Appointments: How can I validate a credit card for cancellations or demo equipment?

[RDE]

The title of this thread has been edited from the original: Transaction to validate credit card.

I have two scenarios that I'm trying to solve:

• Requiring a validated credit card when booking an appointment.  We need to reduce the number of "no shows" we are having and are considering requiring a "validated" credit card at the time the client books the appointment.  Our appointment cancellaton policy would say something to the effect, "if you don't notify us 2 hours in advance" you will be pay a $20 cancellation fee.  This is why we need to have the validated credit card on file.
• Second scenario - we ship "demo" equipment to customers for their evaluation.  I need to have a "validated" credit card on file in the event they do not return the equipment. 

How can we solve these two business requirements?

[Helen]

@RDE When you select 'Booking with No-Show Protection' from the Payments & Cancellations settings you will be able to include the details of your own cancellation policy. The steps to enable no-show protection are in this Support Center article. When a client enters their card information to book an appointment the card is checked to make sure it's active (e.g. not expired).

It sounds like the second option you're looking for is card pre-authorization, which is a feature request at this time: it's not possible to pre-authorize a card with Square Appointments, or from the Point of Sale app. This a very popular request and we'll definitely announce it if this is available in future.