Corporate cards by far are the dominant payment method for corporate travelers globally, although a significant portion still use personal cards and cash for travel expenses, particularly outside of the air travel category, according to a BCD Travel survey of 1,349 business travelers.
Nearly 80 percent of respondents in the survey, conducted from March 31 through April 11 and with 75 percent of respondents from companies with at least 10,000 employees, said they use a corporate card for some business travel expenses. More than a quarter said they also use personal cards for expenses, and 12 percent use personal cash.
Virtual cards, meanwhile, were used by only 1 percent of respondents, and nearly three-quarters said they were not familiar with virtual card technology, according to BCD.
Among supplier categories, travelers most frequently used cash or personal cards for “miscellaneous” items (with 41 percent having used personal cards and 29 percent cash), followed by rideshare apps (36 percent having used personal cards) and dining (34 percent having used personal cards and 18 percent cash). In the main supplier categories, however, 20 percent also said they had used personal cards for hotel stays and 17 percent had used them for car rental.
Only 8 percent said they had used personal cards for air travel. The category also had the highest percentage of direct pay, with 27 percent of travelers reporting its use.
The survey also found that 17 percent of respondents had experienced credit card fraud during a business trip. The most common types of fraud were extra charges added by vendors and stolen card information used to buy goods online or by phone, with 45 percent of those experiencing fraud reporting both occurrences.
The top payment pain point among survey respondents, reported by 29 percent, was staying with their company’s reimbursement policy. One in five respondents said having cash in local currency and out-of-pocket expenses were pain points as well. A quarter of respondents, however, said they had no pain points with payment.
Expense reporting was a different matter, with only 8 percent of respondents reporting no pain points. The top pain points for expense reporting were time to create a report (63 percent), collecting paper receipts (54 percent), collecting and expensing receipts in different formats (52 percent), keeping up with receipts after a trip (51 percent) and complex expense categories (50 percent).
More than two-thirds of survey respondents were based in North America. Eighteen percent were in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and 13 percent were in the Asia/Pacific region.
