Photo: Shutterstock Israeli fintech company Mesh Payments is partnering with KAYAK for Business to connect corporate travel booking with payments and expense management, giving companies greater visibility into spending during business trips.
Announced on October 13, the strategic partnership will combine KAYAK for Business's travel search, booking and trip management tools with Mesh's corporate card, payment controls and expense management platform. The integrated solution is designed to cover the full business travel process, from searching for and booking a trip to matching receipts and processing expenses.
The service is expected to become available by December 2026.
A central feature of the partnership will be the option to issue a virtual card for each business trip, with a predefined budget and spending rules. Employees will be able to use the card for meals, local transportation and other expenses during their stay, with transactions linked to the relevant employee and trip.
Payments will be processed through Mesh virtual cards, which are issued locally in more than 40 countries, or through a company's existing corporate card program. This approach is designed to let businesses introduce expense controls without necessarily changing their bank or existing card infrastructure.
Spending rules will apply when purchases are made, while transactions will be coded, assigned to the relevant trip and reconciled automatically. The system is also intended to match receipts and submit expenses automatically, reducing the need for employees to prepare reports manually.
Finance teams will be able to monitor actual spending as it occurs and compare it with the estimated cost of flights, hotels and other travel arrangements. This could help companies identify expenses that exceed their original budgets before a trip is over, rather than waiting weeks for reports to be submitted and processed.
KAYAK for Business will handle the travel booking side of the platform, drawing on direct supplier connections, global distribution systems and New Distribution Capability (NDC) airline content.
The platform will also offer AI-powered tools that allow users to build bookable trips through natural-language requests while taking company travel policies into account. Travelers will be able to manage changes through conversations with AI tools, with human support available when needed.
On the financial side, Mesh's AI tools are designed to identify the purpose of transactions and support automated expense processing.
Oded Zehavi. Photo: PROded Zehavi, co-founder and CEO of Mesh Payments, said booking systems show the expected cost of a trip, while payment data reveals what it actually costs. Connecting a dedicated card to each trip, with its budget and spending policy already in place, is intended to give finance teams visibility into expenses as they happen.
Eva Fouquet, senior vice president at KAYAK for Business, noted that the goal of the partnership is to make the business travel booking experience simpler and connect booking, payment, and expense management around that trip.
Founded in Israel, Mesh provides corporate card and expense management services to global businesses. More than 1,500 companies use its platform to manage spending worldwide.
The companies plan to present the partnership to corporate travel and finance professionals at Business Travel Show America, taking place October 14–15 at the Javits Center in New York.