With travel restrictions lifted and life getting back to normal, many are looking to take vacations for the first time in a while. Due to the sudden demand, travel pricing has jumped pretty significantly. As a result, consumers are looking for flexible ways to pay for the two major vacation expenditures—flights and hotels.

This desire has brought about some pretty clear travel payment trends for 2022, and some of them were pretty popular pre-pandemic as well. We will break it down between what consumers are trending toward regarding flights and hotels and try to make recommendations on how merchants can best meet their needs.

Travel Payment Trends for Flights

Depending on the length of the trip and the distance consumers are traveling, flights can be the single largest vacation cost. For many, this expense is what dictates when and where they go. For merchants trying to expand the horizons of their consumers, there are a few payment trends they can jump on, which are:

• Credit card rewards
• Travel loans
• Buy now, pay later (BNPL)

These options existed pre-pandemic but have grown even more popular as the awareness of their benefits grows.

Merchants that offer travel rewards with their branded credit cards can not only help consumers with their vacation costs but also encourage them to return for any future travel needs. Travel loans are traditional loans made specifically for the purpose of travel expenses, but some shy away because of the potential credit impact of opening up a loan just for a one-off trip.

This is where the newer player in the travel space, BNPL, comes in. BNPL allows consumers to break up their travel purchases into multiple payments, but without as much interest or credit impact as a traditional loan. They also typically come with a very clean, user-friendly software platform that makes payments a breeze. This adds less friction to the process of financing a vacation, encouraging consumers to spend more to get direct flights or better seats.

Travel Payment Trends for Hotels

For hotels, the payment trends are pretty similar to those for flights. Basically, consumers are looking for more flexible payment options and merchants and lodging providers that can offer them tend to perform well. BNPL works great for hotels, just like it does for airlines, as it gives consumers the simplest possible way to finance a more luxurious or longer stay.

There are a couple of additional trends in the hotel space that don’t apply to flights, which are:

• Hotel rewards
• Packaging
• Vacation layaway programs

Hotel rewards are an excellent way for lodging providers to make sure they are the go-to provider for consumers after just one stay. By offering discount rewards to customers, hotel chains and private home rental sites can save consumers money and encourage them to stay in the network when they take a vacation.

Packaging has been common in the travel space for a while. To a consumer, it looks like hotel providers are offering packages of hotel stays and airfare for one fixed price. Basically, it is an all-inclusive travel product that allows consumers to make one purchase for their whole vacation. These are well-paired with vacation layaway programs, which let buyers reserve their stay way ahead of time and make payments at their leisure until they leave.

Offer a Flexible Travel Payment Options With Skeps

To keep up with travel payment trends, airlines and lodging providers alike need a quality lending partner. Skeps offers the only end-to-end POS financing platform that can help merchants offer:

• Credit cards with rewards
• Travel loans
• BNPL payment plans

Our user-friendly software platform makes application, acceptance, and payment easy without taking consumers off a merchant’s website. Our omnichannel functionality allows our application to be embedded within any website or app.

If a merchant is looking to make their consumers’ travel shopping experience faster, easier, and more flexible than ever before, there is no better partner than Skeps.