The first consideration for OTAs to note is that not all LCCs levy the MasterCard prepaid surcharge

Running an OTA is a high volume, low margin game. As the volume of people planning their trips on metasearch engines and user-generated review sites such as Kayak  and TripAdvisor escalates, luxury travel vacation price is becoming an even more important differentiator for an OTA over its competitors.
For OTAs making thousands of transactions every day, credit and debit card surcharges can be a big problem. Surcharges imposed by airlines vary but will often be 2% or more taking a significant slice out of already narrow profit margins.
Subsequently, MasterCard prepaid luxury travel vacation became the preferred payment type for shrewd OTAs, with some OTAs even able to earn a share of the interchange on MasterCard prepaid transactions depending on their payment provider.
The first consideration for OTAs to note is that not all LCCs levy the MasterCard prepaid surcharge in the same way. Ryanair, for example, has chosen to surcharge all MasterCard prepaid card types, whereas others only add surcharges to MasterCard prepaid corporate cards.
For those LCCs that surcharge all MasterCard prepaid card types, Visa  debit or Electron cards are now a much more viable option, even though a fee will typically be charged by the payment provider to generate these cards.
By including MasterCard prepaid as one of the weapons in its payments arsenal, OTAs could previously sleep safe knowing that they could avoid LCC surcharges and even make a small additional revenue stream from interchange.
Given the recent changes in the way several LCCs treat surcharges, OTAs now need to have the facility to access a range of Visa and MasterCard card types in order to accommodate the various surcharge options across different LCCs, and safeguard against future changes.
As well as looking at available card types, OTAs should also consider the number of currencies, functionality and flexibility of a given payments provider if they are to maximise their profit margins in a challenging business environment.
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