Editor’s Note
This article highlights a new real-time fraud detection tool from Travel Industry Solutions, designed specifically for travel agencies. The system aims to prevent fraud at the pre-authorization stage and uses a proprietary “Fraud Score” to flag risky transactions before supplier payments are processed.
Travel Industry Solutions (TIS) has launched the first fraud prevention solution designed for travel agencies to use, which offers real-time fraud detection.
The new tool can detect fraud at the pre-authorization stage and the credit card vault level, preventing fraud before supplier payments are processed. Additionally, the TIS Fraud Score provides a safety rating via transaction details, which can flag potential fraud risks for advisors. With the Fraud Score, travel advisors can approve, deny or request further verification ahead of the booking process.
Travel advisors typically don’t process payments via a merchant account, but input their clients’ credit card information manually. While the websites, or vaults, in which credit card information is added are secure, they offer no built-in fraud protection to screen for stolen cards or other suspicious behavior, like a synthetic identity.
When fraud does occur with a travel advisor, they’re often left bearing the responsibility with the supplier, leaving them at risk of damaging their reputation and their business’s financials.
The travel industry is one of the biggest sectors for financial scamming; a new Mastercard Economics Institute report found that fraud rate at the early stages of trip planning increased 12 percent year-over-year in 2024.
According to TIS, Booking.com alone saw a 500 to 900 percent increase in travel scams over the past 18 months alone, largely induced by AI.