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Saving Money on Airline Payments: How A UK OTA Shaved 2% Off the Cost of Airline Bookings
Online Travel Agencies face a wide variety of challenges: staying profitable, remaining competitive and managing regulatory impact on cash flow. The travel industry worldwide is becoming more regulated which impacts the way OTAs operate, in the UK there is specific regulation around airline bookings to protect consumers.
Saving Money on Airline Bookings with Virtual Cards
A constant concern is keeping costs down whilst maintaining a positive cash flow position. For OTAs, there is not a lot of money left to be earned from airline bookings and they have to be very innovative in finding ways to save money. In addition to that, consumers are looking for bargains and have access to flight pricing online more easily than ever before through the increase of flight meta search, ranking flights based on the price offered.
UK airline surcharging is stable at 2% for any airline bookings paid for by credit card. In addition to that, costs are incurred when making international payments due to currency conversion fees, the cost of improving cash position and having inefficient processes.
WEX and Teletext holidays worked together to address the key points: maximizing cash flow, avoiding surcharging and minimizing foreign exchange risk with the new Solution for Airline Payments. A variety of OTAs have already taken advantage of the solution in order to improve efficiency and save money.
We would like to invite you to listen to the recording of our Tnooz webinar with the topic of Maximize Your Bottom Line with an Optimal Payments Strategy, featuring Steve Endacott from Teletext Holidays, a UK-based OTA and WEX’s very own Ian Johnson and Lee Jackson. The webinar outlines what is happening in the travel industry, give insight into challenges Teletext holidays have been facing and how the new Solution for Airline Payments is addressing those directly, saving Teletext Holidays over £1 million.