Published by WebPays
Last Updated: June 2026
Travel is one of the most complex industries to operate a payment infrastructure for — and one of the most consequential. A single disrupted payment flow at the point of booking can mean a lost sale worth hundreds or thousands of pounds. A poorly managed chargeback programme can cost far more than the disputed transactions themselves.
If you own a travel business — whether that is an online travel agency, a tour operator, a hotel chain, a cruise line, or a specialist travel service — this guide explains what a travel merchant account is, why you are classified as high-risk, and how to build a payment infrastructure that supports your business rather than limiting it.
What Exactly Is a Travel Merchant Account?
A travel merchant account is a specialised bank account that enables travel businesses to accept and process card payments and other digital payment methods. Unlike a standard merchant account, which is designed for businesses with predictable, low-risk transaction profiles, a travel merchant account is structured to accommodate the specific financial characteristics of the travel industry.
The core purpose of a travel merchant account is the same as any merchant account: it acts as the intermediary through which customer payments flow from their bank or card issuer to your business account. What differs is the underwriting basis, the risk management framework, the chargeback provisions, and the settlement timing built into the relationship.
Travel merchant accounts are issued by acquiring banks with specific experience in the travel sector — banks that understand advance booking models, cancellation economics, and the elevated chargeback rates that characterise travel commerce. They are accessed through payment gateway providers, such as WebPays, that have established relationships with these specialised acquirers.
Why Do Banks Flag Travel Businesses as High-Risk?
Understanding why banks classify travel businesses as high-risk is useful because it explains every aspect of how travel merchant accounts are structured — the fees, the reserves, the underwriting requirements.
The Advance Payment Problem
Travel businesses typically collect payment weeks, months, or even a year before the service is delivered. A customer books a holiday in January for travel in August, paying in full at the point of booking. From a payment risk perspective, that seven-month gap between payment and service delivery is significant — it creates a long window during which the customer can dispute the charge, the business could theoretically fail to deliver, or circumstances can change in ways that trigger cancellation claims.
Contrast this with a retail purchase, where the customer receives the product within days of payment. The dispute window is narrow. In travel, the window is long, and the volume of potential disputes in that window is correspondingly higher.
Chargeback Rates in Travel
Travel consistently produces some of the highest chargeback rates of any e-commerce category. Customers dispute travel charges for many reasons: flight cancellations, hotel quality disappointments, tour itinerary changes, natural disasters or political instability that disrupts travel plans, or simply changed personal circumstances.
Some of these chargebacks are legitimate — the service was not delivered as described. Others are friendly fraud — the customer received the service but disputes the charge anyway. Many fall into a grey zone where the customer had a genuine grievance but the appropriate resolution mechanism was a refund request, not a chargeback.
Whatever the cause, the statistical chargeback rate in travel puts the industry in the high-risk category from most banks’ perspectives, and that categorisation affects every aspect of your merchant account terms.
Currency and Cross-Border Complexity
Most travel businesses process payments in multiple currencies, often processing cards issued in countries different from where the business is domiciled. Cross-border transactions carry higher fraud rates than domestic transactions, and multi-currency businesses face exchange rate exposure on top of the underlying transaction risk.
Business Model Volatility
External events — pandemics, geopolitical disruptions, weather events, airline failures — can trigger massive simultaneous chargeback waves in travel. The COVID-19 period was the most extreme recent example, but smaller-scale disruptions are a regular feature of the travel operating environment. Banks account for this tail risk in how they structure travel merchant accounts.
Chargebacks Costing You? Here’s How Travel Businesses Fight Back
For a travel merchant, the single most important financial management discipline is chargeback control. A chargeback ratio above 1% of monthly transaction volume is the threshold at which standard acquiring banks become uncomfortable. Sustained above that level, it triggers warnings, reserve increases, and eventually account termination.
Travel businesses face elevated chargeback exposure structurally, which means managing it requires more than average vigilance. Here is what effective chargeback management looks like in practice for a travel merchant.
Implement Real-Time Chargeback Alerts
Chargeback alert systems notify you within hours of a dispute being filed, before it progresses to a formal chargeback. This early warning window gives you the opportunity to contact the customer directly and resolve the issue — often through a refund — before it becomes a chargeback. Resolving disputes pre-chargeback prevents the chargeback from counting against your ratio while also saving the dispute fee.
