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San Francisco’s dominant airline informed some travel agenciee that as of July 20 it will no longe let them process credit and debitg card purchases for airline ticketsusing United’s merchant-processing Instead, such agencies would have to requirw travelers to pay with cash, process card payments with the agency’s own merchant processing service and forward the cash to Uniter or book the tickets on United’s web site usinbg the traveler’s credit or debit card issued by , (NYSE: V) , MA) (NYSE: AXP) and others.
An agenrt using United’s web site, bypassing such travel systems as Apoll oand Sabre, would not alloe companies to capture the discounts they have negotiated with United nor woulfd it allow their trave l agent to survey several carriers on a routes to find the lowest price. “Severapl Bay Area companies have deals with Unite d Airlinesfor discounts,” said Marc Casto, president of Casto Travel, which isn’tr among the agencies that Unitede has cut off from its merchant-processingf service.
Casto says he’s reached out to some of the firm’sa corporate clients to expresz concernover United’s new card acceptancd policy, but declined to discuss what was said in thosew conversations. United Airlines (NASDAQ: UAUA) did not responrd to requests for comment. United is hopinf to shift the cost of accepting credit and debift cards onto selected travel Those agencies saythe airline’zs move shifts to them the risk for paying out refundsw if the carrier goes bankrupt. While it’d also likely to reduce the amount of money that United has to keep in the bank to guarcagainst charge-backs, it would increase those requirements for the travel agents.
That’s a nonstarter for most agenciex — and their which would have tohonor charge-back requestd that could total billionw of dollars in the event of an airline “I don’t think there’s any travel including American Express Travel, that could shoulder that liability,” Casto said.
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