Advantage announced a partnership with payments giant Mastercard at its conference in Malta on Thursday (15 May), which is designed to offer improved payment services for member TMCs and their corporate clients.
The UK-based consortium said that existing corporate travel payment flows were “largely complex and ineffective”, with Mastercard’s research showing that 50 per cent of business travellers were dissatisfied with their current payment and expense management systems.
The deal with Mastercard is designed to offer Advantage’s TMCs a suite of payment services including virtual cards, billing products, and procurement and pre-paid cards.
Andrea Caulfield-Smith, Advantage’s managing director of global business travel, said the Mastercard partnership would equip members “with the tools they need to remain competitive in an increasingly complex financial landscape”.
The consortium also works with corporate payment specialists AirPlus and Wex as part of its programme to “allow customers to pay with different mechanisms”.
In another announcement, Advantage revealed it is bolstering its global technology marketplace by adding travel planning and engagement platform Tripism, mobile app specialist mTrip and back-office software firm Procon.
Stephen Baxendale, Advantage’s technology partnerships manager, said they would be “introducing” these three companies to members as new tech options.
“These partnerships demonstrate how we continue to provide members with a fully rounded proposition to enhance their operational processes and the services they provide to their clients, whether it’s providing data, helping agents with automation or front-end processes,” added Baxendale.
Tripism consolidates data from suppliers, travel teams and business travellers into a single source, which allows TMCs to offer a personalised portal for corporate clients, including updates on policy changes and supplier news.
Meanwhile, mTrip allows TMCs to provide offline personalised itineraries to travellers with features such as travel guides, interactive maps and other tools. Procon Solution offers cloud-based software to help agencies improve the efficiency of back-office systems.
During her presentation, Caulfield-Smith drew attention to Advantage’s increase in its “commercial impact” over the past year, including “broadening the scale of the programme”.
She said this work has seen Advantage increase the number of airline partnerships from 50 a year ago to more than 70 carriers in 2025. New additions include Virgin Atlantic, Etihad Airways, Delta, Air India, United Airlines, Air Canada and Turkish Airlines.
Caulfield-Smith said its accommodation joint venture with Hickory Global Partners, which was announced at Advantage’s 2024 conference in Cancun, had seen it grow the number of available properties to more than 45,000, including serviced apartments and bed banks, with “really great” negotiated rates.
“Our mission is to bring the business travel community together as much as possible,” she added. “We want to elevate the voice collectively on behalf of all of you [our members]. We have a new brand and this a new chapter for Advantage and global business travel.”
Tags: Andrea Caulfield-Smith, Advantage, Stephen Baxendale, Advantage’s technology