Swipe Visa Card Adds Crypto Travel Booking Site’s AVA Token

Published at: July 24, 2020

At a time of unprecedented upheaval in the global tourism industry, blockchain-based travel booking service Travala and Swipe aim to boost crypto’s useability.

Announced on July 24, Travala’s native token AVA will now be added to the Swipe wallet service and Visa card platform — reportedly making it spendable at 60 million merchants.

AVA will also be supported by Samsung Pay, Google Pay and Apple Pay through Swipe’s integration with these services. In addition, the AVA token will be available to the 500,000 users of Swipe’s multi-asset digital wallet.

The news follows shortly after Swipe’s acquisition by major crypto exchange Binance and the trading platform’s issuance of a Swipe-powered crypto debit card, Binance Card. Travala.com, for its part, migrated to Binance Chain in fall of last year.

A web of partnerships bringing crypto to multiple platforms

In addition to AVA’s integration into the Swipe platform, Swipe’s native token SXP will be added to Travala.com as a preferred payment option for bookings at over 2 million hotels across 230 countries.

Among these are accommodation options listed at Expedia, Booking.com and Priceline, all of which have previously partnered with Swipe to enable crypto-friendly travel booking services.

Travala’s customers can pay with its proprietary AVA token and a large list of major crypto assets that includes Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Dash (DASH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), EOS, Stellar (XLM), Cardano (ADA), Binance Chain (BNB), Monero (XMR), Tron (TRX), XRP and Dai (DAI). 

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Travala CEO Juan Otero claimed the two-way integration of Travala and Swipe’s native tokens would be “massive for adoption.”

When spent using Swipe’s Visa debit cards, cryptocurrencies like AVA are instantly converted into fiat currency, making them usable anywhere that accepts Visa or mobile payment services.

New strategies for the "new normal"

As previously reported, Travala recently announced that its monthly revenue saw a 205% increase this May as compared to April — a signal of possible recovery following the major dent to bookings amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In May, the company merged with TravelByBit, which provides services for flight bookings at over 600 airlines. By offering tokenized rewards and multiple crypto payments options, both firms hope that they can show more resilience than traditional alternatives during the global downturn.

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