PayPal Guest Checkout needs to be enabled for Bookings.

[Alastair Greenstreet]

 

Right now the payment via credit/debit card option is available but forces you to create a PayPal account to complete the payment. In my PayPal business account, the option that tells PayPal to enable guest checkouts is enabled and works just fine via a payment button on a website.

Guest account checkout is fully functional via the website.

However when accepting payments via Bookings the PayPal checkout using a credit/debit card forces creation of a PayPal account or you can't complete the transaction.

This is going to be a major barrier for accepting payments from our customers. I guarantee that most in fact won't make payments, if forced to create PayPal accounts, so we see this setting adjustment as a priority request for our business.

Without this feature we can't really use the new payment integration just released, which we really want to do.

Alastair

[#2]

I think that this kind of feedback is best to be given here:
https://outlook.uservoice.com/forums/314907-microsoft-bookings

[#3]

Hi Victor,

Thank you for the suggestion, I will post there as well.

I spent the weekend looking into how the PayPal API works and whether the problem was likely on the PayPal side or the Microsoft side.  PayPal's documentation clearly shows the kind of checkout being called by Microsoft with a simply "Pay" button option, so PayPal is not forcing "Sign Up & Pay" but it looks like Microsoft is perhaps calling the checkout in this way (?)

The access authorization given to Microsoft on the PayPal business account side seems to show high enough access levels to have PayPal pass back over the business account settings that could indicate the guest checkout is enabled.  I can only think Microsoft is not testing for this or has consciously chosen to only allow credit/debit card payments with a PayPal signup?

I'm not a high end developer but know enough code to have a basic understanding.

This one's a show stopper for me and I really wanted this payment integration feature to work so hopefully if enough people vote for it then it will get done.

Alastair

[#4]

OK without any official response from Microsoft in either forum here or the suggestions forum, I did some more digging into API checkout options that might be causing this issue.  Here is one possible cause of the issue.

Documentation

https://www.paypal.com/fm/smarthelp/article/how-do-i-accept-credit-cards-with-express-checkout-using...

• As long as SOLUTIONTYPE=Sole is passed in the SetExpressCheckout API, Guest Checkout will be enabled.

Have double-checked that this is not cookie or email address related during the checkout process, by making sure to clear all history & browser cache plus use email addresses not recognized as ones with associated existing PayPal accounts.  So there is no reason that PayPal should be forcing a signup option.

Checkout URL Construct (Microsoft Bookings)

https://www.paypal.com/checkoutnow?token=XXXXXXXXXXXXXX#/checkout/signup

This is almost certainly a problem with the way Microsoft Bookings is calling the PayPal checkout using the format .../checkout/signup where XXX is the token number generated during the payment API call.

Guest checkout with just a credit card NEVER works.  Please come on guys, this is hopefully an easy fix by modifying your payments checkout API call, otherwise this wonderful payment integration is of no value to our customers.  No one is going to signup for a PayPal account just to buy our service.

Thanks for the consideration of this fix, it is much appreciated.

Alastair

[#5]

@Alastair Greenstreet I also have this issue one year later than the original post. The bookers should not have to log in or create a payment account (Paypal or Microsoft) to make a credit card payment.

[#6]

Hi @ambroseb ,

Sorry to hear this issue is still ongoing.  I gave up on Microsoft Bookings and have moved on.  While we were still using MS Bookings, we simply had to work around the limitation and take payments upfront via PayPal's business account directly, which allows Guest Checkout to be enabled and then pass them to the bookings screen.  We had no neat interface to do so, payment was simply separate from bookings.

Hopefully it will be addressed in the future but I'm not holding my breath.  Wishing you well.

Alastair