VIRTUAL CARDS
of a hotel without paying in person, they are also walking out without collecting a document that can be used for VAT accounting purposes. “Perhaps 60 per cent of hotels send a receipt to clients, but 40 per cent don’t,” Merry says. It means that companies either need to remind travellers to collect the receipts or chase hotels for them directly, either of which creates unreliability and administrative hassle. Conferma’s Barker downplays the
concerns. “If there is an issue, it’s not significant,” he says, and points to increasing automation of hotel invoices as a solution to the problem. Meanwhile, organisations are beginning to find applications for single-use numbers beyond payment for accommodation. Citi is experiencing increased use of them in preference to a purchasing card, effectively a non-travel equivalent of a lodge card for items such as office equipment. Citi head of product, EMEA, Martin Cannings also identifies meetings as a major area of growth. “Virtual cards are ideal because you can append more company data to the booking and you can even issue one in the currency where the event is being staged, as long as the customer is in a position to pay in that currency,” he says. Merry and Barker believe that, in Barker’s words, the “next area of
airline fee purchases to the original flight reservation. The white paper also says
companies will need to make decisions about the extent to which they integrate mobile payment within their corporate processes. Amex’s Andrew Buckley agrees: “One of the questions for corporate clients will be: ‘Do I want the corporate card in the same mobile wallet as the personal card?’” BCD Travel vice-president Torsten Kriedt, quoted in the white paper, puts it a different way: “Mobile payment will make it easier to act outside travel policy, and it will also make it easier to act inside travel policy.” Kriedt’s point is that if companies offer
22 Buying Business Travel 2012
significant growth” for single-use numbers will be paying for flights on low-cost carriers, even by companies which have standard lodge card accounts. Once again, the strength of the single-use number is that it provides a unique identifier to track a transaction through the entire source-to-settlement process. That is particularly helpful when booking budget carriers because, unlike regular scheduled airlines, they do not issue unique IATA ticket numbers for each reservation. But Merry and Barker both take the
argument further. They say that single- use numbers would help with booking IATA carriers, too, because sometimes the IATA ticket number gets lost in the
The next area of significant growth for single-use numbers will be paying for flights on low-cost carriers
reconciliation process. “With virtual cards you get a 100 per cent matching process instead of a figure in the high 90s,” says Barker. “The 1 to 2 per cent that don’t match can be very costly.”
THE FUTURE Taking this logic to its ultimate conclusion, Merry says: “I think the lodge card of the future will use
Will mobile payment make life easier for travellers in your organisation?
Easier
The same Harder
Don’t know 43% 43%
Will mobile make it easier for companies to manage their corporate travel programmes?
Easier
The same Harder
Don’t know
their employees corporate mobile payment, it will push up compliance; but if they ignore it, the opposite will happen,
18% 22% 23% 37%
a unique card number for every transaction.” Many experts concur, although Amex’s vice-president of global product marketing, Andrew Buckley, points to challenges to be overcome first. “I don’t agree we will move to unique numbers in the short term,” he says. “It would require a restructuring of how the global distribution systems work.” In essence, a fail-safe mechanism
needs to be found for generating a unique number at time of booking and capturing it reliably within the agency booking process. “This is where it is heading and it is high on my agenda,” says MasterCard’s Stynen. “It is progressing nicely but we will have to prove it in practice.” For now, however, conventional
lodge-card products are thriving and, as with single-use cards, the major trend is an expansion beyond their traditional remit of paying for air bookings. Merry and Buckley note increased
use of lodge cards for meetings, while Cannings has seen a growth in lodge payment for rail in countries such as Germany and Spain. Unfortunately, he says, the UK is proving more challenging for rail, owing to the need to deal with not one but numerous train operating companies. n
Which of the following payment methods do you think travellers in your organisation will be using during business trips five years from now?
5% Plastic corporate card 9% Mobile
Plastic personal card Cash
Hotel billback (invoicing)
89% 61% 36% 26% 15%
Source: AirPlus International/ACTE global survey of 73 ACTE buyer members, March 2012
with travellers choosing to book and pay for expenses through their personal phones. It may sound melodramatic, but
mobile payment could prove a watershed technology in the evolution or disintegration of travel management.
In association with
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