The vast majority of air travelers choose to travel with commercial airlines. However, an increasing number of people are opting for charter air travel instead. There are a lot of advantages to be enjoyed when using a jet charter flight, as opposed to a classic commercial flight, and there’s a lot of money to be made in this industry, too.
It’s no surprise, therefore, that many savvy entrepreneurs are taking an active interest in the charter industry, obtaining their own fleets of aircraft, and offering charter services to an ever-expanding customer base. However, in order to set up one of these businesses, there’s one absolute necessity you can’t do without a charter merchant account. This guide will look at all you need to know about charter merchant accounts, including how they work and how to get a charter merchant account too.
Charter flights offer an alternative to classic commercial air travel, and there are many advantages to opting for a charter jet, rather than a regular airline flight. With charter companies, passengers can travel to a wider range of airports, including smaller airports and airstrips all over the world, as well as enjoy extra privacy and luxury onboard, plus the advantage of not having to wait in long airport lines and deal with the crowds.
All of these benefits are helping to make charter businesses increasingly attractive to many people, from corporate businesspeople traveling from city to city for meetings and conferences to groups of friends who want to fly in style. And charter businesses are springing up around the world to meet the needs of these diverse travelers.
The power of the internet is also helping to make booking charters and running charter businesses a lot easier, as you can set up your own charter website and booking platform for people to use when making reservations and planning their next charter journeys. However, in order to actually receive payments for your services online, you have to have a charter merchant account.
So what exactly is a charter merchant account? You might be wondering about how charter merchant accounts work and why you need to get one for your charter flight business. So, before we look at some of the challenges involved in obtaining a charter flight merchant account, let’s take a look at a simple definition to see what they do.
A merchant account is a form of business account that is designed to facilitate electronic transactions. In other words, merchant accounts make it possible for businesses to get paid digitally by credit or debit card. So, if a customer comes to your charter site or platform and wants to pay for a booking online with their card, you need to have a merchant account set up to make that happen.
The way merchant accounts work is actually quite simple: the money flows from the customer’s account into the merchant account first of all, before later continuing through to your main business account. The merchant account is essentially the middleman in the process, protecting and facilitating the payment itself.
These days, when people want to book charter flights and pay for charter services, they tend to do so online. Most payments are happening electronically by card, and this is why it’s so important for charter businesses to actually have charter merchant accounts. Without them, you can’t receive payments and you can’t really do any kind of business on the internet.
We can clearly see that having your own charter merchant account is really important if you want to keep up with the competition and run a successful jet charter business or any other kind of charter company. It’s the best way for you to get paid online. However, due to the high-risk credit card processing associations of the charter industry, getting a charter merchant account isn’t easy.
A lot of banks and financial institutions will simply refuse to work with charter businesses and won’t offer any kind of charter merchant accounts at all. There are several reasons for this. One reason is cost. The average prices of charter flights and bookings are very high, and when so much money is changing hands, the risks of fraud, chargebacks, and other problems start to rise.
Another issue is buyer’s remorse, as well as the possibility of cancellations. Usually, charter flights are booked weeks or months in advance. In the time between the booking and the flight itself, customers might regret their booking and want to get their money back, or they might have changes in circumstances and need to cancel the payment.
All of this means that there’s a lot of high-risk payment processing involved in the charter industry, with a high chance of costly chargebacks and other issues for the banks and payment processors involved. Therefore, a lot of banks and payment processors simply say no when it comes to charter merchant accounts.
It’s easy to see why some banks and financial institutions might not necessarily want to work with charter businesses, as there are certain risks associated with these types of business. So what can you do if you need a charter merchant account and want to set up your own charter business or expand your existing company?
Well, there are other options out there. Even though some banks can refuse to work with you, there are others that are happy to provide merchant accounts for charter businesses. At Shark Processing we work closely with a wide and ever-expanding network of these trusted banks and payment processors, and we can help you find the perfect charter merchant account to meet your needs.
Thanks to the power of our network, plus the exclusive benefits of our highly experienced team of high-risk payment processing experts, we can provide exactly what you need when looking for high-risk charter merchant accounts. Contact the team today to see exactly what we can do for you and get your own charter merchant account with Shark Processing.
