Travel businesses are one of the dominating industries that fuel the world economy. As civilization grows, people are traveling more for business, leisure, or any other of a myriad of reasons. Most of us consider travel as a necessity in life and even an ingredient to educate oneself with the world. With millions of people traveling around the world, booking flights, purchasing tickets, getting a room at their favorite hotel, or restaurant reservations can be done in seconds. Transactions in the travel business and services are estimated to be over $2 trillion a year.
Although travel businesses are one of the leading industries that process credit/debit transactions, we cannot deny the fact that there are inherent risks. The large amounts of payments passing through payment gateways and processors are risky since there’s inherently a higher occurrence of chargebacks, other disputes, and fraud. A travel business’ merchant account is identified as a high risk for most financial institutions because of the nature of these transactions. Say, for example, a customer books a flight months before the expected departure date. Given the time gap, uncontrollable and unexpected events may happen such as personal emergencies, natural calamity or simply they changed their mind. This could result in cancellation. Due to consumer protections in place, a customer simply has to state they are “dissatisfied” and can contact his/her card issuer and file a chargeback dispute. More often than not, the consumer is believed.
If you’re looking forward to establishing a travel agency or business that accepts credit cards, know that this industry is considered high risk since as it is more susceptible to fraud, typical poor chargeback management and frequent customer misunderstanding of the payment policy. To counteract this risk, some payment processors implement high payment processing fees. Or, companies find it difficult to find a processor at all, which would result in adverse effects on your reputation as well as possible unclaimed revenue.
Fortunately, we at Agapay feel that a travel business and/or service provider should not be held back in finding a suitable payment processor for their merchant account. Although the process is a bit complex in getting approved for a payment processing account, it’s best to devote the time and effort in locating a cost-effective and efficient payment processing partner that can best address the needs for financial security. We at Agapay, make this as painless as possible. We pre-submit (so your credit is not run), assist you in making sure your website and legal contracts are up to date with best business practices and use our relationships to coordinate the best rate available.
We make sure our specialists are your financial ally in securing accepting credit cards for your high-risk merchant account. With our exceptional dedication to providing you the services you desire we will ensure that you have made the right choice. Work with Agapay today!