DoAuthorization before Chained Payment in PayPal API

Question

I am planning to use the PayPal Adaptive Payments API.

I want to do the following:

1) User clicks on 'Authorize' button, a DoAuthorization is done to ensure that the funds are available. User should not be billed at this stage.

2) Some time later (e.g. 3 days) the user clicks on a 'Pay' button, and a Pay command is executed. I know that we can use DoCapture instead, but the problem is that I want to use the Chained Payment method that is only provided with the Pay command.

I have considered doing DoAuthorization > (user clicks on 'Pay' button) > DoVoid > Pay > (Ask user to log into PayPal again). However, it is not good since user has to log into PayPal again. (Or is there a way around this?)

Hence, may I ask if it is possible to link up DoAuthorization with the Pay command? Or are there any alternative ways to achieve the same effect?

Answer 1

I would look at using the preapproval API call. The user will login to their PayPal account and authorize you to charge them in the future up to some specified amount. You save the preapproval key and then make you chained payment call later using the preapproval key. No second login required.