North America-based travel management companies and clients
of Bank of America Merrill Lynch now can generate virtual card numbers for
immediate use while booking hotels, flights and car rentals. Conferma has set
up an application programming interface that connects the bank, TMCs and travel
suppliers.
BofA's Virtual Payables solution automatically inserts in
the reservation a virtual card number for the exact amount of the booking, or
it can include a buffer amount to allow for purchases of incidentals. BofA has
enabled the payment option for both online and offline bookings. A spokesperson
said the most frequent use of BofA virtual cards is booking by travel agents on
behalf of non-corporate cardholders, who typically are infrequent travelers and
nonemployees who may not have a booking tool profile.
The virtual card confirmation details are sent to hotels through
a secure link or a fax, depending on the hotel's capability.
Before the enhancement, BofA clients that paid for bookings
centrally did so via lodge cards or central travel accounts. Those created
reconciliation challenges and negatively impacted the traveler experience,
according to BofA. Clients also could use virtual cards, but the card numbers
came from a pool of recycled numbers and the process of getting a card number
to use at payment "wasn't easy," said BofA head of global card and
comprehensive payables Jennifer Petty.
BoA launched a similar capability, Travel
Pro, with Conferma in EMEA in 2015, and it has expanded to Asia/Pacific,
according to the spokesperson.