JetBlue Vacations has teamed up with UpLift, a startup company that enables affordable installment plan travel purchases.
The deal gives travelers the option of paying for vacations in 12 monthly installments with annual percentage rates that starts at 8.99%.
The option allows travelers to lock in affordable pricing through UpLift without paying the total cost up front or incurring higher-interest debt.
UpLift instantly approves travelers for a low-cost fixed monthly payment plan.
Travelers can make their UpLift monthly payments with a credit card, such as the JetBlue Card, which has an extensive travel reward plan.The airline said additional savings are achieved by bundling air, hotel and other trip components into a single JetBlue Vacations package.
UpLift is the brainchild of Brian Barth, who founded SideStep, one of the earliest travel meta search engines. It was sold to Kayak in 2007.
Barth was looking for a cost-effective way to offer installment payments that would break down the barriers of law and technology that surround the loan industry.
He knew that the airlines would not want to add to their risks; they deal with enough fraud as it is.
So UpLift is structured so the airlines get paid immediately with a UATP card. Uplift shoulders the risk and builds it into the cost of financing.
There’s an additional benefit for customers as well. UpLift works with the major credit bureaus, and if travelers make payments on time, it improves their credit.
Barth said that for travel providers, UpLift is "a highly effective new way to increase conversion at every step of the booking process and drive key marketing objectives. He added:
UpLift provides travel-specific financing and digital marketing technology to enable our partners to increase top-line revenues, improve product/margin mix, and boost market share. We continue to scale rapidly as we go live with innovative partners like JetBlue.