Travel payments cross borders and time zones, but why do so many go wrong? Discover the hidden hurdles and solutions inside every booking.
Travel looks easy until you peek behind the curtain.
Booking across currencies, juggling fraud checks, and wrangling ancient systems, every trip is a high-wire act few customers see. This episode of Everywhere Commerce asks: why are travel payments some of the hardest in the world, and what’s really at stake when checkout breaks?
Join Siobhan O'Neill-Schwenk, Keli Sandeman from Virgin Atlantic, Damien Cramer of Nuvei, and industry consultant Paul van Alfen as they reveal the invisible complexity behind every flight, hotel, and holiday. Key topics include the outdated infrastructure powering global payments, the massive revenue lost to false declines, with 1 in 6 travelers wrongly turned away, and the strategies leading airlines use to recover lost sales and optimize approvals. The episode also tackles the looming impact of AI-driven booking agents and what could happen when machines book your next trip.
Whether you’re scaling a global marketplace or booking your next adventure, tune in for high-stakes stories, essential insights, and actionable fixes that keep money flowing and journeys on track.
Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
01:24 - Why Travel Payments Are So Challenging
03:28 - The Problem of Payment Declines
09:10 - Outdated Infrastructure and Legacy Systems
12:58 - Prepayment Risk in Travel
15:34 - Winning Back Lost Customers
16:52 - Importance of Localization
18:12 - Scaling Payment Methods Globally
21:01 - The Role of Customer Preferences
22:01 - The Impact of AI and Agentic Commerce
25:28 - Why Travel Is the Hardest Payment Challenge
26:17 - The Future of Travel Payments
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Presented by Nuvei
https://www.nuvei.com