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Travel Payment 101:
Fraud Orchestration & Management

As digital payments proliferate, spanning alternative methods, AI-powered tools, and countless consumer touchpoints, fraud has become one of the most urgent threats facing merchants. Travel brands, in particular, are vulnerable. Fraud tactics and perpetrators have grown more sophisticated, creating advanced methods to exploit weaknesses in payment systems and outsmart existing defenses.

Payment orchestration provides a powerful response to this ever-growing threat, helping merchants counter fraud without compromising the speed or ease of the customer experience. The comprehensive, system-spanning fraud protection and management capabilities offered by Payment Orchestration platforms make “fraud orchestration” achievable for merchants around the world.

The Growing Threat Landscape

The scale of payment fraud has grown at an alarming rate, exceeding previous estimates. According to Juniper Research, global ecommerce payment fraud reached $41 billion in 2022 and surpassed $48 billion in 2023. Some projections suggest these losses could reach $91 billion by 2028. Between 2023 and 2027 alone, merchants are expected to lose approximately $343 billion to online payment fraud, highlighting the critical importance of strong fraud prevention strategies.

Industry Spotlight: Travel and Airlines

The travel industry faces particularly acute fraud challenges. In fact, the travel industry now ranks among the top three sectors for incidences of fraud globally, making up 36% of all suspected fraud attempts.

Airlines operate in a complex ecosystem with multiple sales channels, making them vulnerable to various fraud tactics. Their frequent flier programs face theft of mileage balances, while fake booking sites pose impersonation threats. Post-travel chargebacks are especially damaging, making airlines' chargeback rates among the highest of any global industry, often exceeding 1%, above the 0.9% threshold where banks begin imposing penalties.

Regional Vulnerabilities and New Threats

Even in the travel industry, fraud exposure varies markedly across regions. North America bears the heaviest burden, accounting for approximately 42% of global ecommerce fraud by value, with Europe following at 26%.

The types of fraud attacks continue to diversify. In 2024 alone, 269 million card records and 1.9 million stolen U.S. bank checks circulated on dark and clear web platforms. The use of generative AI tactics such as deepfakes increased by 118%, enabling more convincing and harder-to-detect fraud schemes.

Proactive Approaches

Traditional reactive approaches to fraud are inadequate in today's fast-changing fraud landscape. Successful merchants, including airlines and travel companies, are now treating fraud as a strategic priority requiring ongoing attention and resources.

On average, merchants now deploy five fraud detection tools, reflecting the growing complexity of the threat landscape. Nearly 60%of companies reported that the financial impact of payment fraud they experienced in 2024 exceeded $5 million – a 136% increase from the previous year.

Payment Orchestration and Fraud Orchestration: Strategic Solutions

Payment Orchestration represents a fundamental shift in fraud prevention, enabling merchants to anticipate future threats rather than react to them.

For airlines and travel merchants specifically, Payment Orchestration platforms deliver several key advantages:

01
Multi-channel monitoring:
- Overseeing transactions across web, mobile, and in-app channels
02
Intelligent payment routing:
- Directing transactions to the most secure processors with the highest approval rates
03
Adaptive security measures:
- Minimizing friction for legitimate customers while scrutinizing suspicious transactions
04
Ecosystem integration:
- Connecting with specialized fraud prevention solutions

Payment Orchestration eliminates the risk inherent in having a single payment provider by utilizing a rich ecosystem of providers, providing comprehensive online payment fraud protection. The right Payment Orchestration platform will incorporate various fraud mitigation tools, including behavioral biometrics that identify suspicious patterns, advanced tokenization to secure payment data, integrated 3D Secure protocols, and deepfake detection capabilities.

Six in ten merchants now use tokenization in payments to improve security, boost authorization rates, and enable convenient payment experiences, balancing security with customer satisfaction. Payment Orchestration gives merchants a way to deploy this capability alongside other fraud mitigation tools in a single, unified platform.

Building a Forward-Looking Fraud Strategy

What do travel merchants need to achieve optimal fraud prevention and management? Embracing Payment Orchestration is a good start, but there are several key principles that characterize successful fraud prevention approaches:

01
Integrated defense systems:
- Leading merchants integrate fraud tools into a cohesive ecosystem
02
Data-driven decision making:
- Effective use of data is – and must be – the top priority for fraud management teams
03
Cross-functional collaboration:
- Fraud prevention requires coordination across departments; it cannot be achieved in a silo
04
Focus on chargebacks:
- According to the Merchant Risk Council, refund/policy abuse remains the top fraud threat, while real-time payment fraud has moved to second place

Fraud Orchestration

CellPoint Digital’s Approach to Fraud Orchestration

Our Payment Orchestration Platform enables travel merchants to implement industry-leading fraud management strategies, and as a result, it has demonstrated double-digit percentage improvements in revenue recovery for airline clients alongside cost containment benefits. By optimizing fraud prevention (among our platform’s other capabilities), we help airlines and travel merchants improve customer experience, reduce losses, and avoid regulatory penalties.

For example, we helped a global Tier 1 airline with $20.7B in volume recover $204M in revenue directly through fraud strategy refinement, which led to improved authorization rates and a reduction in false declines. This represented 98% of the total ROI from their implementation, driven by fraud orchestration, optimized transaction routing, and 3DS integration.

Chargeback fraud reduction is another beneficial aspect of our Payment Orchestration solution, as airlines face some of the highest chargeback rates globally. Our fraud orchestration features help identify potential chargebacks before they occur and provide the data needed to fight illegitimate claims, helping to reduce chargeback exposure at both the front and back end and ultimately improving travel merchants’ cash flow.

The Path Forward: Prioritizing Proactive Protection

As payment fraud continues its relentless advancement, merchants face a clear choice: adopt proactive, orchestrated approaches to fraud prevention or accept mounting losses as an inevitable cost of doing business.

Payment orchestration gives merchants the agility and sophistication needed to stay ahead of fraudsters. By treating fraud prevention as a strategic priority, merchants can protect their revenue, reputation, and customer relationships in a complex threat landscape.

For airlines and travel merchants specifically, as they transition to new retailing models, investing in comprehensive fraud orchestration goes beyond security; it is a critical component of business success in an industry where margins are razor thin and competition is fierce.

Boost Revenue and Simplify Operations with our Payment Orchestration Platform

Our Payment Orchestration Platform helps you meet the challenges and seize the opportunities of a complex global payment landscape. Our experts can help you implement progressive payment strategies that positively impact profitability, enhance your customer experience, and improve operational efficiency.

Request a demo today to learn how our platform and our expertise can help optimize your payment systems.