Aviacsa Offers Online Booking without Credit Card

Mexican airline, Aviacsa, is now accepting payment for flights at any of the 6,000 OXXO convenience stores in Mexico. This new payment alternative, provided on Aviacsa’s website by aviation IT specialist SITA, opens the door to online booking for those who do not own a credit card.

When booking a flight on http://www.aviacsa.com/ customers can now select OXXO as the form of payment. They then present a barcode receipt at any of the more than 6,000 locations across Mexico and pay for their ticket there. Once the payment is made to OXXO, Aviacsa is advised and the e-ticket is issued to the customer via e-mail.

This implementation is a great example of the global airline industry trend towards alternative forms of payments. Offering additional payment methods not only increases the target audience in regions and countries with low credit card penetration such as India, Russia and Germany, but it also helps to reduce distribution costs as most of these alternative payment methods incur merchant fees that are much lower than those of traditional credit card schemes.

To facilitate these alternative payment forms, and to provide flexibility for online purchases, SITA offers airlines “Book Now, Pay Later” functionality. This encourages online bookings by allowing passengers to provisionally book their flights with a time limit; they can then pay later either online, or at an airline office, or other approved location.

The success to date of this new payment option provided on the Aviacsa website by SITA has prompted the airline to offer a similar offline payment option at another major chain of stores in Mexico. This will increase the cash payment locations by several hundred by the end of the year.