HEDNA And HTNG Publish Virtual Payment Cards Best Practices Guide
CHICAGO – The Hotel Electronic Distribution Network Association (HEDNA) and Hotel Technology Next Generation (HTNG) have jointly published a new edition of HEDNA's best practices guide for virtual payment card use, Virtual Payment Cards: A Handbook for Hoteliers. The document will help hotels understand the challenges associated with virtual payment cards, address relevant issues when engaging with distribution partners and develop suitable operational policies. Additionally, as providers across the booking network update their systems in accordance with the new HTNG specifications, this shared set of enhancements will provide an efficient and common method for delivering the information that hotels need to process virtual payment cards appropriately.
Virtual payment card use is likely to become more widespread throughout hospitality in the future. Unlike traditional credit cards used by guests to pay for their own hotel charges, virtual payment cards are used by third parties to pay for some guest charges. It is difficult for hotels to differentiate a virtual card from a traditional card based on the information on a reservation. There is no systematic way to communicate the special handling requirements of virtual card transactions.
David Cabreza, HEDNA Board Member and Chairman of HEDNA's Payments Forum, said, "Recent growth in virtual payment card usage has amplified the industry's need for operational guidelines and a solution to the current data limitations relating to virtual payments. This joint document and development specifications for hotel booking and payment systems are an important step towards an industry standard." David Sjolander, Chief Operating Officer of HTNG, adds, "This white paper is a great example of leading hotel associations and their members collaborating to address shared issues, enable greater efficiency and improve guest service."
Find more information about the Virtual Credit Cards workgroup at http://www.htng.org/workgroups. See http://www.hedna.org/?page=F_Payments to find out more about the HEDNA Payments Forum
About Hospitality Technology Next Generation (HTNG)
Part of the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA), HTNG the premier technology solutions association in the hospitality industry, HTNG serves members from hospitality companies, technology vendors to hospitality, consultants, media and academic experts. HTNG's members participate in focused workgroups to bring to market open solution sets addressing specific business problems. HTNG fosters the selection and adoption of existing open standards and also develops new open standards to meet the needs of the global hospitality industry.
Currently more than 400 corporate and individual members from across this spectrum, including world leading hospitality companies and technology vendors, are active HTNG participants. HTNG's Board of Governors, consisting of 22 top IT leaders from hospitality companies around the world, itself has technology responsible for over 3 million guest rooms and world-leading venues. HTNG publishes workgroup proceedings, drafts and specifications for all HTNG members as soon as they are created, encouraging rapid and broad adoption. HTNG releases specifications into the public domain as soon as they are ratified by the workgroups.
