Late commissions aren’t new, but the pressure on hotels, processors, and agencies reached a breaking point in 2025.
Advisors have been outspoken about late and missed payments for decades, but with the American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA) pushing back with its new Hotel Watch List, consortia turning up the heat, and new competing entrants to the market, the question is simple:
Which model is finally going to fix this mess — and which one is just cashing in?
“The Onyx Problem”
Onyx Centersource has been the name in commission processing since the 1990s. The company handles payments for at least 150,000 properties, sending it to 200,000+ agencies worldwide, effectively controlling payments for a majority of the market (an estimated 70%, according to agency representatives interviewed for this story).
That dominance has come at a historical price: reconciliation headaches, limited transparency, and delays that can stretch for weeks or even months.
Virtuoso’s leadership wasn’t shy about it last year.
“I plan to inform their new CEO that ‘you’ve been labeled by a growing number of agencies as Public Enemy #1,’” said Virtuoso CEO Matthew Upchurch in an interview at ILTM Cannes in 2024. Those comments were shared ahead of a dinner with Onyx executives in January 2025 — scheduled specifically to address these issues.
Following that dinner, Onyx CEO Scott Gutz and his team pledged reforms, but the results so far over the past 12 months have been piecemeal concessions, a lingering lack of transparency, and a steady stream of advertorials — not the structural changes advisors say they need to address delays and fees.
Onyx promised to form an advisory board of travel advisors for leisure by the end of Q2 2025, but that deadline came and went. In an email, the company said the process is still tied up in conversations with Virtuoso executives. For advisors, that means another unmet commitment, with no new timeline.
Virtuoso did not respond for comment in time by publication.
At ASTA’s Global Convention in Salt Lake City last May, the trade group’s president and CEO, Zane Kerby, called out Onyx directly. He even brought company executives to discuss business and “answer for their crimes,” according to a story from Travel Market Report.
Despite the confrontation, Onyx Chief Commercial Officer Tony Wagner later characterized the small, closed-door meeting among both advisors and hoteliers as “very positive.”
However, one attendee told Luxury Travel Advisor a different story. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the participant’s take on the meeting was that “Nobody was buying it.”
Nominal Concessions
Onyx’s actions this past year indicate differing priorities despite efforts to frame a favorable narrative.
For example, many of its job openings over the last several months have been for sales and business development positions.
The company has also spent considerable time offering piecemeal concessions to agencies, such as capped fees on payment transfers.
According to documents obtained by Luxury Travel Advisor, capped fees seem to be landing around a $30-per-transaction benchmark for larger, consortia-affiliated agencies. While it’s a step in the right direction, this does not seem to be a universal policy.
Onyx has reported incremental updates like payment visibility through its SurePay program (that agencies must pay for), a host agency booking-to-stay pilot, and “journey maps.”
The company has also peppered paid content across various media outlets throughout the year, touting its dedication to the hotel-agency relationship, and highlighting the importance of good hotel data and payment efficiency.
Historically, Onyx’s sponsored content has appeared in a series called The Data Snap. More recently though, the company has intensified its efforts by putting out a paid article with its VP of Global Territory Sales, another one with its SVP of Global Client Management, and has even deployed its CEO.
While the articles raise relevant points regarding challenges around payments, nearly all point back to Onyx’s own programs as the solution.
Following ASTA’s announcement in late September 2025 for its new Hotel Watch List, Onyx CEO Gutz issued his own statement arguing that payment delays stem from hotel-side data gaps, not Onyx’s systems. He maintained that funds are held only briefly and cited new visibility tools such as OnyxInsights — another service with fees.
The statement, however, offered no information on actual payout times or FX costs, and overlooked the lenience the company grants itself in its own Terms & Conditions regarding how payment times are affected by its reconciliation processes.
The company did not respond for comment when asked to clarify.
What it did make explicit in that September statement was that the company would not participate “in recent initiatives that propose publicly listing ‘bad paying’ hotels,” citing “privacy agreements…as central to our business ethics.”
By emphasizing confidentiality and collaborating with trade media, Onyx appears more focused on controlling the narrative than addressing advisor concerns.
