Virtual Card Adoption Grows, Smaller Hotels and Emerging Markets Lag

With virtual cards becoming a norm across companies, the average business traveler expects a seamless hotel check-in. Despite broad adoption—70 percent of U.S. businesses use virtual cards, according to payment provider Ramp—some travelers still are told the card on file can't be found. This problem highlights the complexity of using virtual cards at hotels. 

In 2025, large hotel brands typically accept virtual cards without friction, but small independent hotels and properties in some jurisdictions rely on faxes or emails. The main obstacle is translating a "cardholder not present" transaction into something hotel staff can recognize and trust. API-based integrations promise to solve this.

Direct Connects Grow

Virtual cards began gaining ground over the past decade, offering greater control, richer data and reduced fraud risk. Despite these benefits, some brands still are navigating how to reliably deliver the card number to a hotel property during the reservation workflow—a step that, in many cases, still happens via fax.

In 2022, Grasp Technologies, Marriott International and The Walt Disney Co. built a system to transmit virtual card details from the global distribution system through Marriott’s central reservation system into its property management system, ensuring front desk staff have the data at check-in. Designed to be nonproprietary, the initiative has since expanded to other hotels and is being scaled more broadly.

Conferma also has developed an API that can send virtual card data directly into the hotel's property management system. In April, Conferma announced a rollout with Hilton Hotels Corp., which allowed thousands of properties to receive virtual card details in real time. Other hotel brands, including Omni Hotels & Resorts, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Strawberry (formerly Nordic Choice Hotels), Europe's Thon Hotels, and property management system vendors such as Mews and SynXis are following. Fax still accounts for about 3 percent of transactions and most are handled by email—faster than fax but still vulnerable to errors. APIs are expected to reach 25 percent of Conferma transactions by year end, Conferma chief product officer Stuart Davenport told BTN Europe in April.

Scaling Challenges

Technical fragmentation is a major barrier, as PMS configurations can vary even within the same brand. Smaller and independent hotels often lack the resources or vendor partnerships to enable direct connections. In some properties or markets, guests must physically present the card used for the reservation, prompting workarounds such as prepaid booking rates, said head of corporate payment solutions at Conferma Kelly Cleeton. In addition, front-desk staff may not recognize a virtual card or know how to process it, especially in high-turnover environments. This leads to failed check-ins and payment disputes. 

Invoicing is another sticking point. Kathleen Stilmant, director of consulting expertise for travel management specialist Odyssey by Axys, previously told BTN that is because hotels have no obligation to issue one once they have been paid. This can make VAT reclaim and reconciliation more difficult. While Conferma offers invoice-chasing services, Davenport sees automated invoice retrieval via API as a fix.

Mobile wallets now allow travelers to tap-to-pay with a virtual card at hotel check-in—a capability that 20 issuers working with Conferma can offer, with 15 of them adding it in the past year, according to Davenport. Adoption, however, remains slow, as Davenport cites the complexities of tokenizing a single-use virtual card so it functions as a "card-present" transaction. There also are added costs for issuers to support Apple Pay or Google Pay.

Getting to 'Critical Mass'

Conferma said its Hilton integration has sparked interest from other large chains and PMS providers.

"We've hit a point of critical mass now in multiple markets where this friction is a little bit too noisy," Davenport said. "More hotel partners are standing up and saying, 'How can we get you on the roadmap, because we're feeling that pain as well.' "

Conferma plans to phase out fax entirely by 2026, starting in Asia-Pacific, then moving to Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas. Education remains a focus, said Cleeton, with webinars and outreach to train hotels on virtual payment benefits and processes.

While the technology is shifting toward API-based connectivity—seamlessly linking card data to property systems—acceptance won't be universal until independents and smaller markets catch up. But as corporate pressure mounts, demand for modern solutions is growing. 

"The shift from virtual payment being an exception to being the new industry standard … that's where we're going," Cleeton said. With the Hilton-Conferma tie-up, "someone had to be the first, and once the first one goes, then people generally will want to follow."     

Whether virtual cards can move beyond top-tier hotels to become a true industry standard will depend on adoption in the last mile of the market.