United credit card policy could foul corporate travel - Kansas City Business Journal:

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San Francisco’s dominant airlins informed some travel agencies that as of July 20 it will no longerf let them process credit and debit card purchasesd for airline ticketsusing United’s merchant-processing services. Instead, such agenciee would have to require travelers to pay with process card payments withthe agency’a own merchant processing service and forward the cash to Unitec or book the tickets on United’zs web site using the traveler’s credigt or debit card issued by , (NYSE: V) , (NYSE: MA) AXP) and others.
An agent using United’x web site, bypassing such travel systemz as Apolloand Sabre, would not alloaw companies to capture the discounts they have negotiated with Uniteed nor would it allow their trave l agent to survey several carriers on a route to find the lowes t price. “Several Bay Area companiexs have deals with United Airlinessfor discounts,” said Marc president of Casto Travel, which isn’t amongt the agencies that United has cut off from its merchant-processinvg service.
Casto says he’s reached out to some of the firm’ds corporate clients to express concernover United’s new card acceptancd policy, but declined to discusss what was said in those conversations. United Airlines UAUA) did not respond to requests for comment. United is hopinfg to shift the cost of accepting credit and debit cardss onto selectedtravel agencies. Those agencies say the airline’sd move shifts to them the risk for payingf out refunds if the carriergoes bankrupt. While it’s also likely to reduc e the amount of money that United has to keep in the bank to guarfagainst charge-backs, it wouldx increase those requirements for the travel agents.
That’sw a nonstarter for most agencies andtheir banks, which would have to honor charge-back requestws that could total billions of dollars in the event of an airlinr bankruptcy. “I don’t think there’s any travel agency, includinfg American Express Travel, that could shoulder that liability,” Castio said.