Maintain Granular Transaction Records
The most effective weapon against fraudulent chargebacks is documentation. For each transaction, preserve: the IP address and device fingerprint at booking, email confirmation records, proof of service delivery, any communications with the customer, and the explicit booking terms the customer accepted. When a chargeback is filed, this documentation forms the basis of your representment.
Use 3DS2 Authentication for Card Transactions
3D Secure 2 authentication shifts liability for certain types of chargebacks from the merchant to the card issuer when authentication is completed. For a travel business, where card-not-present fraud is a recurring concern, 3DS2 provides both fraud protection and liability protection on authenticated transactions.
Implement Clear Cancellation and Refund Policies
Many travel chargebacks stem from cancellation policy confusion. When a customer is unsure whether they are entitled to a refund, they default to a chargeback as a faster and more certain resolution mechanism than engaging with your customer service team. Policies that are clear, prominent at booking, and re-communicated at key touchpoints reduce this category of dispute significantly.
Monitor Your Chargeback Ratio Proactively
Do not wait for your acquiring bank to alert you to a problem. Monitor your chargeback ratio weekly, track which booking types and customer segments generate disputes, and investigate spikes before they become trends. WebPays provides merchants with real-time chargeback monitoring dashboards that make this analysis straightforward.
Work with a Gateway That Fights Chargebacks for You
A full-service high-risk payment gateway does not just process transactions — it actively participates in your chargeback management. This includes automated dispute flagging, representment filing with supporting documentation, and threshold alerts before your ratio reaches dangerous levels. This is a material difference between a specialist high-risk gateway like WebPays and a general payment processor that routes transactions without providing active risk management support.
Why Global Payment Capabilities Matter in Travel
Travel is inherently international. Your customers book from anywhere in the world. Your suppliers are located in different countries and currencies. Your own corporate structure may span multiple jurisdictions. The payment gateway at the centre of this complexity needs to be built for global commerce, not adapted from a domestic processing solution.
Multi-Currency Acceptance
Presenting prices in a customer’s local currency and accepting payment in that currency improves conversion rates and reduces the friction of exchange rate uncertainty. For a European travel business accepting bookings from customers across Asia, North America, and the Middle East, this means maintaining capability across a broad range of currencies — not just EUR and GBP.
Local Payment Method Support
Card penetration varies dramatically by market. In many of travel’s fastest-growing source markets — China, India, Southeast Asia, Brazil, the Middle East — significant shares of the consumer population either do not hold international cards or prefer alternative payment methods for online purchases.
A travel business that accepts only Visa and Mastercard is systematically excluding customers from markets that represent some of the highest-growth segments in global travel. Offering UnionPay for Chinese customers, UPI for Indian travellers, or GrabPay for Southeast Asian bookers removes barriers that currently send those customers to competitors.
Fraud Screening Calibrated for Travel
Travel fraud patterns differ from those in physical goods e-commerce. Account takeover fraud — where fraudsters compromise existing customer accounts to book travel — is particularly prevalent. Card testing using travel sites as a target is another common pattern. Fraud screening systems calibrated for these specific patterns perform better than generic tools repurposed from other verticals.
Settlement in Your Operating Currency
If your business operates primarily in euros but accepts bookings in twelve other currencies, currency conversion at settlement has meaningful margin implications. A gateway that provides multi-currency settlement — or a dynamic currency conversion service — gives you control over the exchange rate timing and terms.
Final Thoughts: Ready to Take Control of Your Travel Payments?
Travel payment infrastructure is not a commodity — it is a strategic differentiator. The acquiring relationships, fraud management systems, chargeback tools, and global payment capabilities underpinning your merchant account directly affect your conversion rates, your dispute economics, and your ability to serve a global customer base.
Too many travel businesses operate with payment infrastructure that was adequate at a smaller scale or in simpler market conditions, but that limits growth as the business expands internationally or into higher-volume segments.
WebPays works with travel merchants of all sizes — from emerging online travel agencies to established operators processing tens of millions per month — to build payment infrastructure matched to the specific demands of the travel sector. Our acquiring relationships cover the major card schemes and a broad range of alternative payment methods. Our risk management tools are designed for the elevated chargeback environment that travel creates. And our support team understands travel — not just payments.
If you are experiencing processing instability, high chargeback costs, or payment method gaps that are limiting your market reach, contact WebPays for a travel-specific payment consultation.
WebPays provides specialist payment gateway and merchant account services for travel businesses across Europe, Asia, and globally. Visit webpays.com to learn more.