It raises the question: If the company has done so much, why do advisors feel so little positive impact?
Advisors counter that the guise of privacy is not an excuse for the lingering absence of transparency, or delays.
More crucially, the company’s changes last year still do not solve the core problem: Why do agencies need to pay so much (or wait so long) to receive their commissions in the first place?
“With the rise of independent advisors, more people are now earning their entire living from booking hotels,” commented Rebecca Masri, the founder of Little Emperors & Co. “When commissions are delayed, it creates real cash-flow challenges and becomes increasingly difficult to manage.”
Delays Persist
Onyx CCO Wagner insisted via email that the company pays agencies within three business days of receiving hotel funds, but the company’s own website quotes hotels a seven-day turnaround.
Andrea Wolter of the I Travel Group, La Famille Agency, and Harper’s World put it plainly in correspondence shared with Luxury Travel Advisor.
“The clear inconsistency between Onyx’s stated terms and actual performance warrants attention. It is critical to ensure that all representations made to clients are accurate and truthful to avoid potential legal implications,” she wrote in an email referring to Onyx’s promises to its primary clients: hotels.
That email to Onyx’s support team was sent on Dec. 1, 2024, to address a delayed commission payment. In this specific case, agency data shows that Onyx confirmed receipt of funds on Nov. 7.
However, payment was not received until November 29th — 17 days, or more than twice the timeframe Onyx quotes to its clients. That gap raises questions about what else occurs between receipt and disbursement.
Compared to other disbursements to agencies this specific transaction was processed in a timely way, despite the delay.
However, data provided to Luxury Travel Advisor from three other agencies that wished to remain anonymous and are based in India, Italy, and the UK tells a similar story; except in these cases payments were not received until six months to a year after the guests checked out — a sentiment echoed internationally by many other agencies.
While less common, some advisors have reported delays even longer than that timeframe.
Out of hundreds of advisors surveyed over the past 18 months, only two advisors — one from Hungary and the other from Romania — said Onyx’s processes worked smoothly.
“Hotels have typically always paid within a month of checkout,” said Rebecca Puttock, owner of Wanderlux Ltd, an agency based in the UK.
Describing her reconciliation process she elaborated, “After receiving proof of payment from the hotel, I take this payment remittance proof and raise a case with Onyx. They then investigate. And investigate. And investigate. Usually while the case is still unresolved, they close the case.”
Onyx frequently points to unreliable hotel data but often glosses over that payment processing does not begin unless it has received both funds and hotel booking data. The statement issued on September 29th was exceptional in this regard, as have the latest paid articles.
Generally, the more centralized a hotel’s data, the more streamlined the process.
But hotels operate off of decentralized systems, and exactly when they send their booking data is hard to say; they may share information with agencies about when funds are transferred, but not when booking data is sent.
According to Onyx’s own 2025 Q3 Report, it takes an average of 42 days for hotels to pay a commission after a guest checks out. The company also runs a Supplier Trust Index that tracks payment reliability among various hotels:
(Onyx Centersource)
What determines payment time remains a gray area where both hotels and Onyx seem to point the finger at each other to avoid blame, or to answer questions about who’s responsible for delays.
“I honestly don’t know and that’s what’s very frustrating. We’re basically held hostage by this entire process and there seems to be zero accountability,” said Stacy Small, CEO of Elite Travel Club.
Despite the development of “enhanced” data products last year, Wagner admitted in an email that “few hotels opt into faster workflows.”
“Onyx’s ongoing delays in releasing agent commissions are unacceptable and unsustainable. If this practice continues, it will threaten the livelihood of many independent travel advisors who form the backbone of our industry,” stressed Puttock.
Payment delays rarely have a single cause, and it ranges from reconciliation bottlenecks to layered verification steps.
To Onyx’s credit, the company does assume responsibility for compliance, anti-money laundering, and other data-heavy tasks.
Onyx was invited to clarify and correct any perceived inaccuracies on these delays prior to publication but did not respond or comment further.
Foreign Exchange (FX)
In addition to delays (and the time value of money), this is where agency margins take the biggest hit.
