Scheduled Payments PRO

After a customer pays a deposit or partial payment at booking, automatically charge the remaining balance on a future date — once, or as installments — using the card saved at the gateway. Customer never has to log back in. Works best with Stripe (which keeps the payment method on file by default).

You can anchor the balance to the tour date instead of the booking date — e.g. "balance due 14 days before departure" — and Yatra will:

• Auto-charge the balance that many days before the tour when a card is on file (Stripe), or
• Email a secure "pay your balance" link before the tour when no card is saved (bank transfer, Pay Later, or any gateway that didn't vault a card), and
• Require full payment up front when a booking is made inside that window (e.g. someone books 5 days before a tour whose balance is due 14 days before) — there's no time left to collect a balance, so the deposit option disappears at checkout and 100% is charged.

What you'll need

Thing	Where to get it
Yatra Pro license	Yatra → License
Scheduled Payments module enabled	Yatra → Modules → Scheduled Payments
Flexible Payments enabled too	Required — Scheduled Payments charges the balance, which only exists when there's been a partial/deposit payment first.
A gateway that supports off-session charges	Stripe is the supported gateway for automatic charging. With the tour-date anchor, other gateways (bank transfer, Pay Later, PayPal, Mollie, etc.) instead receive a secure balance-payment link by email before the tour — so every gateway is covered, one way or the other.

Step 1 — Enable the module

1. Open Yatra → Modules.
2. Find Scheduled Payments → toggle on.
3. The Scheduled Payments section under Settings → Payment becomes editable.

Step 2 — Configure the schedule

Open Yatra → Settings → Payment → Scheduled Payments.

Field	Setting ID	Default	Notes
Enable scheduled balance payments	enable_scheduled_payments	off	Master toggle.
Balance schedule	balance_anchor	booking	booking = a fixed number of days after the deposit (original behaviour); tour = a number of days before the tour date.
Days before tour	balance_due_days	14	Shown only when Balance schedule = before the tour date. The balance is collected this many days before the tour starts; booking inside this window forces full payment.
Schedule type	scheduled_payment_type	single	single = one balance charge; installments = multiple payments. Installments apply to the booking anchor only — the tour anchor is always a single balance.
Days until first charge	scheduled_payment_days	15	Days after the deposit before the first attempt. Used by the booking anchor only.
Number of installments	scheduled_payment_installments	3	Shown only when Schedule type = installments.
Days between installments	scheduled_payment_interval	30	Shown only when Schedule type = installments.
Payment reminder (days before)	scheduled_payment_reminder_days	3	Yatra emails the customer this many days before each charge / balance link.

Save.

Backward compatible

Balance schedule defaults to booking — so existing sites behave exactly as before until you switch it to before the tour date. Switching the anchor only affects new schedules; already-scheduled charges keep their dates.

Schedule relative to the tour date

Set Balance schedule → before the tour date and Days before tour → 14 to get the classic tour-operator model:

20% deposit at booking · remaining balance due 14 days before the tour · pay in full if you book within 14 days of departure.

Here's exactly what Yatra does, by gateway:

Situation at booking	What happens
Tour is more than 14 days away, card on file (Stripe)	Deposit taken now. Balance auto-charged 14 days before the tour, off-session. A reminder email goes out a few days earlier.
Tour is more than 14 days away, no saved card (bank transfer, Pay Later, PayPal, Mollie…)	Deposit taken (or recorded) now. A secure "Pay your balance now" link is emailed before the tour; the customer clicks it and pays the balance online — no login needed.
Tour is 14 days away or less	Deposit / partial options are hidden at checkout — the customer pays 100% up front. There's no time to collect a balance, so a deposit would leave money uncollected.

The "days before tour" date is derived from the booking's departure date (start_date, falling back to travel_date).

The secure balance-payment link

For bookings that can't be auto-charged, Yatra emails the customer a tokenised, guest-accessible link before the tour (in the Scheduled Payment Reminder email). Clicking it opens the normal balance checkout for that booking — no account or login required. The link:

• is signed and scoped to a single booking (it can't be guessed or reused for another booking),
• expires,
• only ever charges the server-stored outstanding balance, and
• self-retires once the balance is paid (or the booking is cancelled).

Add the pay button to a customised reminder template

The link is available as the merge tag, and the default Scheduled Payment Reminder template already renders a Pay your balance now button. If you've customised that template, add (or reset the template) so the button appears.

