Fraud is not a new problem in the travel industry. Most experienced advisors have dealt with a disputed charge, a supplier clawback, or a booking that unraveled long after it was confirmed. What has changed is how early and how often these issues now appear — and how little margin for error advisors are given when they do.

For newer advisors, fraud often feels abstract. For seasoned advisors, it can feel familiar. But across the industry, the mechanics of payment disputes have shifted in ways that are catching even experienced professionals off guard.

To understand why, it helps to start with the basics.

A chargeback occurs when a traveler contacts their bank and asks for a charge to be reversed instead of contacting the business that processed the payment. The bank temporarily removes the funds and opens an investigation. During that process, someone must prove the charge was valid.

In travel, that burden frequently falls on the advisor — regardless of intent, service level, or relationship history.

Chargebacks are often associated with unhappy clients, but a significant number stem from fraud. Stolen or compromised credit cards are used to book travel because the transactions tend to be high-value and time-delayed. The real cardholder may not notice the charge until weeks later, at which point the dispute process begins automatically.

This is one reason travel remains a high-risk category globally.

Most travel advisors collect a traveler’s credit card and use that card to pay suppliers on the client’s behalf. That structure places the advisor squarely between the traveler, the supplier, and the bank. When a chargeback is initiated, the supplier is typically the first to feel the impact. The supplier then looks to the advisor for reimbursement, citing agency agreements, commission reversals, or indemnification clauses.

At that point, the advisor is no longer resolving a customer service issue. They are managing financial liability.

Banks do not evaluate nuance. They do not assess how well the advisor communicated or how much effort went into salvaging a trip. They look for documentation. Suppliers, facing their own losses, focus on contractual responsibility. Advisors are expected to prove that the traveler agreed to the terms before payment was made and that the card was properly authorized.

This is where experience levels diverge — and then converge again.

New advisors are often surprised to learn that confirmation emails, screenshots, or verbal approvals are rarely sufficient in a dispute. Experienced advisors may assume that long-standing client relationships or past patterns of behavior will carry weight. In most cases, neither does.

Disputes are decided on evidence, not context.

Fraud has also become harder to spot. Many problematic bookings do not look suspicious at the time they are made. Cards may pass basic authorization checks and only be flagged after supplier payment has occurred. Without fraud detection tools in place before funds are sent downstream, advisors may unknowingly process high-risk transactions and inherit the consequences later.

This is why experienced advisors increasingly rely on structured safeguards rather than informal practices. Attorney-prepared and continuously updated client terms and conditions help ensure that disclosures are current and enforceable. Clear acknowledgment before payment creates a documented record. Fraud detection tools reduce exposure by identifying risk before money moves to suppliers.

These measures are not about distrusting clients. They reflect a realistic understanding of how disputes are handled once they leave the advisor’s control.

What has changed in recent years is not just the volume of fraud, but the speed at which responsibility is assigned. Advisors are expected to operate with the same rigor as larger merchants, often without being taught how those systems actually work.

Whether an advisor is booking their first trip or their thousandth, the question remains the same: if a charge were disputed tomorrow and a supplier demanded reimbursement, could the transaction be defended clearly and confidently?

If the answer relies on assumptions, memory, or goodwill, the risk is already present.

Fraud and chargebacks are not edge cases in travel. They are structural realities of how payments flow through the industry. Advisors who acknowledge that early — and build accordingly — are far better positioned to protect their businesses over time.

Before the Next Dispute Finds You

Many advisors only learn how chargebacks and fraud truly work after absorbing a financial loss.

We’ve created a free guide that breaks down where advisors are most exposed, why suppliers shift responsibility back to agencies, and what banks actually expect when a payment is challenged.

If you collect traveler credit cards and pay suppliers on your clients’ behalf or act as the merchant of record, this is required reading. 

Download the free fraud & payment protection guide