What is a lodge card?

A lodge card is a centralised payment solution that is ‘lodged’ with a network of travel agencies. Instead of a physical card, businesses embed a unique card number with their travel providers, such as travel agencies, travel suppliers, and online booking tools, to pay for business travel expenses.

How does a lodge card work?

Lodge cards enable businesses to make bookings via their travel provider, who then pays the end supplier. The business is billed on a deferred basis, receiving a single billing statement that centralises all expenses incurred over the period from multiple suppliers.

The advantages of lodge cards

Optimal visibility into travel budgets thanks to detailed reporting

Lodge cards provide high-quality data with a very fine level of detail. Using this data, businesses are able to automatically integrate detailed reporting into existing management tools, making it easier to optimise business travel budgets.

The simplification and automation of management workflows

Payments made using lodge cards are centralised in one place. This allows for streamlined payment and reconciliation processes, as well as other indirect savings.

For example, multi-vendor and multi-invoice management are replaced by the management of a single contact person. The processing and integration of the numerous data can also be automated, putting an end to often time-consuming, unnecessarily complex workflows.

This is particularly the case for:

• Invoice entry
• Invoice - booking reconciliations
• Issuing, processing, and validating expense claims
• Identification and integration of recoverable VAT into accounting systems

Reduced risk of fraud

The use of lodge cards is highly secure, as the card does not exist physically and is only accepted within the partner network.

The challenges of lodge cards

While lodge cards are the optimal solution in some scenarios, there are cases where they are not the ideal payment solution.

Limited flexibility for on-the-go expenses

The main challenge is that lodge cards are only usable for expenses made via travel providers. It is ideal for services to be booked with travel providers, such as airline tickets or hotel nights – mainly ticket-type purchases.

They leave little room for improvisation. It will not be useful to pay for unforeseen or non-reservable expenses on the go, so called 'nomadic' expenses such as paying for fuel.

Capability tied to travel providers

The range of services available with a lodge card is limited to the services offered by partner service providers. The capabilities of travel partners need to be sufficiently broad in order to fulfil all the needs of business travel planning and get the most value from the cards.

High implementation threshold

There is a barrier to entry for the implementation of the lodge card. It is mainly reserved for companies that make a significant number of business trips each year. If you only travel occasionally, there are more suitable alternatives, such as the virtual card.

What is the difference between lodge cards and corporate cards?

The main difference between lodge cards and corporate cards is how they are used to pay for business travel. Lodge cards are typically used to centrally pay for travel bookings, such as flights, while corporate cards are issued to individual employees to cover business travel expenses and other work-related purchases.

Both payment solutions help businesses manage spending, but they differ in how payments are made, who uses them, and how expenses are managed.

Here's a deeper look:

How corporate cards work

A corporate card is a plastic credit card backed by the company's account. Each business traveller is provided with their own card to pay their business expenses.

They are accepted for any expense covered by the associated banking network. In the case of AirPlus Corporate Cards, this is the Mastercard network.

Like lodge cards, corporate cards have their own reporting flow that records all expenses incurred with the card. This provides a consolidated view that compiles the expenditure made with each corporate card.

The advantages of the corporate cards

Wide acceptance

Corporate cards can be used to pay virtually any expense during a business trip thanks to the wide acceptance network based on, for example, the Mastercard network. This allows payments with millions of merchants worldwide.

Business travellers use them for a range of expenses:

• Catering expenses
• Public transport
• Taxi fares
• Fuel
• Parking fees
• Toll fees

As a result, corporate cards offer unprecedented flexibility, making it ideal for expenses incurred during business trips and for any unforeseen expenses.

Consolidated data for reporting

Corporate cards provide consolidated transaction data that integrates automatically with company systems, simplifying expense analysis and saving time.

The challenges of corporate cards

The corporate card has its advantages, but there are some points to keep in mind.

Less detailed data

Data captured by standard corporate cards is better than that offered by a regular bank card, but less accurate than the reporting of a lodge card, which can achieve level 3 data:

• Corporate card: Level 1 data
• Lodge card: Level 3 data

Reduced security

Corporate cards are inherently less secure than a dematerialised card like a lodge card. A plastic card is more exposed to the risk of theft, loss, and fraud.

Assessment: Lodge cards and corporate cards offer distinct but complementary uses

Lodge cards and corporate cards are two excellent solutions to pay for business travel expenses.

Each one offers the opportunity to better manage your expenses, integrate reporting into your information system, ensure compliance with travel policy, save time for business travelers, and simplify management procedures – but each in their own way.

Even better, these two cards have complementary advantages and challenges:

While it is possible to pay for ticket-type expenses, such as transport or hotels, with a corporate card, lodge cards are much more advantageous for this purpose: the quality of the data is better, and they provide more control and visibility.

On the other hand, lodge cards do not cover all types of expenses, making the corporate card the best option for on-the-go expenses and unexpected costs. Even though the coverage of lodge cards has continually expanded over the years, some expenses are impossible to book through a travel provider.

Each card has advantages for specific uses. They can only be used optimally under the right conditions. Rather than choosing between them, it’s likely ideal to opt for a mix of payment solutions.

Since business trips are made up of several types of expenses:

• Use the lodged card for ticketing and pre-trip reservations
• Use the corporate card to stay flexible during the trip and pay for expenses that arise

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