Online Travel Agents (OTA) Report

Payments are playing a bigger role in travel performance than many businesses realise. New benchmarking of the UK’s leading online travel agents highlights a clear shift: the strongest brands are treating payments as a lever for conversion, margin and customer trust, not just a way to process transactions. From mobile wallet adoption to flexible payment options and smarter approaches to payment choice, the market is moving quickly. 

This article explores some of the key trends shaping travel payments in 2026 and why they matter for travel businesses looking to improve checkout performance. For the full benchmark, including brand-by-brand analysis and detailed findings, download the report.

The payment trends reshaping online travel in 2026

For travel businesses, payments have become much more than a technical necessity. They now influence whether a customer completes a booking, how confident they feel at checkout, and how much margin a business protects or gives away.

That shift is becoming more visible across the UK travel market. Recent benchmarking of leading online travel agents points to a common theme: payment strategy is no longer sitting quietly in the background. It is increasingly tied to growth.

This matters because travel remains one of the most challenging sectors for checkout conversion. Abandonment is high, mobile performance still lags desktop, and high-value bookings create more pressure around trust, authentication and affordability. For many brands, the payment experience is now one of the clearest areas of commercial opportunity.
 

Why payments deserve more attention in travel

Travel has always had a more complex booking journey than most retail categories. Customers are often spending more, planning further ahead, and making decisions with more caution. That naturally raises the stakes at checkout.

What makes the current moment particularly important is that customer expectations have moved on. People are now used to fast, flexible and familiar payment experiences in other parts of e-commerce. When travel brands fail to match that standard, friction stands out more sharply.

Our benchmark found that the strongest-performing approaches tend to do three things well:

• reduce friction at the point of payment
• support different customer affordability needs
• reinforce trust during high-value transactions

That may sound straightforward, but the gap between brands is becoming more noticeable.
 

Mobile remains the clearest opportunity

One of the strongest themes in the research is the continued gap between mobile traffic and mobile conversion.

Travel booking is now firmly mobile-first, yet many checkout journeys are still not fully optimised for how customers actually want to pay on a phone. In practice, that often means too much manual entry, too many steps, or not enough support for the payment methods that remove friction fastest.

Digital wallets are a major part of the story here. The brands leading in this area are making mobile payment feel faster and more natural, particularly for customers who do not want to type in card details or create an account before they are ready.

What is interesting is that wallet adoption is not yet consistent across the market. Some travel brands are clearly treating it as a conversion priority. Others appear to be leaving easy gains on the table.

The full report explores where that gap is most visible and what the leading online travel agents are doing differently.
 

Flexible payment options are moving from extra to expected

Affordability continues to shape travel purchasing decisions, particularly for higher-value bookings. That is one reason why flexible payment options are becoming more important across the sector.

In the benchmark, there is clear evidence that online travel agents are taking different approaches to this. Some are leaning into third-party buy now, pay later providers. Others are building flexibility through deposits, instalment plans or more tailored in-house propositions.

The interesting question is not simply which option a brand offers. It is what that choice says about their broader strategy.

For some, third-party flexibility can help remove barriers quickly and appeal to customers looking for familiar options. For others, building more of that experience directly into their own proposition may offer stronger control over customer relationships, economics and brand experience.

This is one of the clearest areas where payment strategy now overlaps with wider commercial positioning.
 

Trust is becoming a stronger checkout differentiator

Travel businesses have always needed to build confidence, but payment trust is taking on greater importance.

When customers are making a larger purchase, often months before travel, reassurance matters. Familiar payment brands, smooth user journeys and a sense of security all influence whether people feel comfortable completing a booking.

The benchmark suggests that some of the strongest players are using payments to support trust in subtle but effective ways. That does not always mean offering the most payment methods. In some cases, it means offering the right ones, in the right context, with the least friction.

This is especially important when looking at false declines. A legitimate payment that is blocked can do more than lose a sale. It can damage confidence in the brand itself.
 

The next area to watch is smarter payment choice

Another theme emerging from the research is that the sector is moving beyond simple payment acceptance towards more strategic payment design.

That includes questions such as:

• which methods are shown first
• how payment options vary by basket value or customer type
• when bank-based payments may make sense alongside cards
• how businesses balance conversion, cost and customer preference

This matters because not every customer should necessarily see the same payment experience. A repeat customer on mobile may behave differently from a first-time booker purchasing a high-value holiday. The brands making progress here are starting to reflect that reality more clearly.

The full report looks in more detail at where this is already happening and which emerging methods could become more relevant for travel businesses serving UK and European customers.
 

What travel businesses should take from this

Not every travel company needs a highly complex payment stack. But every travel company should be asking whether its current payment experience reflects how customers want to book in 2026.

A few practical questions are worth considering:

• Is your mobile checkout genuinely easy to complete?
• Are you offering enough payment flexibility for higher-value bookings?
• Do your payment options build trust at the point of decision?
• Are you reviewing payment performance as a growth lever, not just an operational function?

For many businesses, the opportunity is not to overhaul everything at once. It is to identify where friction is most likely to be costing conversion and where a better payment experience could have the biggest effect.
 

Download the full report

This article highlights some of the key themes emerging across the market, but the full picture is more revealing.

Download the full report, Payment strategies of leading UK travel companies: A 2026 competitive benchmark for online travel agencies, to explore:

• the payment methods offered by 10 leading UK online travel agents
• the standout patterns shaping travel checkout in 2026
• brand-by-brand observations from the market
• the biggest opportunities in mobile, affordability and payment optimisation

Read the full report here

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