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

http://sfappeal.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=3&id=2695
San Francisco’s dominant airline informed some travel agenciees that as of July 20 it will no longere let them process credit and debit card purchasees for airline ticketsusing United’s merchant-processint services. Instead, such agencies would have to requir travelers to paywith cash, procesz card payments with the agency’s own merchan processing service and forward the cash to United or book the ticketsd on United’s web site using the traveler’s credit or debi card issued by , (NYSE: V) , MA) (NYSE: AXP) and An agent using United’s web site, bypassing such travel systemw as Apollo and Sabre, would not allow companiese to capture the discounts they have negotiated with United nor wouldx it allow their travep agent to survey several carriers on a routd to find the lowestg price.
“Several Bay Area companies have deals with Unitedc Airlinesfor discounts,” said Marc Casto, presidenyt of Casto Travel, which isn’t amonbg the agencies that United has cut off from its merchant-processinf service. Casto says he’s reached out to some of the firm’ s corporate clients to expressa concernover United’s new card acceptance but declined to discuss what was said in those conversations. United Airlines UAUA) did not respond to requests for United is hoping to shift the cost of acceptinh credit and debit cards onto selectedtraveol agencies.
Those agencies say the airline’s move shifts to them the risk for paying out refundx if the carrier goes While it’s also likely to reduce the amount of moneyg that United has to keep in the bank to guared against charge-backs, it would increase those requirementsx for the travel agents. That’s a nonstartet for most agencies — and theif banks, which would have to hono r charge-back requests that could total billions of dollars in the event of anairline bankruptcy.
“I don’rt think there’s any travel agency, including Americamn Express Travel, that could shoulder that liability,” Casto