Holiday Extras, a leader in the travel industry, has evolved over four decades from its origins in airport hotels to becoming a one-stop shop for travel extras. Their offerings now include airport parking, lounges, transfers, car hire, insurance, and attractions. Trusted by over eight million travelers annually, either directly or through a vast network of partners, Holiday Extras is dedicated to making the experience of finding, booking, and managing travel extras as easy as possible.
As a leading provider of travel add-ons, Holiday Extras sought an innovative solution to streamline their payment processes. With partners such as Hilton, they aimed to drive automation and enhance efficiency. By integrating Checkout.com's issuing platform, Holiday Extras has utilized virtual cards to do just that.
Prior to integrating Checkout.com’s solution, Holiday Extras faced significant manual processing challenges. Payments to partners like Hilton were made via batch bank wire transfers, which were time-consuming and prone to errors.
This manual process hindered operational efficiency and did not support the growing demand for a more automated and seamless booking experience. Holiday Extras needed a solution that could integrate smoothly with partner booking systems and streamline its payment process.
Michelle Taylor, Supplier Payments Team Lead at Holiday Extras, explains, "Our previous process involved making manual payments via batch bank wire to partners like Hilton, which was inefficient and time-consuming."
Integrating new payment solutions across a diverse supplier network further complicated matters. Michelle notes, "Each supplier had unique requirements, which complicated the integration process. Ensuring consistency in payment processing across different currencies and jurisdictions was another layer of complexity."
Additionally, their previous system did not provide any interchange incentives, a crucial aspect for optimizing costs and efficiency.
Checkout.com provided Holiday Extras with a comprehensive virtual card issuing platform that seamlessly integrated into the Hilton booking system. The implementation process was smooth, with constant communication and support from the Checkout.com team. Michelle Taylor from
Holiday Extras highlighted, “The integration went really, really well. The communication channel was open, and if we asked a question, they came back really quickly with an answer.”
According to Mark Terry, Tech Lead Data Platform at Holiday Extras, “Integrating with Checkout.com was the easiest experience we've had with third-party suppliers and payment gateways. Their documentation is top-notch; we've even used it as a benchmark for others. The integration itself went smoothly, with the only delay being our finance team signing off the contract. Even a new engineer on our team was able to quickly build a proxy into your API, and we haven't needed to touch it since because your API is so stable."
This integration allowed Holiday Extras to issue virtual cards automatically to secure room bookings as soon as a customer made a reservation on their website. This integration has since been expanded to include other booking processes beyond room reservations.
The integration of Checkout.com’s virtual card-issuing platform brought significant benefits to Holiday Extras. One of these was improved operational efficiency through the automation of the booking and payment process which reduced the manual workload significantly.
When it came to financial results, the interchange fee kickbacks provided a positive financial impact with Michelle noting, “We’re getting the kickback on the interchange fee. So that’s a positive, absolutely.”
Another financial saving came in the way of saved manual processing time. For instance, the successful implementation with Hilton has paved the way for similar integrations with other partners. These further integrations are expected to reduce manual processing time by at least 12.5 hours a week.
In addition to this, the ability to lock virtual cards to specific Merchant Category Codes (MCCs) added an extra layer of security.
The feedback from both Holiday Extras’ internal team and Hilton has been largely positive. The decline rates have significantly decreased, and the process has been well-received overall. Michelle shared, “I haven’t heard a bad thing said about Checkout.com since we’ve gone live with them.”
Holiday Extras’ partnership with Checkout.com has transformed their hotel booking payment process. By leveraging Checkout.com’s virtual card issuing platform, they achieved greater automation, enhanced operational efficiency, and improved financial outcomes.
Michelle summarized the experience aptly, “This partnership has been a pleasure throughout,” underscoring the successful and beneficial collaboration between Holiday Extras and Checkout.com.
Going forward, Holiday Extras are excited to utilize Checkout.com’s Mastercard Wholesale Programme virtual cards to pay their hotel partners. These cards bring added benefits to enhance the partner payment experience.
.svg){kind=icon}
