Payments for businesses that get paid months before delivery
Airlines, OTAs, tour operators and hotels are underwritten on delivery risk, not credit risk. We price that risk honestly and build the reserve down as you prove your book.
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Why travel merchants keep getting declined
Nothing about your business is unusual — the payment industry just prices your delivery window badly.
The delivery gap
You collect in January for an August departure. Until the guest travels, the acquirer carries the liability for every unfulfilled booking on your book.
Reserves set by template
Generic processors apply a flat rolling reserve with no review date, locking up working capital exactly when you need it for supplier deposits.
Seasonality reads as anomaly
A tenfold spike in booking season trips volume-based fraud rules, and payouts get held during your most cash-hungry weeks.
Cancellations become disputes
A traveller who cannot reach you goes to their bank instead. Every one of those lands as a chargeback, not a refund.
Cross-border decline rates
International cards routed to a domestic acquirer get declined far more often than the same card acquired locally.
Agent and OTA structures
Split settlement between operator, agent and platform rarely fits a standard merchant account, so money moves manually.
What changes when the underwriter understands travel
A flat rolling reserve with no review date, applied because "travel is a risky category".
A reserve sized to your actual delivery window and cancellation history, with a written schedule for reducing it.
Booking-season volume triggers a velocity rule and payouts freeze.
Peak limits agreed before your season starts, so a forecast spike is expected rather than flagged.
Deposits and balances collected as two disconnected manual charges.
The card is tokenised at booking and the balance runs automatically on your schedule.
Overseas cards declined by a single domestic acquiring relationship.
Local acquiring in your top markets, with routing that picks the path most likely to authorise.
Cancellation complaints arrive as chargebacks you find out about weeks later.
Alerts give you a window to refund directly, before the dispute is ever filed.
A terminated account and a scramble to find a new processor mid-season.
Multiple acquiring relationships behind one account, so a change of appetite is a re-match, not a shutdown.
What a travel setup usually looks like
Start with the account and gateway, then add the pieces your booking flow actually needs.
Where travel payments actually leak
Most of the loss is not fraud. It is capital held in reserve, cross-border declines and disputes nobody contested.
What strengthens a travel application
Underwriters are pricing the chance you cannot deliver. Evidence that you can is what brings the reserve down.
Show the book
- Six months of processing statements
- Average booking-to-travel lead time
- Cancellation and refund rates by season
- Forward bookings currently held
Show the protection
- ATOL, IATA or equivalent bonding
- Supplier failure or trip-cancellation cover
- Client money held in a trust or escrow account
- Financial protection stated on your site
Show the terms
- Cancellation policy visible before checkout
- Clear deposit and balance schedule
- Named trading entity and contact details
- Booking confirmation sent on every sale
Travel businesses we underwrite
If you collect before you deliver, the same underwriting logic applies.
Airlines & consolidators
Ticketing with long lead times, IATA settlement and heavy cross-border card mix.
Online travel agencies
Marketplace flows where money must split between platform, operator and supplier.
Tour & activity operators
Seasonal books, deposits taken far ahead and group bookings paid in instalments.
Hotels & resorts
No-show and cancellation disputes, plus card-on-file for incidentals at check-out.
Vehicle & yacht rental
Pre-authorisations, damage deposits and adjustments after the rental closes.
Corporate travel management
High-ticket invoicing, lodged cards and reconciliation across many cost centres.
Two processors put us on a ten percent rolling reserve and neither would say what it would take to lower it. Bear Merchant wrote the reduction schedule into the agreement — by the second season most of our working capital was back in the business.
Frequently asked questions
Still unsure about something? Our team answers in plain language — no sales script.
Ask a questionGet underwritten by people who know travel
Send us your book and your cancellation history. We will come back with a reserve you can actually plan around.