Can my customer pay for their hotel at the hotel instead of paying me when they book?

Yes, in many cases they can, but it depends on the rate you are selling. Hotel content that comes through an API usually arrives in two kinds. Some rates are prepaid, which means the room is paid for at the time of booking and the money moves before the stay. Others are pay at hotel, where your customer gives card details to hold the room and settles the bill at the front desk when they check out.

Your portal can show both kinds side by side, and each room can be labelled so the customer knows which one they are choosing before they confirm. Whether a particular property offers a pay at hotel rate is decided by the supplier and the hotel itself, not by your portal, so you will find some hotels and some cities where only prepaid rates come back in the search results.

There is one thing worth thinking about before you switch pay at hotel rates on. Your margin on those bookings does not reach you at the moment of booking, because no money has moved yet. Depending on how the supplier works, you may be settled after the stay is completed, and if the guest does not turn up you may not be settled at all. Prepaid rates land sooner and are easier to reconcile, which is why many agencies lean on them.

The next thing to check is which of your suppliers actually return pay at hotel rates, and how each one handles your margin on them, so you can decide whether to show both kinds to your customers or keep the search results to prepaid rooms only.