Step 3 — Verify with a test booking

1. Make sure Flexible Payments is also on (so the booking has a balance to charge).
2. In a private browser window, book a trip with Stripe (or another off-session-capable gateway). Pay the deposit / partial amount.
3. The booking saves with status partial and a Due Now balance.
4. Yatra schedules the balance charge based on the settings above. You'll see a row in Yatra → Payments with status Scheduled.
5. (Optional) Manually trigger the first charge from the row's Charge now action to verify the flow without waiting.
6. Verify in your Stripe dashboard that the second charge went through, and the booking flips to paid.

How the flow looks to the customer

Booking anchor (charge N days after the deposit):

Day 0  — Customer pays $99 deposit on a $499 trip
Day N-3 — Reminder email: "Your balance of $400 will be charged on Day N"
Day N   — Yatra auto-charges $400 from the saved card
         — Customer receives a Scheduled Payment Received email
         — Booking status: paid

Tour anchor — balance due 14 days before departure (card on file):

Booking day       — Customer pays $99 deposit on a $499 trip departing 15 Aug
1 Aug (tour − 14) — Yatra auto-charges the $400 balance from the saved card
~29 Jul (−3 days) — Reminder email went out a few days before
15 Aug            — Tour departs, fully paid

Tour anchor — bank transfer / no saved card:

Booking day       — Deposit recorded; booking is `partial`
~29 Jul           — "Pay your balance now" email with a secure link
                    Customer clicks → pays the $400 online → booking `paid`

Tour anchor — booked inside the window:

5 Aug — Customer books the 15 Aug tour (only 10 days out)
      — Checkout shows no deposit option; full $499 is charged up front

If the charge fails (expired card, insufficient funds), Yatra:

1. Marks the scheduled payment as Failed.
2. Sends the Scheduled Payment Failed email to the customer (with a link to update their payment method).
3. Sends the Admin: Scheduled Payment Failed email to you.
4. Retries on the schedule defined by your gateway's smart-retries (Stripe retries 3 times over a week by default).

Installment example

With Schedule type = installments, Number = 3, Days between = 30, Days until first = 7:

Day 0  — Deposit paid: $99
Day 7  — Installment 1: $134 charged
Day 37 — Installment 2: $133 charged
Day 67 — Installment 3 (balance): $133 charged
Day 67 — Booking flips to paid

Yatra divides the remaining balance evenly across installments; the final installment absorbs any rounding so the total matches exactly.

The Scheduled Payments admin

Scheduled charges show in Yatra → Payments with:

• Status = scheduled (pending) / completed (charged) / failed (retry expected)
• Charge date = when the attempt will run
• Amount = the scheduled amount
• Linked booking = clickable link to the booking detail

You can:

• Charge now — skip the schedule and attempt the charge immediately.
• Reschedule — change the future charge date.
• Cancel — stop the scheduled charge (e.g. if the customer wires the money manually).

Required email templates (already free)

Scheduled Payments uses four templates from the free transactional catalog:

• scheduled_payment_reminder — sent N days before
• scheduled_payment_succeeded — sent on successful charge
• scheduled_payment_failed — sent to customer on failure
• admin_scheduled_payment_failed — sent to admin on failure

The templates are listed in the Templates tab but read-only until this module is on.

Troubleshooting

Charges fail with "no payment method" — the gateway didn't save the card. Stripe saves cards by default; other gateways may require explicit Save payment method opt-in. Switch to Stripe or enable card-on-file in the gateway settings.

Customer wants to use a different card for the balance — they can update their payment method via the link in the Scheduled Payment Reminder email. Their account page also has a Saved payment methods section (Stripe only).

Scheduled charges or balance-link emails don't fire — Yatra uses two WP-Cron jobs: yatra_sync_scheduled_payments (twice daily) runs the auto-charges, and yatra_send_payment_reminders (daily) sends reminders and creates/sends the tour-anchored balance links. If WordPress cron is broken, neither fires. Confirm real system cron is configured, or trigger them manually to test:

wp cron event run yatra_send_payment_reminders
wp cron event run yatra_sync_scheduled_payments

Tax / discount applies twice on the balance — Yatra computes the balance as total - amount_paid. Tax is already included in total; you shouldn't see double-tax. If you do, look at the booking's Payment Summary breakdown — likely an additional_services line is firing post-deposit.

Useful links

• Flexible Payments — the required companion module that creates the balance to charge.
• Payments → Stripe — gateway setup; Stripe is the recommended gateway for off-session charges.
• Settings → Payment — full field reference for the Scheduled Payments section.
• Hooks & filters — yatra_scheduled_payment_due, yatra_scheduled_payment_succeeded, yatra_scheduled_payment_failed.

Where to read more

• All modules — module catalog.