The Concur Compleat mid-office system now can automatically
generate virtual cards for hotel bookings. The capability comes from virtual
card payment provider Conferma. According to Gant Travel, it is the first
travel management company to offer the capability, which it is marketing as
Gant Strategic Pay. Gant's first customer will be Harmony Healthcare, and the
TMC is discussing the service with others, according to Gant technical project
manager Penny Spangler.
In March, Concur EVP of global products Tim MacDonald said
the company was working with virtual
card providers to enable virtual pay for its travel management customers by
mid-year.
Gant will work with corporations to determine the
policy/rules by which travel is deemed eligible for the centralized virtual
payment—for job candidates or contractors, for example—as well as what the
payments should cover, whether just room and tax or also including a buffer for
incidentals, Linnihan said. For virtual debit cards, unused funds are returned
to the account when the final folio is closed, and the money can be used to
fund new cards.
After a hotel booking is made on Concur Travel or through a
Gant agent, the passenger name record is sent to Concur Compleat. The system
determines on the back end which reservations qualify for a virtual card, and Compleat
automatically requests a virtual card number from Conferma, Spangler said.
Conferma then generates the VCN with details like amount, merchant and validity
dates and sends an encrypted
email or fax authorization to the hotel, depending on the hotel's
capability. Compleat also emails a reservation confirmation to the traveler. "[Travelers]
don't do anything different. The rules-based program that's tied to the
mid-office recognizes when [the traveler] should use a virtual card, and it
shoots the payment over to the hotel," explained Gant Travel president
Patrick Linnihan.
If the hotel has misplaced the virtual card confirmation, the
traveler can call Gant to resend the email or fax, or the traveler can use Conferma's
TripPay
app to resend the authorization or display an image of the virtual card,
explained Spangler.
Fulfilling a Need
Gant clients have been requesting a virtual card solution
for "quite some time, especially those clients hit with fraud," Spangler
said. The TMC wanted clients to have a variety of banking partners to choose
from, and this solution offers 26 banks and virtual card issuers, including
AirPlus, Bank of America, Citi, Comdata, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo. Gant also
wanted a mobile app so travelers could display the virtual card or resend the
authorization in the event of difficulties at check-in. Last Gant wanted
bookings to generate virtual cards whether they originated in Concur or via a
TMC agent.
Spangler expects more TMCs to offer the capability, which
will become available for air bookings around the third quarter, she said. Car
rental and rail will follow.