Central Travel Account

The Central Travel Account is perfect for managing and streamlining your corporate expenses that offers transparency and control over travel expenses, extended payment terms, enhanced travel data reports, and streamlined accounting procedures.   

 The Central Travel Account offers an array of benefits: 

• 24x7 online access to customised MIS reports 

• Consolidated statement with enhanced data for visibility into travel expenses 

•  Airline/hotel/merchant wise break up reports  

•  Debit of net-fare charged by airline and cancellation refund on the card

Corporates looking for centralization of travel expenses management.   

10 Crores is the required Minimum annual turnover.   

Company can still apply for CTA basis secured collaterals like Fixed deposit.   

CTA is lodged with the travel agency of corporate. The employees of corporate will raise the Travel Requisition Form (TRF) to the travel agency. The travel agency will utilize the CTA card for each authorized travel requisition received.

Yes, the corporate can use the CTA card on the SBT tool also.   

CTA card can be used for all Travel related expenses such as Air, Hotel & VISA bookings (Hotel & VISA expenses to be discussed in detail along with Travel agency)   

• Pass thru transactions – Airlines accepting the payment via credit card of the corporate are known as pass thru transactions. Such Airlines are normally present on GDS, however there are airlines who have their own portal to accept the card payments. For all pass thru transactions, the merchant name on statement appears as the Airline name.   
• Non pass thru transactions – Transactions where the airline ticket payment is done by the travel agent to airline and later charged to the corporate are called Non Pass-thru transaction. Normally LCC airlines works on Non-Pass-thru transactions. The bookings for these airlines is completed by debiting the CTA card on HDFC payment gateway issued to travel agencies, TMC name appears as the merchant for such transaction. 

OTP is not required for CTA transactions provided the bookings are completed by Travel agency on GDS or HDFC payment gateway.  

All refunds for the cancelled bookings credited back to same CTA card   

Transactions which aren’t recognized by the corporate has to be disputed before the due date with a valid dispute reason. Bank will provide temporary credit for the disputed amount & reach out to TMC / merchant for validation. In case response isn’t provided by TMC/merchant within 30-day bank will chargeback the merchant.  

CTA can capture following data:   

L1: Financial data - Transaction amount, Transaction date, Merchant name, Card number, etc.   

L2: Travel data - Ticket number, Routing, Invoice number, etc.   

L3: Custom data - Employee id, cost center, project code etc.

Corporate can raise the dispute within 60 days from the receipt of the Statement. However, in case disputes are raised post due date, any unpaid balances will attract finance / late fee charges.   

In such scenario, the TMC can provide the reversal of the transaction via Payment Gateway, credit note, etc. Or the corporate can raise a dispute for such transaction.   

All Travel agencies who have GDS & Payment gateway facility can debit the corporate’s CTA card. However enhanced data can only be provided franchise certified travel agencies.   

Any Travel agency which needs to be certified for submission of enhanced data has to be introduced to franchisee networks – MasterCard, VISA, Diners via Products team.   

Yes, transaction wise data can be pushed to corporate’s ERP system.   

HDFC Bank is integrated with all major ERP systems such as Concur, Oracle, Happay, Zoho, please confirm the ERP system which corporate is using & raise the query to CTA Support desk.

No, there is no cost to corporate for pushing of data to ERP system. Though the corporate will have to bear the cost of integration with their ERP. 

Corporate will be provided with a consolidated enhanced data report for all transactions debited on CTA card, reconciliation to be completed basis same (report can also be pulled from online reporting tools)  

Payments can be made via cheque, auto debits or online modes such as NEFT, RTGS. Full payment needs to be made by the corporate to Bank (minus disputed transactions if any).   

There is a dedicated CTA Support desk for handling CTA related queries, in addition requests can also be routed through Corporate Assist.