Travel Merchant Account

Get me out of hereeeeee!!

We all need a holiday don’t we after the last few years of the dreaded Covid and the miserable British weather. We all rely on the Travel sector to prop up our hopes of summer holidays, Sun sand Seas and s…… you know the rest. But unfortunately, Covid has made acquirers nervous on supporting travel companies with merchant accounts to accept payments via Visa and Mastercard. And the collapse of the mighty Thomas Cook is a prime example of how the giants can topple leaving the acquirer in the seat for a multi million payout.

Unfortunately, travel is one of the industry’s that has been hit the hardest overt the last few years with travel numbers drastically reducing because of the pandemic, this means that tour operators and airlines alike have had a torrid time in keeping their business going throughout this time, as balance sheets reduce and cash reserves diminish acquires have their own monitoring software that would flag up risks in these sectors and ultimately this leads to termination of merchant accounts and the withdrawal of payment services which would leave any travel business in a very precarious position to move forward.

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The good news is that now, over 24 months from the start of the pandemic banks are starting to board travel based businesses again, so tour operators and airlines now have a glimmer of hope that things are back to normal.

More good news is that we have partnerships with the banks that are looking to support travel businesses in taking payments and offering merchant accounts.

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But before you start your application for a merchant account, here is a list of things to expect in order for you to get approved:

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You will likely have a rolling reserve applied to your account if approved – traditionally this is 10% over 180 days for travel merchant accounts, this means the bank will retain 10% of your takings for 180 days and deposit them 180 days after to negate chargebacks.

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IT TAKES TIME – Please allow a little longer than usual to get approved for your travel agent’s merchant account, there is a lot of underwriting to do. It usually takes 3 to 8 weeks for approval depending on how quick you come back to requests.

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You will need to be ABTA or ATOL registered in order to receive a merchant account to accept card payments.

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You will need the following documents to get started:

  • Proof of directors ID
  • Proof of business bank account – we can help here
  • Atol or ABTA certificate
  • Proof of business address of directors
  • Proof of business trading address
  • 6-month previous acquiring history
  • Proof of LOW levels of change backs
  • Brochures, Management experience or a CV of director
  • Website address or shop images
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The Rates that you are offered for your travel merchant account will not be comparable to the high street low acquiring rates that you see banded about – Travel sector is known as high risk and the rates will be reflective of that risk.

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Your acquirer MAY choose to charge you a $500 high risk fee for Mastercard, you can choose if you want to accept Mastercard but it’s something you should be aware of before you start the application.

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Settlements – the settlement terms for your travel merchant account might be a little different to your usual merchant account, its usually a weekly settlement with a 7 day delay.

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You can see a FULL extensive checklist of what you require for your travel merchant account by clicking here.

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We can only supply a merchant account to businesses that are registered within the EU, also the directors are required to reside in the EU.

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You will also be asked to provide the below policies:

  • Cancellation policy
  • Refund policy
  • Covid policy
  • T&Cs
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If you’d like to put forward an application for your travel merchant account then please start the process by clicking here.

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