and 1 day before the due date. They are off by default, so as not to multiply emails. Traveller emails are available in eight languages: French, English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, Dutch and Norwegian.
One point about the first payment: the deposit link is not sent automatically. When the plan is created, the agent copies the link and sends it to the traveller, by email or message. Automatic sending starts once the deposit is paid. A deposit still unpaid after 7 days is flagged to the agency.
What happens to the plan if the trip changes?
A trip often changes between booking and departure: a service added, a night removed, a departure date moved. Here is what happens to the plan in each case.
The price goes up. The difference is added to the balance. Intermediate instalments keep their amount. In the example above, a €500 extra raises the balance from €3,150 to €3,650.
The price goes down. The reduction is taken off the balance first, then off earlier unpaid instalments if the balance is not enough. If the traveller has already paid more than the new total, the remaining instalments are cancelled and the booking is flagged as overpaid. The refund is then made by hand.
Payments already made never move. A paid instalment stays paid, whatever the change.
The departure date changes. Instalment dates are not recalculated. If departure is brought forward, the agency needs to check that the balance still falls before it.
One thing to know about automatic debits: the traveller agreed to an amount and a date. If the agency changes either on an instalment, that instalment switches to a payment link and the traveller is notified by email. The other instalments stay on automatic debit.
Do you need a different plan for every trip?
No. Most agencies have two or three ways of working, depending on the amount and how far ahead the trip is booked. A short break booked six weeks ahead does not need the same plan as a tailor-made tour booked a year ahead.
That is what templates are for. In Ezus Pay, an agency admin can create up to 20 of them, each with its own deposit, number of payments, balance date and reminders. A template can carry two conditions: a minimum booking amount and a minimum time before departure. For example: a deposit and three payments for bookings from €8,000, made at least 180 days before departure.
When a booking matches a template, Ezus Pay shows it on the booking as a « Suggested plan », with three options: activate it in one click, adjust it or dismiss it. No plan is created without a team member approving it.
How does Ezus Pay handle payment plans?
The plan is created from the booking. The agent picks a template or sets the plan by hand:
- a deposit of 1 to 99% of the amount;
- 1 to 6 payments after the deposit, balance included, so 7 payments at most;
- a balance due 1 to 365 days before departure;
- the collection method: automatic card debit, or a link for each instalment.
Each payment is attached to the booking, and the collected and outstanding amounts update on their own. Follow-up happens in two places: the Installments page, with upcoming and failed payments, and the « Action needed » panel on the home page, which gathers everything that needs someone to step in (declined debit, unpaid instalment, plan to review). The agency can also pause a plan, resume it, cancel it, or mark an instalment as paid outside Ezus Pay.
A payment plan does not replace your terms of sale. The deposit amount, cancellation terms and what happens in case of non-payment still have to be agreed with the traveller. What the plan changes is the time spent sending, chasing and checking each payment.
Ezus Pay is the native payment platform of Ezus, built for travel agencies, DMCs and tour operators. The account is enabled from your Ezus environment in a few minutes. Getting started is documented in the Ezus Pay documentation.