Alternative Airlines, TendoPay offer BNPL in the Philippines

The new payment option allows Alternative Airlines’ Philippine-based customers to select the option of paying in instalments when booking flights, an option that is novel for TendoPay’s customers, as Alternative Airlines is their only flight merchant.

Through Alternative Airlines, customers have the option of booking flights with over 600 global airlines and have the cost spread over instalments by selecting TendoPay at checkout and choosing the repayment option. This can be done by either splitting the flight’s total cost in four equal payments to be made in the spawn of six weeks, or by paying in monthly instalments ranging from 2 to 12 months with other flexible options. TendoPay’s ‘Pay in 4’ repayment alternative has a 0% interest rate, offering customers the opportunity of resorting to flexible payment options without having to worry about paying additional fees.

Alternative Airlines’ online booking system gives customers the option of customising their booking preferences through means of search filters, as well as the possibility of adding an additional layer of protection to their booking by selecting Cancellation and Lost Baggage Protection.

Alternative Airlines representatives have stated that the partnership with TendoPay follows the increased adoption rate of BNPL in other regions, their wish being to enable customers’ flexibility when deciding on their payment method.

Alternative Airlines has partnered with digital instalment plan solution TendoPay to offer BNPL in the Philippines.

Alternative Airlines payment methods’ development in past years

Having a global reach, Alternative Airlines’ customers can choose from over 40 international payment methods, including BNPL, e-wallets, and 70+ cryptocurrencies across 160+ currencies. With BNPL adoption rate having increased following the COVID-19 pandemic, Alternative Airlines has partnered with multiple flexible payment providers across the globe in the past years.

Earlier in September 2022, the booking platform partnered up with Clearpay, the UK-based payments platform to launch ‘Pay in 4’ for flights for UK-based customers.

In February 2022, they announced a partnership with Fly Now Pay later, a payment platform that allows customers to split the flight cost into monthly instalments up to 12 months, with a maximum loan of GBP 5,000.

In the US, customers were given the option to complete their payments over the course of 6 weeks, with the cost being split into four interest-free instalments, an option enabled by the partnership between Alternative Airlines and Afterpay, announced in September 2021.

BNPL in the travel industry

Although BNPL is most prevalent in the retail setting, it’s been increasingly adopted in the travel industry in the past years. Affirm, US-based BNPL provider has published the ‘On the Move: What Today’s Travel Trends Mean for Your Business’ report which tackles the shift in travel habits as well as how consumer’ traveling decisions are shaped. With customers looking for more flexibility, the implementation of diverse payment options such as BNPL helps businesses increase their revenue and gives customers the chance of relying on payment methods that are tailored to their needs. By having the possibility to carry out payments over several instalments, people are less likely to put-off taking trips that they might not have had the time to budget for beforehand or could not otherwise afford.