The Right Travel Payment Solutions

With different travel payment solutions now available, the travel industry has more choice than ever when paying trips and expenses. However, the range of options can be bewildering, and it’s essential that we select the right payment methods for business, particularly in the challenging financial environment that we all face after the pandemic. In this post, we examine the various corporate travel payment methods available, so you can select the right option to streamline your business travel expenses.

Business Credit Cards

Across the corporate landscape, business credit cards are an extremely common way of paying corporate travel expenses. Many credit card providers, such as American Express, Visa, and MasterCard, offer specialist commercial cards for business travelers, and each issuer delivers specific benefits.

Business credit cards often provide higher credit limits than personal cards, providing companies with a quick, easy source of finance.

They also offer controls to help you monitor your travel spend such as you can create multiple users, entrusting specific employees with business purchases in line with your travel policy. Best of all, a corporate card will typically offer rewards that can subsidize and improve your future business travel, like air miles, hotel loyalty points, and even airport lounge access. A specialist business travel card program will also carry dedicated rewards, like cashback redemptions and a waiver on foreign transaction fees.

Top-up

In addition to personal and commercial credit cards, several Travel Payment card providers now offer prepaid top-up options: they open an account with the provider and then keep topping up in real-time as and when required. With each new travel booking, the account is credited. Several business travel providers also offer their own top-up option. The travel provider debits each business trip or expense, and the client wires a transfer whenever they need to top up.

Prepaid products are now accepted around the world and they come with loads of benefits. Above all, there’s the control: top-up cards and policies enable companies to preload a specific budget before their people set off, and the cards can be easily locked and canceled, which makes them safer than some alternative options. With an entire trip preloaded onto one card, the expense management process becomes a lot easier, and many prepaid cards come with no administration costs.

Direct Debit

If you use a set number of travel providers, or you book your travel through a Travel Management Company, direct debit can be a great option, enabling you to make regular payments with minimal hassle. Direct debits are often used to pay lodge cards, a form of virtual card which enables companies to set up a single account for all future travel expenses.

Of all the virtual travel payment options out there, none is more convenient than a direct debit. You can set them up when you want, cancel when you want, and choose between fixed and variable options. Direct debits ensure your providers are paid on time and they can work out cheaper, too, avoiding the transaction payments sometimes levied on card transactions.