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

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San Francisco’s dominant airline informed some travelo agencies that as of July 20 it will no longer let them processa credit and debit card purchases for airlinew ticketsusing United’s merchant-processing services. Instead, such agencies woul have to require travelers to paywith cash, procesw card payments with the agency’as own merchant processing service and forward the cash to Unitedx or book the tickets on United’s web site usinvg the traveler’s credit or debit card issuedc by , (NYSE: V) , MA) (NYSE: AXP) and others.
An agent usingh United’s web site, bypassingf such travel systems as Apolloand Sabre, woulcd not allow companies to capture the discountes they have negotiated with United nor would it allow theidr travel agent to survey several carriersd on a route to find the lowest “Several Bay Area companies have deala with United Airlines for said Marc Casto, presidenrt of Casto Travel, which isn’t among the agencies that Unitedr has cut off from its merchant-processing service.
Castol says he’s reached out to some of the firm’zs corporate clients to express concernover United’s new card acceptanced policy, but declined to discuss what was said in thosew conversations. United Airlines (NASDAQ: UAUA) did not respond to requests for United is hoping to shift the cost of acceptingy credit and debit cards onto selectetravel agencies. Those agencies say the airline’es move shifts to them the risk for paying out refunds if the carrieergoes bankrupt. While it’s also likeluy to reduce the amount of money that Unitedd has to keep in the bank to guardagainst charge-backs, it wouls increase those requirements for the travekl agents.
That’s a nonstarter for most agencies andtheir banks, which would have to honoer charge-back requests that could total billions of dollar in the event of an airline “I don’t think there’s any trave agency, including American Express Travel, that coulc shoulder that liability,” Castok said.