Travelers Can Now Use PayPal’s ‘Pay In 4’ To Pay For Airfare With UATP

Universal Air Travel Plan (UATP) will expand its partnership with PayPal to include “Pay in 4,” a program that lets consumers pay for their airfare in four interest-free payments, the global payment network said in an announcement on Wednesday (April 14). Under the program, tickets purchased via UATP will allow merchants to get paid upfront, even as customers make their payments in installments.

“The buy now, pay later (BNPL) product has become increasingly popular for travelers,” Ralph Kaiser, president and CEO, UATP, said in the release. “The PayPal-UATP relationship has 15 years of demonstrated success, and we expect that to continue with Pay in 4.”

Pay in 4 applies to qualifying purchases of $30 to $600. Customers will make their payments every two weeks over the course of six weeks, with the initial payment made at purchase.

PayPal is well versed in the service of installment payments. In an interview with PYMNTS last year, PayPal’s Senior Vice President Doug Bland talked about PayPal Credit, an early POS credit pioneer launched long before the days of BNPL. The program offered customers an interest-free line of credit with payments stretched over a six-month period.

And this is not the first time UATP has offered customers a chance to pay for airfare in installments. In 2019, UATP joined forces with the BNPL service Uplift on a program that allowed travelers to purchase tickets for vacations and pay for them in installments.

Two years later, the demand for this sort of service is rising, Uplift said earlier this year. As PYMNTS reported in February, Uplift has also signed new BNPL partnerships with airlines that include Aeromexico, Air Canada and Alaska Airlines, as well as cruise lines like Hurtigruten, MSC Cruises, Uniworld and Virgin Voyages, and tour operators and travel agencies like Air Canada Vacations, CostSaver, Grand European Travel and Insight Vacations.