Luxury Travel Advisor reviewed records from an APAC-based agency, a London-based agency, and a Florida-based agency. Each one does millions in annual sales, and all of them show Onyx consistently taking 8% to 10% on commissions once fees and FX markups are added in.
The data is from reports pulled as recently as August 2025. Another UK-based agency reported that Onyx sometimes takes up to 15-20%.
“We have this issue with almost all hotels at some point or another and there seems to be zero consistency even within brands,” said the co-founder of the APAC agency.
“It’s a never-ending battle: Our clients pay on time and the correct amount, the very least hotels can do is offer us the same courtesy…It’s an issue for us as a host agency that our independent partners can see they aren’t getting their due commission,” she added.
She then shared a recent commission report and accompanying check processed by Onyx on two bookings amounting to $5,007.81 SGD.
The document provides no FX rate reference, no methodology, no timestamp, and no breakdown of foreign exchange or processing fees.
Based on the spot rates on August 13, 2025 — 1.59 for CHF/SGD and 0.03945 for THB/SGD — the expected payout should have been roughly $5,503 SGD.
Instead, the agency received $5,007.81 SGD, including a processing fee of $181.64. In total, that represents a shortfall of about $495 SGD, or roughly 9% below fair market value.
By contrast, other industries pay far less for cross-border transactions. If the travel industry enjoyed greater efficiency, that cost would have fallen between $28 and $110 SGD.
According to reports and data from consulting firm Edgar, Dunn & Company, FX costs for the education and healthcare sectors average ~1–2%. Retail and E-commerce are even lower, around 0.5-1.5%.
Legacy processors and fragmented hotel data push effective costs well above 6-10%. Combining FX spread, fees, and reconciliation friction, even in the best cases that means the travel and hospitality industries are paying at least triple that of their cross-industry counterparts.
According to Edgar Dunn’s 2024 report entitled Five Best Practices to Unlock the Hidden Potential of Payments for Hotel Chains, modeling shows that optimizing cross-border payment infrastructure can cut costs by 6-12% over three years and unlock new revenue and liquidity through better cash-flow.
(Edgar, Dunn & Co. )
“Other sectors have already realized tangible revenue benefits from streamlining cross-border payments. There’s no reason travel couldn’t see similar gains once it gets past the legacy systems,” remarked Alex Müller, a business analyst at Edgar Dunn.
Granted, the harsh reality is that advisors will never see 100% of their commissions because of the way the international monetary system is set up. No matter the rail, there will always be a cost to moving money in travel just like in any industry.
Further, FX costs are only part of the challenge with cross-border payments. Although Onyx does have a free tier, it still comes with a significant cost of time and effort for agencies outside the U.S.
Agencies still receive paper checks like the one mentioned above, and paper checks from an American company are expensive and difficult to cash for advisors based outside the U.S.
To many advisors, the process feels less like a service and more like a costly administrative burden.
And what happens to those commissions? Many agencies have admitted that sometimes the cost of chasing a commission is not worth the value of the check.
In one case, it’s hard-earned money left on the table — literally.
As one U.K.-based advisor speaking on the condition of anonymity put it, “I leave the check on my desk because I refuse to cash it out of principle.”
When given the chance to respond prior to publication, Onyx did not comment.
In theory, Onyx is providing a service to automate bulk payments for hotels, but in practice the company is charging agencies to collect their own commissions. And agencies feel the sting because they have had no say in hotels’ choice of the processing vendor.
“You have to decide who’s your customer,” said Grant Caplan, President of Procurigence, a high-end MICE agency and who served as an advisory board member for Onyx on their GroupPay product.
“Our firm only accepts money from one party at a time. We never accept money from two parties at a time. We find it unethical,” he added.
Despite promises made at the beginning of last year, advisors contend the bottlenecks remain and the urgency is still missing. The frustration is mounting and so is the competition.
Flywire
The company gained significant ground last summer by landing a partnership with Virtuoso, which undoubtedly gives it greater exposure to the luxury travel market. The company started to explore the travel space — specifically commissions — more aggressively in 2023 and has intensified their efforts, indicated by their latest report targeting payment efficiency for hotels.
