VCC Pass-Through Payments: Overview & Pro Tips

​May 14, 2025

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Peak Season Headaches: Frustrated by VCC Payment Failures?

Take Alex, a flight ticketing manager of an OTA in Europe. During peak travel seasons, his system processes hundreds of airline ticket payments daily. Recently, a sudden fare increase by an airline caused a payment to fail—his virtual card didn’t have sufficient balance, and the booking was automatically rejected.

To make matters worse, some payments were blocked by airline fraud detection systems due to high transaction volumes, delaying ticket issuance and affecting customer satisfaction.

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How Atlas VCC Pass-Through Solves These Challenges

✅ Higher Payment Success Rates

Compared to traditional credit cards, Virtual Credit Cards (VCCs) offer higher success rates—especially for high-frequency, high-volume transactions—helping operations run smoothly.

✅ Flexible Fund Management

Top up VCC balances as needed. This allows for more dynamic and efficient fund allocation across multiple bookings and suppliers.

✅ Fast & Seamless

VCCs are issued and used entirely online—no need for physical cards—making the process faster, simpler, and more scalable.

✅ Earn Rebates

VCC users can receive rebates based on transaction value and volume, reducing costs and improving profitability.

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Using Atlas VCC Effectively

✅ Smart Technology, Reliable Results

• Automatically identifies whether a booking supports VCC pass-through (supportCreditTransPayment=1).

• If a VCC transaction fails due to insufficient balance or airline rejection, the system allows users to regenerate the order and switch to prepayment—ensuring the ticket still gets issued.

✅ Real-Time Pricing, Smarter Automation

• Live fare passthrough: Atlas connects directly with airline APIs to fetch real-time vendorFare prices, eliminating manual errors.

• Price protection: Set a maxAcceptedAmount (recommended at 3% above the booking amount) to allow for automatic retries during fare changes.

✅ Secure Transactions, Risk Managed

• Use single-use VCCs along with Atlas's auto-retry feature (allowRetry=Yes) to minimize fraud and avoid card duplication errors.

• Post-payment checks: The system validates vendorCost in real time to ensure correct reconciliation. If something looks off, it flags the transaction immediately.

✅ Fast Recovery from Failed Transactions

If payment fails, follow these quick steps:

1. Check the API charge status

2. Retry with a different card BIN

3. Switch to prepayment if needed

4. Contact the airline to resolve the issue

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: The payment amount doesn’t match what was expected—why?

A: Use the queryorderdetails.do API to check the vendorCost, which reflects the actual amount charged by the airline. This makes reconciliation straightforward.

Q: What’s the ideal value to set for maxAcceptedAmount?

A: Set it at 1.03 × the order amount. This allows for minor fare changes without risking payment failure or fund overexposure.

Q: How do I know if a flight supports VCC pass-through?

A: In the API response, if supportCreditTransPayment=1 is returned, the flight supports VCC pass-through payment.

From payment delays to instant confirmations, and from manual recovery to automated precision—

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Atlas VCC is more than a tool.

It’s a smarter, more controlled way to handle payments, empowering travel providers and agents to move from reactive firefighting to proactive success.