Website Requirements for Travel Agencies

The following best practices should be taken into consideration by travel agencies when building their websites:

• Require website membership to book airline tickets and other travel services, such as hotel accommodations and car rentals. By requiring customers to become website members, merchants can collect additional customer information that can help assess risk. When establishing member profiles:
  
  • Verify the customer information before storing it.
    
  • Ensure that strong security measures, such as secure data storage and limited employee access, are in place to protect sensitive customer data.
    
• Capture and retain Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. It is important to know the IP addresses of the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from which your customers make purchases. A database of such addresses can help merchants develop fraud-screening tools based on transaction characteristics.
  
• Display a website notice stating that the customer's billing address will be verified. If you access Address Verification Service (AVS) offline, you may encounter address verification failures long after your customer has completed the reservation. By letting customers know that their billing address will be verified, you can prepare them to understand potential address inquiries later. This website notice should clearly indicate that airline tickets cannot be issued until the customer's billing address has been verified by the card issuer.
  
• Require a waiting period of at least four to six hours between ticket purchase and travel time. Tickets purchased just before a flight may indicate higher fraud risk. To protect your company from potential losses, you need adequate time to verify the validity of the customer and the payment before the travel begins.