Flywire’s reported reconciliation and processing time averages about three to five business days, but advisors remain skeptical since the company’s transparency on its foreign exchange rates has been lackluster.
When asked if their rates are competitive with a range of 4-6%, Flywire VP of Corporate Marketing Sarah King briefly stated that “Flywire is still competitive in that range.”
The company may not charge agencies any fees, but questions linger about their FX markups.
SION
In July 2025, SION CEO Irving Betesh launched SION for Suppliers after a long pursuit of this goal. It’s the first industry-native challenger to Onyx’s dominance, and has brought a level of transparency to commission payments that has been welcomed by both hotels and agencies alike. Major supporters of the platform include Rocco Forte Hotels, SHA, Queen of Clubs, and SmartFlyer. It also has unanimous five-star reviews on Host Agency Reviews.
“I can’t tell you how many hotels have come to us, begging us to take their money because in their words ‘The incumbents are making us look bad,’” said SION CTO Mark Nauroth during an online panel on commission payments for Host Agency Reviews’ Tech Week in October.
Betesh didn’t mince words ahead of the launch last summer either.
“The hotel pays what they owe and the agency pays to receive it,” he said. “No one knows where the money is until it shows up weeks later. Agencies shouldn’t pay for what they’ve earned.”
However, some advisors have critiqued SION’s platform for being too manual and susceptible to human error. Agency owners, on the other hand, have expressed skepticism about using a service which has significant backing by SmartFlyer, a competitor.
Flowbrite
While not a payment processing platform, the UK-based fintech startup for luxury travel businesses is focused on another way around hidden foreign exchange fees: multi-currency bank accounts specialized for luxury travel.
Options available to agencies are receiving commissions in native currency and locking in exchange rates for up to two years. Flowbrite’s client base has more than doubled in size in the last several months, now with 100+ travel companies globally in its portfolio. Part of that growth is surely attributable to landing new partnerships last year, most notably with the consortium Traveller Made.
According to CEO Rob Smith, clients are saving an average of two to three percent per transaction compared to their previous setups, with some recouping more than $10,000 annually.
How?
“The actual cost of moving money isn’t as high as you’ve been told,” he revealed to The Luxe Ledger in April of last year.
Smith noted a rise in inquiries from smaller agencies frustrated by wire fees and FX losses. In some cases, Flowbrite claims clients have increased their commission revenue by 3-5% through better rates and faster access to funds.
Notably, that claimed savings range aligns closely with the 4-6% FX markup charged by other processors.
HEX – Hospitality Exchange
One of the newest entrants to the payments space that launched in October is HEX, short for Hospitality Exchange. It’s chiefly a company that is courting hotels to clean up and manage their data, thereby eliminating any source of data-related issues for hotels or payment processors to cite for delays.
The vision is that agencies and hotels operate off the same information so they can work more closely together. It effectively marries the GDS with the PMS — two crucial data sets.
The byproduct of better data, HEX founder Robert Sasaki argues, is faster, clearer payouts from “one source of truth.” Sasaki is a former travel data executive whose company is supported by a well-respected travel-tech platform developer.
Through partnerships with multiple fintech providers, the system processes both inbound commissions and outbound supplier payments, with settlement times measured in days rather than months.
The key emphasis is on detailed breakdowns of FX, fees, and data collaboration, and the platform aims to keep integration with booking and accounting tools open.
Hex’s fee structure is flat: 2% across the board. Its FX rate sits slightly below mid-market, making it cheaper than a typical bank transfer, and every conversion is displayed on the invoice.
“We asked a simple question,” Sasaki said. “Why should moving a commission cost more than processing a credit-card payment?”
The Mystery System
At ILTM Cannes 2024, a major U.S.-based consortium (perhaps accidentally) disclosed that it was developing its own commission payment system.
It was originally designed “not just to compete with, but replace Onyx,” according to an executive familiar with the plans. The launch was initially set for mid-2025, but progress has stalled.
