Travel Payments Explained : How Airlines and Travel Companies Get Paid, and What It Really Costs
Overview
Somewhere in every travel company there is a number that would horrify the board if anyone assembled it: the total cost, in fees, losses, leakage and lost sales, of simply getting paid. This book assembles the pieces.
Travel payments is a world of its own: money collected months before delivery, settlement systems that exist nowhere else, acquirers holding collateral that has decided airlines' fates, and refunds that must run backwards at scale on the worst day of the year. Written by a travel industry practitioner, in plain language, this book explains the whole machine:
- Why travel payments differ from all other payments: high values, thin margins, forward delivery, intermediaries, double regulation, cross-border currency and a seasonal cash calendar.
- Agency versus merchant model, and the four things merchant of record status always bundles: cash, cost, risk, data.
- BSP cash and card sales: how the industry settlement plan moves airline money home, and the strangest risk allocation in commercial aviation.
- Direct acquiring: interchange++, approval rates, and the single-acquirer risk most merchants carry unpriced.
- Multi-acquirer setups and what they really cost to run.
- Orchestration platforms: what they do, what they do not, and the token portability question that decides your exit.
- Fraud and disputes: why good travellers look like fraudsters, and the chargeback economics that make prevention beat litigation.
- Alternative payment methods, bank rails and steering.
- Virtual cards: the payer's best friend, the merchant's most expensive customer, and a practical five-move framework for dealing with them.
- FX, like-for-like settlement and an honest look at DCC.
- Refunds and disruption: the day the money runs backwards.
- Reconciliation and leakage: where money disappears, and how finding it pays for the team.
- Running payments as a function: KPIs, buying principles, and the ten questions that show whether a payments function works.
- Agentic payments: what happens when the buyer is software.
Realistic composite scenarios, honest numbers, and the author's own opinions, explained openly. Includes a 40-point Travel Payments Health Check you can run on your own organisation this quarter, and a Tips for Newcomers section for anyone in their first year in travel payments.
Part of the Travel Industry Explained series. Airline Distribution Explained covers who is allowed to sell airline tickets, through which channels, and at what cost. Airline Systems Explained covers what airlines run on and what it really costs.
This item is Non-Returnable
Customers Also Bought
Details
- ISBN-13: 9783913198040
- ISBN-10: 3913198040
- Publisher: Mathieu Montmessin
- Publish Date: October 2026
- Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.32 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.46 pounds
- Page Count: 150
Related Categories
