Travel Credit Card Processing for Webmasters

Accepting credit cards is a must if you are selling products or services online. Particularly in travel industry, travel credit card processing is now so widespread that you will lose clients to your competitors if cannot accept payments via your website. The good news is, travel credit card processing is easy to set up for webmasters. It is only a hassle if you have bad credit or have previously declared bankruptcy. The costs involved in setting up travel credit card processing vary from one source to another.

What’s Required to Accept Credit Cards on a Travel Website?

Following are three primary components you will need in order tostart accepting credit card payments on your travel website:

• A Bank Account:This is the account where the payments made by your clients for your products/services will be deposited.
• A Merchant Account:A merchant account is what authorizes your business to collect funds from the credit card account of your clients. Because of the nature of your business, you may need to get a high-risk merchant account.
• A Payment Gateway:This is the secure network that captures payment information from your secure server and transfers it to your merchant account. A payment gateway is also required to issue funds as well as process any offline transactions.

Choosing the Right Credit Card Processing Company

In order to set up travel credit card processing, you will need to partner with a credit card processing company. These service providers do the legwork and process payments to a client’s credit card, in addition to ensuring that the funds successfully make it into your business’s bank account.

The first thing you will need to do when choosing a payment processor is consider your own specific needs when it comes to managing your business. Obviously, you will need a payment processing service to accept and process credit card transactions, but there may be other things you might need. For instance, you may wish to take mobile payments, manage inventory, need help with bookkeeping, etc. So, it is highly recommended that you research your options considering these factors and choose a provider that offers these services additionally.

Setting Up Travel Credit Card Processing

Once you have selected the right credit card processing provider for your travel agency credit card processing, it’s time to set up your payment gateway. It may seem intimidating at first, but most payment processors make the process quite intuitive and easy, even for beginners. The first step in setting up travel credit card processing is to sign up with a provider that you have selected. In some cases, you may need to submit certain documents, e.g.,personal identification, tax forms, business registration documents, and other documentation. It is recommended that you have these on hand before initiating the sign-up process.

After completing the initial steps, you will be ready to add a payment gateway, which is basically a virtual terminal, to your travel website. There are several different ways this is done. The most convenient method is the all-in-one solution that most payment processors offer. Ithas built-in payment gateway, and it requires least amount of effort on your part.

Now that you know the process of collecting credit card payments on your travel website, you are ready to partner with a credit card processing company and set up your own payment gateway. This will allow you to offer multiple payment solutions to your clients, sell your products/service in an efficient manner, and eventually grow your business.