How To Choose the Best Prepaid Travel Mastercard For Your Business?
A prepaid travel Mastercard is an expense card that is preloaded with funds that employees can use worldwide. It helps companies manage travel expenses better.
Global business is booming. Today, doing business around the world is easier than ever. Despite the rise of digital communication, face-to-face meetings remain a cornerstone of building partnerships and closing deals.
In fact, global business travel spend reached $1.48 trillion in 2024. With expenses soaring, businesses need a smarter and more efficient way to track, control, and simplify their spending. That's where a prepaid travel Mastercard comes in.
What Is A Prepaid Travel Mastercard?
Prepaid travel Mastercard is a payment card that is pre-loaded with money before employees leave for business trips. Since these cards are powered by the Mastercard network, they can be accepted anywhere across the world where Mastercard is accepted.
Employees can then spend their prepaid travel card just like they would spend using a credit or debit card. Except these cards are restricted to the amount funded so there can be no overspend. Once the funds run out, the employer needs to top them up, ensuring full control over travel expenses.
Why Do Businesses Need A Prepaid Travel Card?
Managing business travel can be chaotic both for employers and employees. If the process requires employees to claim reimbursement later, it creates frustration for them.
On the other hand, issuing corporate credit cards often leads to overspending and less control over budgets. Let's look at the challenges of using traditional payment methods for managing travel expenses and how prepaid travel cards solve them.
Challenges Of Traditional Travel Payment Methods
Traditional payment methods like credit cards, debit cards, or cash advances create inefficiencies. Here are some of the challenges with this method:
1. Manual reporting increases the risk of accounting errors
2. Delayed reimbursement payments frustrate employees
3. Higher risk of overspending and exceeding travel budget
4. No real-time tracking of travel spending
5. Sharing card details can leave businesses vulnerable to security breaches6. Delays in issuing cards through banks slow down onboarding and travel readiness
How Prepaid Travel Cards Help Manage Expenses Better
Prepaid travel cards directly address these challenges, making business travel expense management easier:
1. Automated Tracking: Transactions are recorded in real-time and can be viewed on an online portal, removing any manual intervention
2. No Reimbursement Delays: Employees do not need to spend out-of-pocket. Funds are preloaded in the card, removing any frustration from reimbursement delays.
3. Built-in Budget Control: Spending is limited to the preloaded amount, ensuring not a single penny beyond the approved budget gets used.
4. Real-time Visibility: Employers can be more aware and plan better by monitoring expenses in real-time.
Key Things To Look For In A Prepaid Travel Card For Business Expenses
When selecting a prepaid travel Mastercard for your business, here are some features you should look for:
1. Global Acceptance
This goes without saying, but look for a card that is powered by a network like Mastercard or Visa, which is accepted in millions of locations worldwide. For businesses with international travel, the card must have multi-currency support to help employees spend in local currencies.
2. Configuration Control
The right prepaid travel card should let you set daily spending limits, restrict spend categories to hotel, travel, restaurants, etc, and allow flexible top-ups. This ensures employees stay within the travel budget while maintaining flexibility.
3. Real-time Tracking
Choose a provider that offers both employers and employees real-time tracking of expenses. Employees should know their remaining balance instantly, while employers should be able to access reports to monitor overall travel spend.
4. Mobile App Integration
While not a must-have, mobile app integration is a useful feature. A dedicated app makes it easy to view balances, track spending, and manage transactions on the go, improving convenience for traveling employees.
5. Smart Wallet Compatibility
Not all prepaid cards support this, but it's a powerful feature to have. Digital cards that can be added to Google Pay or Apple Pay give employees the flexibility to make contactless payments even when they are not carrying physical cards with them.
6. Security Features
Look for features such as card freezing, fraud protection, and instantly pausing the card. These safeguards protect both the business and employees from unauthorised transactions.
Where Can I Get The Best Prepaid Travel Mastercard?
The prepaid travel card market offers several options, but the best choice is the one that solves the above requirements and more. A smart solution for businesses is CleverCards. Trusted by over 15,000+ businesses, CleverCards offers travel expense cards with top-tier tracking and security features. Here is what you get:
1. Mastercard Powered: CleverCards is powered by Mastercard. This means our travel expense card can be used at over 50 million merchants worldwide in-store and online.
2. Completely Digital: Travel cards by CleverCards are 100% digital and involve no physical cost of delivery, ensuring cards can be pre-loaded, delivered, and used instantly.
3. Complete Control: Employers can configure card settings like setting a daily spend limit, setting spending categories, and restricting usage. These settings can be changed at any point in time via an online portal.
4. Mobile App Integration: CleverCards travel cards also come with mobile app integration. Employees can download this app and log in to track their spending and remaining balance in real-time.
5. Digital Wallets Compatible: Employees can add Prepaid travel cards to their digital wallets, like Google Pay or Apple Pay, and use them to spend anywhere across the world, both online and in-store.
6. Secure: Since the card is completely digital, the risk of theft or loss is quite low. However, employers still have the choice to pause cards immediately via the online portal.
How To Manage Business Travel Expenses Efficiently?
Choosing the best prepaid travel expense card is only a small part of managing business expenses efficiently; the rest comes with establishing clear travel policies, educating employees, and budgeting. Read this article on how to save money on business travel to enforce stronger systems in your organisation.
Want a personal demo of how CleverCards can work for your team? Fill out the form below to get started.