While virtual payments to many travel managers remain a novel concept, Goodman Networks recently launched a pilot of its second single-use virtual card solution. The new tool, created by the firm's travel management company, Adelman Travel Group, in conjunction with payment provider CSI, will allow Goodman to use virtual payments for both flights and hotels.
The Plano, Texas-based telecommunications infrastructure and professional services provider last month was set to start the pilot program with about 30 of its 1,060 travelers and plans to add the rest of the group later, explained Goodman Networks corporate travel director Karen Hatch.
Challenging Crews
Goodman Networks' travel department consists of five people who report to Hatch and handles the American Express corporate card program, auditing, the IBM GERS expense tool and about 2,400 fleet vehicles. A majority of all air bookings, 80 percent, are made online using the Concur Travel booking tool. Travelers also book about 90 percent of car rentals and 62 percent of hotel stays through Concur, according to Hatch.
Goodman Networks hires construction crews to build cellphone towers. Crew leaders are responsible for booking hotels for their crews. While crew leaders have corporate cards and most have smartphones to make bookings, the firm uses direct hotel billing for the 460 travelers who neither receive corporate cards nor have company computers, explained Hatch.
"I've really been challenged by our hotel direct-bill program," said Hatch. "The power and civil crews have been my biggest challenge—this is a completely different group of travelers. They're very high-maintenance, and none of them has [corporate] credit cards."
The company uses AirPlus International's Purchase Log, or P-Log, solution in conjunction with Wex (formerly Wright Express) to generate single-use MasterCard numbers and hold hotel bookings, she explained.
However, the AirPlus tool neither is as "robust" as the new solution is expected to be, nor has it as many features, according to Hatch. After a booking is made, the bank—via Adelman as the "conduit"—sends the payment information via fax to the hotel, Hatch said. On the day of check-in, Adelman again faxes the payment information to the hotel and calls to ensure the hotel received the fax.
The launch of AirPlus P-Log increased the average daily number of Goodman's direct-bill hotel reservations to 40 from 10 and the percentage booked for same-day check-in to 88 percent from 67 percent, explained Hatch, but the failure rate of the process has been as high as 40 percent, especially in the first few months of the program. The increased processing meant travel agents had less time to resolve any fax issues before the traveler checked into the hotel.
"While this growth was manageable, we ran into issues with automation with the quality-control supplier and the bank changing their programming but not telling Adelman," Hatch added. "Our failure rate was the highest during this time, but Adelman was quick to respond."
Goodman Networks initiated long-term corrective plans, which included a dedicated team responsible for contacting hotels to ensure faxes were received and a contingency hotel payment solution. Now the P-Log is running at an 8 percent failure rate when transferring information to hotels, with failures primarily due to broken machines, incorrect fax numbers or busy lines, as well as misplaced or lost faxes, especially when the traveler has a late check-in, Hatch said.
"If [the fax] is lost, Adelman has to keep regenerating it, and if something is [still] wrong, they then have to call us, we have to log in to Wright Express and we have to call the hotel with the information and do a lot of card authorization forms, and the faxing goes on until everybody is crazy," Hatch explained. "I've spent many a weekend and many late nights calling in information to our hotels … I've left many social events to fax a credit card authorization to a hotel."
Before Goodman deployed the P-Log system, its agency couldn't see the individual credit card information—in compliance with Payment Card Industry data-security standards—so every time a traveler tried to check in, the hotel would try to charge the ghost card noted in the reservation, but it would get declined, Hatch recalled. With the AirPlus system, the hotel wouldn't use the single-use number unless they had the fax. So if a hotel didn't have the fax, then the traveler couldn't check in.
"It was embarrassing," Hatch added. "The last thing we want the traveler to do is to sit at that check-in desk for 30 minutes to two hours trying to get payment."
But the situation is about to change.
Virtually Seamless
Around July 2013, Adelman began working with CSI—also a client of Adelman—to develop a process which, based on the reservation information, automatically determines whether a transaction qualifies for a one-time-use virtual MasterCard number. If so, the new system creates the unique number and confirms that the transaction was faxed to the hotel successfully, explained Adelman chief information officer Ivan Imana. For air transactions, the ticket is issued in real time.
"Like a standard standalone solution, [an administrator] sets the budget and gets a unique credit card number, plus [the tool] transfers the unique elements related to the transaction so you have a very clean reconciliation process and address fraud and allocation concerns often associated with ghost cards," Imana said.
Additionally, CSI resends the fax with the payment details at 72, 48 and 24 hours before check-in to ensure successful fax delivery. If the fax is lost or misplaced, CSI also sends via email or through the CSI mobile app a digital image of the front and back of a credit card with the unique single-use number the traveler can show to the desk clerk, who then can type the number into the system. The traveler via the mobile app also can resend the fax with a touch of a button. Adelman and CSI are working to include text functionality, so a traveler can click on a link to the credit card image, rather than sort through emails.
Meanwhile, Goodman with AirPlus has developed a contingency card, available to agents and replenished weekly, that allows for payment during after-hours emergencies. "My travelers after hours don't have to get in touch with us because the P-Log failed," Hatch explained. "After-hours agents have access to a contingency card number, so it's good for everyone."
The solution especially is useful for contractors, as organizations don't have to issue corporate cards that could include significant personal liability, Imana added. Adelman has worked with other issuers, like AirPlus, to provide virtual card solutions for its clients, but the integration with CSI is "fairly new," Imana said. "Other clients also use [the] technology, but Goodman is a big adopter of this product."
The virtual card process also will be PCI-compliant, as the personal details and card information is encrypted and neither Adelman nor CSI store or see it, Imana said.
Goodman Networks last year announced the acquisition Multiband—a voice, data and video services company and installer of DirecTV—which, once finalized, would increase the number of Goodman corporate travelers to more than 3,000.
Rather than incorporating the Multiband travelers into the new pilot, Goodman Networks will have them use the AirPlus program.
TMCs To The Rescue
Many companies long have sought tools to better manage infrequent travelers, contractors and even prospective employees traveling for interviews, and some are turning to their TMCs for solutions, including custom-made virtual card options. Medical staffing company CHG Healthcare Services, for example, turned to Christopherson Business Travel for help in dealing with travelers who don't use their personal credit cards for hotel stays, as well as help in reconciliation.
That solution is HotelPrepaidLogic, a technology product that works with Wex technology to create single-use virtual cards backed by MasterCard to reserve hotel stays and fax a digital copy of the card at a pre-selected date. The solution also integrates with global distribution systems operated by Sabre and Travelport (Apollo and Worldspan).
HotelPrepaidLogic automated up to 70 percent of CHG's transactions and reduced instances of card fraud by as much as 80 percent, according to CHG.
This report originally appeared in the August 2014 edition of Travel Procurement.