If you travel a lot internationally, you will know that finding a good hotel room is not always easy. Much will depend on where you are travelling, as some destinations will be remote, or unpopular with tourists or business travellers, meaning there is less choice.
On the other hand, you may find the reverse is true. If you are flying into a big city with a big global reputation, as a place to do business, somewhere to visit as a tourist or both (New York or London, for instance), there will be lots of choice. Then the problem – and it is a nice one to have – is selecting the best place to go.
Frequent travellers may soon find their favourites in places they visit often. But even then, there can be ways in which their hotels of choice might improve, or you could discover better options. That is not just true of their facilities or aspects like local transport links; it can also apply to payment.
The Advantages Of Hotel Crypto Payments
Paying by crypto card may sound like a new and radical way of paying for a hotel stay and that’s because it is. But it also makes a lot of sense. If this is a novel concept to you, it is worth considering why this can work extremely well for a frequent traveller.
Writing about the concept last year, travel website Travala described the development of crypto payment for hotel stays as “a new era in hospitality”.
The article began by noting what we already know: that paying for hotel stays has become progressively easier over time, moving from cash and cheques to credit card payments and then online bookings. However, it is, perhaps, not so simple a matter as saying that crypto bookings are the next step in a sequence. There is a new factor at play.
In every other form of booking, the payment must be made in the local currency, except in countries that accept a hard currency like the US dollar over their own money. However, using crypto means paying in a currency without boundaries.
This has some major benefits. It means lower transaction fees. It also ensures the cost to the customer is more stable and predictable, as it is not vulnerable to fluctuations in exchange rates. And, of course, if you are tech-savvy, it may appeal to you for that reason too, something the article noted could benefit hotels seeking to build customer loyalty.
Indeed, as a cryptocurrency user, the opportunity to use your crypto card to pay for various things offers all sorts of flexibility and convenience, so by adding hotel stays to the list, it becomes easier and more convenient to travel.
Top Hotels Rush To Adopt Crypto Payments
Published lists of hotels offering crypto payment are growing all the time. In autumn 2022, Business Chief Asia was able to list nine luxury chains that travellers could pay at this way. This included The Pavilions Hotels & Resorts, the first global luxury hotel group to accept crypto payments, which it began doing in 2021.
Since then the number of big-name hotels taking crypto has greatly expanded and now encompasses some of the very biggest names.
Not only can you pay in crypto on our card at the Hilton, Marriott, Ritz, Waldorf, Hyatt, Four Seasons, Hard Rock, Intercontinental, Wyndham and many other hotels, but you can get up to 50 per cent off the cost of your stay for doing so.
What Hotel Bookings Tells Us About Crypto
That so many of the very largest names in the hotel sector should have embraced crypto provides an answer to those who think this form of currency is a fad, or something too insubstantial to retain its value over time. The more major firms across all sectors accept crypto, the clearer it gets that this is something with a value all of its own.
In some respects, that ought not to be surprising. There have always been entities to which great value has been attributed that have spanned borders. This is true not just of the hardest national currencies, but elements like gold. But while the latter has the virtue of extreme scarcity, crypto has flexibility, independence and convenience.
Such things are the watchword of many a traveller, either those who have the means to get around the world easily for leisure purposes or people who engage in business travel across the globe with the goal of achieving success across international boundaries.
If this describes you, a crypto card is just what you need to make your global travel cross borders almost as if they aren’t there.