Booking.com and Mastercard have joined forces to simplify B2B travel payments and improve the overall travel experience. Moreover, the partnership aims to accelerate the usage of Mastercard Virtual Cards, which can offer more flexibility, security, and convenience to travel partners.
According to the company press release, Virtual Cards can help increase transaction visibility through automated reconciliation, increase the efficiency of business payments, and reduce fraud risk by 30 times compared to traditional payment cards. It also provides traceable links between bookings and payments to third-party suppliers. Moreover, it allows travel agencies and suppliers to track and reconcile payments easily while benefiting from other Virtual Card capabilities such as flexible pricing, financing options, and card payment guarantees. This can result in a more secure payment experience for travel agencies, their customers, and travel suppliers.
The press release further details that this alliance goes beyond payments, offering upgraded resources and services to deliver payment innovation and an improved digital experience to Booking.com's users and travel partners.
The partnership will also support Booking.com's Pay by Booking model to remove financial friction from travel payments and make them more efficient and secure. This will help travel partners track and reconcile payments while benefiting from other Virtual Card benefits. Thus, the partnership aims to create new financial services for travel partners, leveraging card rails and new rails to deliver frictionless payments and providing data insights to support partners' business strategy and deliver to the evolving needs of travellers.
Finally, the partnership aims to support the expansion of Booking.com's marketplace by investing in innovation to address the needs of existing and new travel verticals such as air, car rental, experiences, etc. Ultimately, this will give Booking.com greater control over the consumer's experience.
Booking.com is a global digital travel platform that provides a wide suite of accommodations, from take-off to landing and everything in between.
In September 2023, payment network Affirm announced its partnership with Booking.com to provide travellers and customers with improved and flexible payment options. By selecting Affirm at checkout, the travel platform’s clients have the option to select a personalised payment plan, designed to work best for their budget, with the option to pay overtime in either monthly or bi-weekly payments.
Earlier the same year, Booking.com announced a new artificial intelligence (AI) trip planner at the Collision conference in Toronto, highlighting the importance of China’s market as a hotbed for technology, regarding a possible future expansion. Then, the platform's officials stated that the company expects AI to further improve the travel planning experience and recommend destination and accommodation options to millions of travellers around the world.
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