How a company handles your payment is worth understanding before you hand over your card details. Fare 1 uses a payment model called manual capture, which is different from both upfront deposits and immediate full charges. Here is exactly how it works, why we use it, and what it means for your money.
The Difference Between Authorisation and a Charge
When you confirm a booking on Fare 1, your card is authorised for the full quoted fare. An authorisation is not a charge. It is a hold — your bank ringfences those funds to ensure they are available when payment is due, but the money has not left your account.
The charge — the actual debit — happens after your journey completes. At that point, Stripe captures the authorised amount and the transaction posts to your account. The amount captured is identical to the amount authorised, which was the quoted fare shown at booking. Nothing is added.
This is what is meant by manual capture: the authorisation and the capture are two separate events, with the capture triggered by the completion of your journey rather than happening immediately at booking.
What This Means for Your Bank Statement
Between booking and travel, you may see a pending transaction on your bank account or card statement. This is the authorisation hold. It reduces your available balance by the fare amount, which is the expected behaviour — your bank is reserving the funds.
After your journey, the hold converts to a completed transaction at the same value. If you check your statement at this point, you will see a single charge equal to the quoted fare. You will not see a deposit followed by a balance charge, and you will not see an unexpected higher amount.
If for any reason the booking is cancelled before travel, the authorisation hold is released. The timing of that release depends on your bank — most release holds within a few business days, though some take longer. Fare 1 instructs the release promptly on cancellation.
No Deposit Model
Some chauffeur and private hire companies require a deposit — typically 20% to 30% of the total — at booking, with the balance due closer to travel or after the trip. Fare 1 does not operate this way.
There is no deposit amount taken early and no second payment required before or after the journey. The full fare is authorised at booking and captured once. For passengers who travel frequently and manage expenses carefully, this is simpler: one authorisation, one charge, one receipt, one line on your statement.
Why Manual Capture Rather Than Immediate Charge
Immediate charge — taking full payment the moment you confirm — is the most common model for online travel services. Manual capture adds a step, so there must be a reason for it.
The reason is passenger protection. By capturing payment after the trip rather than immediately, Fare 1 ensures that the charge on your account reflects a journey that actually happened. In the event that a booking cannot be fulfilled for any reason, you are not chasing a refund — the capture simply does not occur.
It also ensures the amount charged is exactly the quoted amount. There is no opportunity for post-trip adjustments to be quietly added to a capture, because the capture is the final step and it mirrors the authorisation exactly.
Payments via PayPal
For bookings paid through PayPal, the payment mechanics follow PayPal's own authorisation and capture model, which operates similarly. The amount is committed at booking and settled after the journey. The same principle applies: one payment event at a value matching the quoted fare.
Apple Pay and Google Pay transact through the same Stripe infrastructure as card payments and follow the same manual capture model.
Prepaid Bookings
Where a booking is marked as prepaid — for instance, where a client account has been settled in advance — the manual capture process applies to the settlement of that prepaid balance rather than a card charge. The accounting is different, but the principle of charging for a completed journey rather than an anticipated one remains the same.
For complete clarity on any specific booking's payment status, your booking confirmation email includes the payment method and the current status of the transaction.
To see a live, fixed-fare quote for your journey — the number that will be authorised and then charged — visit book.fare1.co.uk.