Updates have been elusive despite repeated outreach. However, a conversation in September 2025 with a senior tech figure confirmed the initiative is still alive—at least in some form.
Current indications suggest this is not yet the bold fix the consortium hinted at. For an organization with the resources and clout to shake up the market, the approach feels surprisingly tentative.
For now, the silence raises an uncomfortable question: With all the influence they claim to wield, why is consortium leadership still so hesitant on commission payments?
Brava
Just launched on December 29th, 2025 by former Jetset World Travel CEO Jeremy Sulek, this platform aims to remove host agencies from the commission chain altogether, enabling advisors to own their bookings and receive direct payments from suppliers without relying on an IATA number. How exactly it does that is not clear.
The platform acts as a payment facilitator and data bridge between advisors and hotels, using Jetset as a temporary pass-through to cover regulatory liability. While Sulek describes Brava as “an alternative to the host-agency model,” some advisors remain cautious, questioning whether it simply functions as another intermediary under a different name.
Others express intrigue such as Lila Fox, Owner of Lila Fox Travel Co.
“I do love a good disruptor because they always catalyze me to think differently,” she said. “Brava doesn’t impact my business, but I know it will ruffle feathers within the host agency community, especially at the owner level.”
Stuart Procter and The Beaumont Mayfair
In the midst of the maelstrom is one London-based hotel CEO that remains unperturbed — and whose finance team processes commissions within 24hrs of guest checkout. All advisors have to do is fill out a form online after they book.
“I’ve sat across from advisors who are owed hundreds of thousands in commissions,” Procter highlighted in an interview with The Luxe Ledger in mid-June last year.
“You pay for your vegetables, your linens, your staff – why not pay your partners? This is just good business.”
(Beaumont Mayfair)
Other hoteliers remain skeptical if not in downright disbelief.
“It’s impossible,” reacted one other London-based hotelier attending Luxury Bloc last September.
But Procter insists his model is replicable.
“It’s not rocket science,” he said.
“It’s a game changer!!” exclaimed SmartFlyer CEO Michael Holtz. “Both Stuart and SmartFlyer like to ‘keep it moving,’” Holtz added.
It also compels an industry ask: Will other hotels follow suit, and can they do so at scale?
For independents there’s a clear example.
Until then, the Beaumont Mayfair will continue to hold the gold standard in payment efficiency. It’s an important differentiator in one of the most competitive markets in the world — one that put the hotel up 17% this past summer, according to its own STR data.
Looking Ahead
If Onyx executives have no reason or incentive to make meaningful changes for travel advisors, who will they listen to?
The answer should now be just as clear: their clients, the hotels.
ASTA’s move to create a Hotel Watch List is as bold as it is urgent. By putting more of the onus on hotels to address this decades-old problem, the aim is to address it more directly — not to mention publicly.
ASTA is not the only organization that is tracking these behaviors. Traveller Made revamped its Luxury Supplier Exchange (LSX) last fall, a platform designed to take up all sorts of grievances with suppliers, including commission payments. Traveller Made executives stressed the importance of reporting when issues arise and presented the LSX as an opportunity for mediation.
Other independent groups such as The Hive and the Travel Sisterhood have also reported keeping tabs on supplier reliability.
Bottom line: Suppliers need to realize the cost of a practice that is effectively using agencies as free, short-term lines of credit.
Isn’t it high time for the industry to eliminate the headaches and the hassles to start getting better ROI on time and effort? Beyond that, shouldn’t the business of luxury travel also feel like luxury?
The choice for suppliers is now between the carrot and the stick: improve payment efficiency, or be on a public-facing list of shame (not to mention under threat of possible legal action by ASTA).
The evidence is clear: Other industries optimized payment efficiency years ago, and travel advisors are no longer powerless, thanks to technological innovation and newfound clout.
The current process is a wedge that’s kept suppliers and agencies from working more closely together for decades, but the ground is shifting.
Given the increase in significant payment alternatives in 2025, now the question is when (not if) an outdated system begins to give way to newer, and more profitable, models of doing business.
Jacques Ledbetter is a Luxury Travel Advisor contributor and founder of The Luxe Ledger newsletter.
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