Built for the new generation of airline and travel retail, OSO turns payments into a commercial advantage

Airlines and travel merchants are overhauling their sales and distribution processes, moving toward modern “Offer-Order-Settle-Deliver” (OOSD) models that promise more personalized retailing and greater revenue potential. Yet payments remain the missing piece – fragmented, expensive, and unfit for modern retail. Today, CellPoint Digital, the leader in travel payments, announced the launch of One Source Orchestration (OSO), the only platform built exclusively for the airline and travel industry’s transition to Offer-Order-Settle-Deliver (OOSD) retailing.

From coordinating dynamic offers and inventory fulfillment to managing ancillary sales and multi-payer transactions, OSO provides the advanced and configurable payment capabilities travel merchants need to seize the revenue opportunity presented by OOSD models and enter new markets with fewer barriers. With OSO implemented, airlines and travel merchants can expect improvements ranging from 2% to 13% in payment flow-through, depending on operational complexity and market coverage.

How One Source Orchestration Handles the Complexities of Travel Payments

OSO is built to optimize the multi-party flows and challenges unique to travel, whether splitting transactions across multiple merchants or multiple shoppers, processing points-plus-cash bookings, or settling ancillary sales in different currencies. Its modular architecture supports these complex processes without adding operational overhead, giving travel merchants the speed and flexibility they need to adapt to new retail models while reducing friction at checkout, accelerating settlements, enhancing customer experiences, and improving profitability.

The OSO platform builds on CellPoint Digital’s proven expertise in travel payments, processing 10,000 transactions per second, reinforcing its position as a trusted global partner for travel merchants. The cloud-native platform supports hundreds of payment methods, acquirers and fraud solutions, and features 99.999% uptime, providing maximum flexibility and reliability from booking to post-purchase.

"We’re entering a once-in-a-generation transformation of the travel industry, and that demands a purpose-built payment solution for modern retailing,” said Kristian Gjerding, CEO of CellPoint Digital. "OSO was built from the ground up to support convenient, localized payment experiences for travelers, and to drive profitability, efficiency, and revenue for the merchants who serve them.”

OSO arrives as more airlines and travel merchants adopt modern retailing, placing CellPoint Digital in a unique position as the only travel-focused provider with a single, scalable orchestration platform spanning the entire payment supply chain. It delivers unmatched speed, intelligence, and control while supporting global expansion strategies and diverse payment ecosystems.

Positioning Payments for the Next Phase of Airline and Travel Retail

According to McKinsey, advanced retailing will add $45 billion in airline value by 2030. OSO is the infrastructure that makes that value real – powering dynamic pricing, personalized bundles, and next-generation revenue models while also eliminating operational bottlenecks. These capabilities enable travel merchants to capture more revenue from their retailing strategies.

Eliminating Revenue Loss through Payment Optimization

Airlines and travel merchants leave hundreds of millions of dollars on the table due to sub-optimal payment processes; foregone revenue that will only grow with the higher order values created by OOSD. OSO, which is designed for payment optimization in the OOSD framework, pays both front-end and back-end dividends for airlines and travel merchants, positioning them to capitalize on the industry's transition to more dynamic packaging and bundling. OSO also helps travel merchants increase revenue by addressing one of the most significant leaks in the payment process, failed or declined transactions that often result in abandoned bookings. Using AI and machine learning, the platform continually optimizes transaction routing to improve approval rates by up to 25%. Automated retries and real-time fraud optimization further reduce declines.

Orchestration that Supports Global Growth

For travel merchants entering new markets, OSO removes common barriers such as integrating local payment methods, supporting multi-currency transactions, and addressing regional fraud risks. Its alternative payment method (APM) hub, configurable form-of-payment (FOP) rules engine, dynamic currency conversion, and localized fraud protection all work together to create consistent, trusted payment experiences in every geography and channel. The result is much higher customer satisfaction and greater capacity to scale.

An Integrated Platform Built for Travel Retail

OSO goes beyond solving travel payment pain points – it sets the standard for how payments power the future of airline and travel retail. It provides a unified control layer for all payment providers and methods, with tools to manage ticket changes, refunds, and itinerary modifications. Real-time order processing and payment-driven offer creation support OOSD retail strategies, while multi-region support, complete with FX optimization, simplifies cross-border transactions.

AI-driven routing improves acceptance rates and reduces fees, while continuous fraud monitoring helps maintain high conversion rates without adding friction. OSO also integrates with the core systems that run the travel industry, including Global Distribution Systems (GDS), Central Reservation Systems (CRS), Property Management Systems (PMS), Offer Management Systems, and features pre-built connectors to airline Passenger Service Systems (PSS). It can be deployed in single-tenancy environments with local data storage to meet the data privacy requirements of all global regions.

“OSO puts the customer at the center while delivering clear business results,” said Gjerding. “Higher approval rates, lower costs, broader payment choice, and stronger fraud protection benefit travelers and the brands that serve them. This is the future of travel retail and OSO is the platform that makes it possible.”

For more information about CellPoint Digital’s One Source Orchestration Platform or to schedule an interview with Kristian Gjerding, CEO of CellPoint Digital, please contact Steven Osei at steven.osei@cellpointdigital.com.

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