Website Requirements for Hotels

The following best practices should be taken into consideration by hotels when building their websites and designing their service policies:

• Require website membership from customers to make hotel reservations. By requiring customers to become website members, merchants can collect additional data that can be used to help assess risk. The following best practices should be implemented:
  
  • Verify data that customers' provide before storing it.
    
  • Ensure that strong security measures such as secure data storage and limited employee access are in place in order to protect sensitive customer information.
    
• Collect, verify and store email addresses. During the hotel reservation process, ask customers to provide valid email addresses. Then verify each email address as invalid ones may indicate higher risk.
  
• Issue hotel reservation confirmation numbers. Issuing confirmation numbers for each reservation helps assure customers that their hotel reservations were successfully processed and will be honored on the day of the trip. The reservation processing systems should be built in a way that ensures adequate support for customer inquiries into their bookings.
  
• Issue a cancellation code to the cardholder. Merchants must provide a cancellation code when a hotel reservation is properly canceled. Customers should always be advised to keep the cancellation code.
  
• Clearly display your cancellation policy and pricing. Merchants can reduce customer inquiries and disputes by informing customers in advance of the terms and conditions of the cancellation policy and the amounts of the fees that will be assessed if reservations are changed or canceled. This information should be prominently displayed on every page of the website so that customers can review it before making a reservation.
  
• Capture and store Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. It is important to know the IP addresses of the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from which customers make their reservations. A database of such addresses can be instrumental in developing fraud-screening tools based on transaction characteristics.
  

Fraud Prevention for Cruise Lines

The following best fraud prevention practices should be taken into consideration by merchants selling cruise line reservations:

• Screen all high risk reservations. This practice will help detect and prevent fraud before it occurs. Merchants should screen all cruise line reservations with the following characteristics:
  
  • The passenger's name is different from the cardholder's name.
    
  • The date of travel is less than six days after the purchase.
    
• Use the Address Verification Service (AVS) to confirm billing addresses. Using AVS on a consistent basis adds significant value to the merchant's fraud control efforts by confirming whether or not the billing address on file with the card issuer matches the one provided by the customer during the reservation process.
  
• Participate in Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode. These services, provided by the credit card associations, can help merchants prevent fraud and protect against chargebacks resulting from unauthorized use of the cardholder's account.