Can I stop fake card bookings on my website before I lose money on the ticket?

Yes, to a large extent, although no setup will catch every bad booking. A B2C website can be arranged so that a card payment is checked before anything is issued, and so that risky bookings wait for a human to look at them instead of going straight through to the airline or hotel.

Most of this protection comes from your payment gateway rather than the booking portal itself. The gateway can insist on the bank verification step where the customer enters a one time code, and it can score each payment and decline the ones it does not trust. On top of that, your portal can hold a booking for manual review when something looks odd, such as a departure within the next day or two, a billing country that does not match the traveller, several bookings on the same card in a short time, or a passenger name that has nothing to do with the cardholder. Your staff then call the customer and release the booking only when they are satisfied.

Be aware of the limits. Which checks you get depends on the gateway you sign up with and the plan you are on, so two agencies with the same website can end up with very different protection. Air tickets are the real risk, because once a ticket is issued the supplier will usually not give the money back, and if the cardholder disputes the payment the loss sits with you. Holding suspicious bookings for review is slower for honest customers, so it is a balance you have to choose.

Ask your payment gateway what screening and verification is included in your agreement, then decide with us which kinds of bookings should be held for a call before they are confirmed.