Pay a Thailand DMC in the currency your invoice is written in, into the receiving account that matches it, from a company account in your agency's own name — and the money lands clean. Almost every payment problem in this trade comes from breaking one of those three, and the cost is never just the fee: it is a booking that cannot be confirmed because the funds are sitting in limbo on a Friday afternoon. This is the mechanics of settlement written for the trade by a Thailand DMC for travel agents, because it is the part of the relationship nobody explains until something goes wrong.
Explera DMC Thailand is the ground partner behind these files for agencies worldwide — IATA 96215733, 340+ agency partners, and a trade desk on b2b@explera.co.th that would rather answer a payment question before you send the money than trace it afterwards.
Pay in the currency your invoice is in
This is the single rule that saves the most money and the most time, and it is the one most often broken. Explera holds eleven dedicated receiving accounts — THB, INR, USD, SGD, MXN, JPY, IDR, GBP, EUR, CAD and AUD — so an agency in most of our markets can make what is, at its end, an ordinary domestic transfer rather than an international one.
- Match the account to the invoice. Explera's home currency is Thai baht. Settling a THB invoice through, say, the USD account means a conversion, and that conversion carries an additional charge on top of anything your own bank takes.
- A local transfer is not just cheaper, it is faster. Domestic rails clear in hours where a cross-border wire can take days and pass through correspondent banks that each take a cut and add a hop where things get lost.
- Your bank's charges are yours. Whatever your bank, card network or payment provider adds is separate from what Explera quotes, and quoted rates are in the invoice currency only.
- If your currency is not on the list, ask the desk before you send anything. There is usually a sensible route, and picking it in advance is free while fixing it afterwards is not.
Company accounts only, and why that rule exists
Payments must come from a company or business account in the agency's name. This is not administrative fussiness — it is the anti-fraud posture that protects both ends of the transaction, and it is worth understanding so you can explain it to your own finance team.
- A personal account cannot be reconciled to a trade booking with any confidence, which is exactly the ambiguity payment fraud lives in.
- Bank details are published on our own domain and shown before you pay. Explera only requests payment through its published channels.
- Treat any change of bank details as hostile until proven otherwise. If you receive an email that appears to come from us asking you to send funds somewhere new, do not act on the email. Ring the trade desk on a number you already had, or write to b2b@explera.co.th, and confirm out of band. This is the most common attack on travel-trade payments anywhere in the world and it does not require anyone at either end to have been careless.
What to send with the payment
A transfer with no reference is a transfer that has to be traced by hand, and tracing takes longer than the payment itself. Send the booking reference with the money, every time.
- The Explera booking ID in the transfer reference field, not in a separate email.
- The agency name as it appears on the sending account, so the credit can be matched when the account name and the trading name differ — which, for agencies with a holding company, they usually do.
- The remittance advice to the desk if your bank strips or truncates references, which many do on international rails.
- One payment per invoice where you can. A single lump covering several bookings has to be broken apart manually at our end before any of those bookings can be confirmed.
The routes available, and when each makes sense
Different agencies settle differently, and there is no single right answer — only a right answer for your finance process and your timing.
- Local transfer into a matching currency account — the default, and the cheapest for anyone whose currency is on the list.
- International bank transfer — the fallback when it is not, slower and with more parties taking a slice.
- Card, including Visa, Mastercard and Amex — useful when speed matters more than cost or when a client's deposit has to move immediately. Card acceptance and any associated charge depend on the route.
- Payment links and selected digital methods, subject to availability in your market.
The practical question is rarely "which is cheapest" in the abstract. It is "which of these clears before the option date on the hotel", and that is a question the trade desk can answer for your specific market in a sentence.
Timing is the part that actually bites
Money in transit is the commonest reason a confirmed-in-principle booking slips, and it is almost always avoidable.
- Thai public holidays are not your public holidays. Songkran in April and the run of holidays around New Year move Thai banking days, and a transfer that would normally clear overnight can sit for several days. Ask the desk before a long weekend at either end.
- Cut-off times are earlier than people assume, especially for cross-border payments, and a payment made on Friday afternoon in your market may not begin moving until the following week.
- Refunds run on a different clock from payments. Where a refund is due it is processed back through the original route, less charges, and that takes materially longer than the original transfer did. Set the client's expectation at the point you promise the refund, not when they chase it.
- Build the option date backwards from the transfer, not forwards from the booking. If a hotel holds space to a date, the money needs to be with us before that date, which means leaving your agency earlier than the date itself.
How a Thailand DMC handles settlement for an agency
Settlement is the least glamorous part of what a ground partner does and one of the most revealing. Working through Thailand DMC services for travel agents means one counterparty for an entire programme — the hotels, the transfers, the tours and activities and the guiding all settle on one invoice in one currency, instead of your finance team chasing eight suppliers in three currencies with eight sets of bank charges. That consolidation is worth more to most agencies than any single line on the quote.
It also means the desk that confirms your Bangkok and Phuket arrangements is the desk that can see whether your payment has landed, which is why a payment question is answered rather than routed. Agencies across our source markets settle this way every week. If anything in your process does not fit the shape described here — an unusual currency, a corporate client who insists on paying us directly, a finance department with its own rules — send it to the trade desk at b2b@explera.co.th before the booking, not after. Full account details and the current list of methods live on the payments page.
Frequently asked questions
Can our agency pay a Thailand DMC in our own currency?
In most of our markets, yes. There are eleven dedicated receiving accounts — THB, INR, USD, SGD, MXN, JPY, IDR, GBP, EUR, CAD and AUD — so the transfer is local at your end. The important part is to pay into the account that matches the currency your invoice is written in; paying into a different one triggers a conversion charge on top of your own bank's fees.
Why can't we pay from a personal or director's account?
Payments are accepted from company or business accounts in the agency's name only. A personal transfer cannot be reconciled to a trade booking with confidence, and that ambiguity is precisely what payment fraud exploits. It protects your agency as much as it protects us.
What should we do if we get an email changing your bank details?
Do not act on it. Contact the trade desk using a number or address you already held — not one in the email — and confirm out of band. Explera publishes its account details on its own domain and shows them before you pay. Invoice-redirection fraud is the most common attack on travel-trade payments and it does not require anyone to have been careless.
What information should go with the transfer?
The Explera booking ID in the reference field, and the agency name as it appears on the sending account if that differs from your trading name. If your bank truncates references, send the remittance advice to the desk. Where possible, one payment per invoice — a single lump covering several bookings has to be split by hand before any of them can be confirmed.
How long does a payment take to clear?
A local transfer into a matching-currency account is typically the fastest route and an international wire the slowest, but the number that matters is not the average — it is whether the funds arrive before the option date on the space being held. Thai public holidays, particularly around Songkran and New Year, move Thai banking days and are the usual cause of a surprise. Ask the desk before a long weekend at either end.
Can a corporate client pay Explera directly instead of through us?
Raise it with the trade desk before the booking rather than after. There are situations where it can be arranged and situations where it changes who holds the contract and therefore who carries the duty of care, which is a decision an agency should make deliberately rather than discover at settlement.
