stripe creating token with card id

Question

I'm currently trying to create charges with the server side stripe api.

But i'm facing a problem; I'm using two ways to proceed with the paiement:

• either the user can pay using the stripe element => I'm therefore using the generated token ('tok_somethingId') to effectuate the paiement

• or, if the user already added some cards on is account he can select on of them in a list => The server then use the card id ('card_somethingId') and the customer id ('cus_smoethingId')

I was wondering if there was a way to generate a token with a card id and a customer id in order to use this token to create the charge instead of using the card id and the customer id to charge the user.

I already tried with https://stripe.com/docs/api/node#create_card_token but it doesn't seem to work.

stripe.tokens.create({
  card: cardId,
  customer: customerId
}, function(err, token) {
  // do smthg here with the token
});

This give me this error message

Answer 1

If you are doing payment with stored card then no need to get token,

1- Create customer on stripe

$customer = \Stripe\Customer::create([
    'email' => $customer_email,
]);

$response = ['status' => 'success', 'response' => $customer];

when you have created customer then you have customer_id

if(isset($response ['response']['id']))
    $response ['customer_id']  = $response ['response']['id'];

2 - you can add card on stripe by the customer id and card token

$customer = \Stripe\Customer::retrieve($customer_id);
$creditCard = $customer->sources->create(array("source" => $cardToken));

$response = ['status' => 'success', 'response' => $creditCard];

Now you have card id like this

"id": "card_1D4plsDExLRkbD8k1UWdqwIr"

3- you can store multiple cards on customer and also can have retreive

$cards = \Stripe\Customer::retrieve($customer_id)->sources->all(array(
    "object" => "card"
));

4 -you can payment via card card that is stored on customer account

$params = [
    'currency' => 'USD',
    'amount' => $total_amount * 100,  
// converting dollars to cents
    'description' => $description, //it may be blank
    'customer' => $customer_id,
    "card" => $card_id'
];

$transaction = \Stripe\Charge::create($params); 

$response = ['status' => 'success', 'response' => $transaction['id']];

Here we are not using 'source' parameter because it is used when we are payment via card token.

Answer 2

You can not create a new token for an existing card as this would not make sense. The card is already saved on the customer and you can charge it.

The easiest solution here is likely to do the reverse and save the card on a customer when you get a token tok_XXXX. This way, you always charge a card by passing the customer parameter as the customer id cus_XXXX and the source parameter as the card id card_XXXX.

Otherwise, you need to handle this dynamically so that you know if you are getting a token (tok_XXXX) or a card id (card_XXXX) and pass different parameters based on that decision. Your front-end code should know which case you ended up in.