The Hidden Cost of Payment Failures in Travel: What the Data Says

Payment failures in the travel industry are a costly but often overlooked issue. When transactions fail due to insufficient funds, fraud checks, or outdated payment methods, travel companies face revenue loss, operational inefficiencies, and frustrated customers. Airlines and travel businesses that don’t address this issue risk cart abandonment, increased customer churn, and high processing costs.

According to a study by LexisNexis Risk Solutions, nearly 50% of businesses report that failed payments significantly impact their costs, with 64% stating that payment failures increase staff workload due to manual retries and customer complaints. For airlines and travel platforms, these failures result in missed bookings and lost revenue opportunities.

So, what’s causing these payment failures—and more importantly, how can they be prevented?

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The Main Causes of Payment Failures in Travel

1. Insufficient Funds on a Single Card – A common reason for declined payments, especially for high-ticket purchases like flights and vacation packages.
2. High Card Decline Rates for International Transactions – Travel often involves cross-border payments, which can trigger fraud checks and cause legitimate transactions to fail.
3. Limited Payment Flexibility at Checkout – Customers may want to split payments across multiple cards or people but aren’t given the option.
4. Inconvenient Retry Processes – When a payment fails, many booking platforms don’t offer an easy way to retry with another card, leading to lost sales.

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How Hands In Helps Travel Companies Recover Lost Revenue

At Hands In, we specialize in making payments easier and more flexible, helping airlines and travel businesses reduce failed transactions and increase completed bookings. Here’s how:

1. Decline Recovery: Rescuing Transactions with Split Payments

When a payment fails due to insufficient funds, our Decline Recovery feature allows customers to immediately retry the transaction by splitting the payment across multiple cards. Instead of losing a booking, customers can still complete their purchase using multiple payment sources—whether it’s a personal and business card, a savings and credit card, or another combination.

💡 Impact: Travel companies using Decline Recovery can reduce lost bookings and recover a significant percentage of failed transactions.

2. Multi-Card Payments: Increasing Success Rates for Large Purchases

Many customers want to use more than one card when making large travel purchases. However, most airline checkout systems only allow one card per transaction. Hands In enables customers to split their total cost across multiple cards in a single checkout session, reducing card declines and making travel bookings more accessible.

💡 Impact: Airlines and travel platforms that support multi-card payments see lower abandonment rates and higher completed bookings.

3. Group Payments: Eliminating Friction for Shared Travel Expenses

For group travel, one person typically covers the entire booking, which can cause failed payments if their card doesn’t have enough funds. Hands In allows groups to split payments at checkout, so each traveler pays their share upfront, reducing reliance on a single card and decreasing the likelihood of transaction failure.

💡 Impact: Travel agencies and OTAs offering group payment options provide a better experience and increase successful transactions.

4. Installments on Cards: Making High-Value Purchases More Manageable

Installments are an increasingly popular way to spread out travel costs without relying on third-party BNPL providers. With Hands In, airlines and travel platforms can allow customers to split payments into smaller, manageable installments using their existing credit or debit cards, helping travelers avoid card declines while making higher-value purchases possible.

💡 Impact: Travel companies offering installments increase affordability for customers and drive higher conversion rates.

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Why Payment Flexibility Is the Future of Travel Bookings

Payment failures are a major revenue leak in the travel industry, but they don’t have to be. By providing flexible, split, and group payment options at checkout, travel businesses can reduce declines, increase conversion rates, and improve customer experience.

Hands In helps airlines, OTAs, and travel agencies reduce cart abandonment, recover failed transactions, and drive incremental revenue through smarter payment solutions. If you're ready to turn failed payments into completed bookings, let’s talk.

🚀 Want to see how Hands In can help your travel business?Get in touch today!