What is recommended for hotel prepayments?

[fegalvez]

Hi, 

Many clients like to use a corporate ghost card to pay for all travel, including hotels. The thing is, when travelers reserve a hotel using that card, they are asked at the counter to provide a credit card for the payment of the entire stay plus incidentals. What is the best way around this issue, so we don't have to send credit card authorization forms? Is Concur Compleat the best option? Is Conferma also a good option in the USA? 

[KevinD · Accepted solution]

@fegalvez my Travel contact says that Conferma is a good option in the U.S. and/or you can work directly with the hotel to set up a direct billing option for when your employees stay at that hotel. 

[brummage]

Does Conferma integrate with Concur travel? If so, what does that look like? How would that work? Our company completes many authorization forms and has had numerous fraudulent charges occur as a result. Finding a solution which would do away with having to do that would be wonderful.

[leedau]

@brummage If you are not familiar with what a Virtual Card is - here is a bit more context.

Virtual cards are unique 15 or 16-digit card numbers generated digitally at the point of sale and associated with a specific user. They are used only for a single payment and then discarded. There is no physical card.

A virtual card can also generate a virtual security code – CVV, CVV2 or CVC – the three-digit number printed on the back of a plastic card.
 

A Virtual Card Account (VCA) is, as the name suggests, a virtual account that is created in real-time to accommodate a purchase. Its features are:

• No plastic is issued
• Typically they are single-use card accounts (that is, for a single purchase) though they can be set up to be used for multiple transactions in a defined time period or for a maximum amount
• The individual does not have the account number; the account is created “on the fly” at the time the charge is incurred
• Virtual accounts are associated with a mother account that is used as billing account
• Virtual accounts and associated transactions can be auto assigned to users if the employee ID information is included with the transaction

Also, here is a link to the Virtual Payment - Conferma Pay Travel Service Guide for your to review or share with your internal teams. 

I hope this additional information is helpful. 

[fegalvez]

@brummage Yes, it integrates with Concur. When a reservation is made through Concur, Conferma creates a unique virtual card sent to the hotel, also available to the traveler in the Conferma Pay App. 

[Amy_Alpine]

My understanding is that services like Conferma aren't able to fully resolve the issue companies have with hotels. Hotels can ignore/forget to use the virtual card and still ask credit card from traveler. We have many a direct bill and cc on file with properties and depending on who is checking the guest in/out, the hotel can charge the individual despite the reservation being associated with our business account. A virtual card service would eliminate the step of filling out a cc authorization form, but from what I've heard from executives who experienced those implementation, employees were regularly asked for their credit card and the entire stay charged to their personal card. At best, the virtual card service was able to get the charges reversed, but it still wasn't an optimal traveler experience.