Alternate Payment Method

What is an alternate payment method?

An alternate payment method (also called a backup payment method) is a secondary card or payment credential stored on a customer's account that can be charged when the primary payment method fails. It is one of the most effective last-resort recovery tools in the payment stack.

How backup payment methods work

When a primary card is declined and retries are unsuccessful, the billing system automatically attempts to charge the backup card. If the backup succeeds, the subscription continues without interruption and the customer is notified that their backup method was used.

This approach is especially valuable for hard declines like card_expired or lost_or_stolen, where retrying the primary card will never succeed. Instead of relying on the customer to respond to a dunning email, the system resolves the issue automatically.

Collecting backup payment methods

The challenge is getting customers to provide a backup method. Best practices include prompting for a second card during initial signup, requesting one after the first successful charge (when trust is established), or offering it as an account security feature that protects the customer from service interruption.

FlyCode's backup payment method collection works within the existing Stripe checkout flow, making it easy for subscribers to add a secondary card that activates automatically when the primary method fails.