Payment rails are the underlying networks that move money between accounts — card schemes, Faster Payments, BACS, CHAPS, SEPA, SWIFT, real-time payment systems and emerging local rails. Each rail has its own speed, cost, reach, dispute mechanism and operating hours. The right rail for a given payment depends on amount, urgency, geography and the customer or supplier’s preference.
Travel payments glossary
Payment rails
The underlying networks that move money between accounts.
Why it matters in travel
Travel payments use almost every rail at some point — cards for consumer deposits, Faster Payments for refunds, SEPA for European suppliers, SWIFT for global supplier networks, open banking for higher-value bookings. The picture has to add up across all of them.
A travel business operating at scale rarely uses just one rail. The mix is driven by customer expectation, supplier requirements, regulatory constraints and pure cost — and the optimal mix changes as the business grows into new markets. Each new rail adds an integration, a reconciliation pattern and an operational discipline.
The travel businesses that handle multi-rail well unify the booking-level picture across rails, so finance and operations see the same booking regardless of how the money moved. The businesses that treat each rail as a separate world hire reconciliation people in proportion to the rail count and lose visibility into the picture as the operation grows.
How felloh helps
felloh ties activity across every rail back to the booking ledger so finance teams can see the cost, timing and reconciliation picture without splitting it by rail.
Where this shows up in payment collection.
Payment rails touches more than one workflow at felloh. Start with the pages most travel teams reach for next.
- Payment Collection
Card, open banking, payment links, deposits and instalments — captured against the booking.
Explore - Payment Links
Shareable, authenticated payment links so customers pay against a specific booking without keying card details.
Explore - Embedded Checkout
Booking-aware checkout that keeps card data out of your systems and the payment trail tied to the booking.
Explore
More on collecting payments in travel.
Real-world context from the felloh team and customers, written for travel finance and operations.
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UpdatesSetting up payment links manually
See how felloh connects all of your payments, cards, open banking and direct deposits with your bookings
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UpdatesMaking multi channel payments work across travel systems
Multi-channel friction in travel usually sits between booking, payment and finance systems. Connected payments keep finance teams in control.
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Connect the dots.
See how payments, settlement, refunds and reporting evidence connect around every booking.