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Travelers buying airfare direct from an airline have a new payment option that could ease some of the issues around funding that travel. UATP, a global payment network owned and operated by airlines, is working with Hands In, a specialist in split-payment enablement, to allow airlines to activate Hands In’s proprietary split payments code, making it easier for consumers to combine multiple credit and debit cards, payors, and payment methods for one payment.
The primary goal of the new program is to help consumers complete their bookings more easily, a Hands In spokesperson says by email. The notion for this payment option came from the personal experience of a Hands In founder who was traveling in a group during his university days. Airline checkouts then did not allow splitting the ticket across different cards, and none of his fellow students had a high-enough purchase limit to buy the tickets on a single card, the spokesperson says.
Washington, D.C.-based UATP and Hands In say travelers will have the ability to split the cost of flights and related services directly at checkout. An image on the Hands In Web site shows three payment options from an Air Europa implementation in 2025. One enables adding multiple cards. Another enables paying as a group and shows how much has been paid of the total ticket price. A third shows the airfare and installment-payment options. Hands In is based in the United Kingdom.
Completed transactions appear as one for the airline. “Even if the customer splits the payment across multiple cards or contributors, the system consolidates the payment before it is processed through the UATP network. This means airlines receive a single transaction through their normal authorization and settlement process,” the spokesperson says.
An application programming interface code handles the connectivity behind the scenes for participating airlines using the UATP Ceptor platform, a gateway-orchestration service that connects to more than 300 alternative-payment methods. UATP received a patent for the technology behind Ceptor in 2021.
This split payment option is needed to address a gap between what customers want and what airline checkouts currently support, Hands In says. Studies have found that 5% of card transactions fail because of insufficient funds or credit limits, Hands In says, while as many as 80% of travelers want split-payment options, though no more than 27% of airlines support them.
Because the service operates within the existing UATP payment infrastructure, airlines can offer the split-payment option regardless of where passengers are booking from, the companies say.
The Hands In integration into the UATP Ceptor platform can help airlines offer payment flexibility, which could reduce the number of failed transactions and improve the checkout conversion rate, Hands In says.
Available globally, the service is starting with airlines, but can be applied to other sectors where purchases are large or shared between individuals, such as online travel agencies, cruise bookings, ticketing, hospitality, and retail.
