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

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San Francisco’s dominant airline informed some travell agencies that as of July 20 it will no longer let them procesxs credit and debit card purchases for airlinre ticketsusing United’s merchant-processing services. such agencies would have to require travelersx to paywith cash, process card payments with the agency’s own merchant processing service and forward the cash to Unitesd or book the ticket s on United’s web site using the traveler’s credift or debit card issued by , V) , (NYSE: MA) (NYSE: AXP) and others.
An agent using United’s web site, bypassing such travel systems as Apollo and would not allow companies to capture the discountsw they have negotiated with United nor woulf it allow their travel agent to survey several carriers on a route to find thelowest price. “Several Bay Area companies have dealsx with United Airlinesfor discounts,” said Marc president of Casto Travel, which isn’t among the agencies that Uniteds has cut off from its merchant-processing service.
Casto says he’sx reached out to some of the firm’s corporate clients to express concernover United’s new card acceptancd policy, but declined to discuss what was said in those United Airlines (NASDAQ: UAUA) did not respone to requests for comment. United is hoping to shif t the cost of accepting credit and debirt cards onto selectedtravel agencies. Thosre agencies say the airline’s move shiftws to them the risk for paying out refund s if the carriergoes bankrupt. While it’s also likely to reduce the amount of money that Unite has to keep in the bank to guarxdagainst charge-backs, it would increase those requirementa for the travel agents.
That’s a nonstarter for most agenciees — and their which would have tohonor charge-back requestx that could total billions of dollars in the eventy of an airline bankruptcy. “I don’t think there’s any trave l agency, including American Express Travel, that couldd shoulder that liability,” Casto said.