Reference
Plain-English definitions for the CLC Lodging, Corpay Lodging, and hotel virtual card billing terms hoteliers run into every day.
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Legacy name of the corporate lodging intermediary now known as Corpay Lodging.
CLC Lodging was a US-based corporate lodging intermediary serving crew, project, and corporate travel programs. In April 2025, CLC Lodging rebranded to Corpay Lodging when it was consolidated under the Corpay corporate payments umbrella. The CheckINN card, CrewFax reservation system, and virtual card billing rules largely carried over from CLC into the Corpay brand.
Related: Corpay Lodging, CheckINN Card, CrewFax
Current name of the corporate lodging intermediary previously called CLC Lodging.
Corpay Lodging is the post-April-2025 brand for the corporate lodging intermediary previously known as CLC Lodging. It is a division of Corpay (formerly FleetCor). Hotels still encounter CheckINN cards, CrewFax reservations, and virtual card numbers (VCNs) under the Corpay Lodging banner with substantively the same billing rules as the legacy CLC system.
Related: CLC Lodging, VCC (Virtual Credit Card), CheckINN Card
CLC/Corpay's primary virtual card credential, restricted to room and tax only.
The CheckINN card is the primary payment credential issued by CLC/Corpay Lodging for hotel stays. It can only be charged for room rate and applicable taxes — it cannot be used for incidentals such as parking, room service, minibar, phone calls, or damage charges. Hotels must capture a separate guest credit card for incidentals on a second folio.
Related: Two-Folio Architecture, VCC (Virtual Credit Card), CrewFax
CLC's reservation product for crew and group blocks like airlines and railroads.
CrewFax is the CLC/Corpay reservation product used for crew, group block, and recurring corporate stays — most commonly airline crews, railroad crews, energy crews, and road construction teams. CrewFax reservations may cover multiple rooms and multiple nights, often with split-billing arrangements, and follow different authorization rules than single-stay CheckINN reservations.
Related: CheckINN Card, VCC (Virtual Credit Card)
A single-use credit card with a fixed amount and date window.
A virtual credit card (VCC) is a single-use credit card credential generated for a specific reservation. It carries a fixed authorization amount and a strict valid-date window. Charges that fall outside those parameters trigger a hard decline. Used interchangeably with VCN (Virtual Card Number) in industry conversation.
Related: VCN (Virtual Card Number), Authorization Hold, CheckINN Card
The 16-digit number portion of a virtual credit card.
VCN refers to the 16-digit card number portion of a Virtual Credit Card (VCC). In CLC/Corpay parlance, VCN and VCC are typically used interchangeably. Each CLC reservation generates a unique VCN that is valid only for the original authorized amount, date range, and (in some Corpay products) merchant ID.
Related: VCC (Virtual Credit Card)
Splitting room/tax onto the CLC card and incidentals onto the guest's personal card.
Two-folio architecture is the front-office requirement for any CLC stay: maintain one folio for room rate and applicable taxes (charged to the CLC virtual card) and a separate folio for guest incidentals (charged to the guest's personal credit card). Folio mixing is the most common single source of CLC billing errors at the property level.
Related: CheckINN Card, Folio Mismatch
The pre-authorization placed on a virtual card before final settlement.
An authorization hold is the pre-authorization placed on a virtual card before the final charge is settled. CLC virtual cards have strict date and amount windows for authorization holds; charges that fall outside the hold parameters will hard-decline. Effective CLC operations require the hold amount and dates to match the actual stay before checkout.
Related: VCC (Virtual Credit Card), Authorization Failure Rate
Reservation type that guarantees the room with a card but does not prepay.
A Guaranteed Credit Card (GCC) reservation holds a room with a credit card guarantee but does not prepay the stay. For CLC reservations, configuring stays as GCC rather than Full Prepay typically reduces false-positive declines because authorization timing aligns better with the actual stay.
Related: Full Prepay Reservation, Authorization Failure Rate
Reservation type where the room is paid before arrival.
A Full Prepay reservation type captures the room and tax payment before the guest arrives. Generally not recommended for CLC reservations because authorization timing often misaligns with the actual stay, producing decline rates significantly higher than GCC reservations.
Corpay's process for collecting after the original card window expires.
A late charge request is the formal Corpay process for collecting payment on a CLC stay after the original virtual card's valid window has expired. Requires the original confirmation number, VCN, exact dates, and amount, plus folio documentation. Approval rates exceed 85% within 30 days of checkout, drop sharply between 30 and 90 days, and approach zero after 90 days.
Related: Recovery Window, VCC (Virtual Credit Card)
The category code on the hotel's payment processor.
An MCC is the merchant category code assigned to the hotel's payment processor. Corpay validates the MCC against an approved list before authorizing CLC virtual card charges. Hotels that change processors, rebrand, or merge ownership often discover their MCC no longer matches Corpay's records — every transaction silently hard-declines until the MCC is reconciled.
Related: Authorization Failure Rate
Newer Corpay model where the authorized amount can change with rate feeds.
Dynamic rate authorization is a newer Corpay model in which the authorized virtual card amount can change in near real-time based on contracted rate feeds, demand, or seasonality. Hotels with sloppy rate management see dramatically more mismatches under dynamic-rate programs than under traditional static-rate CLC contracts.
Related: Rate Mismatch, Rate Code Drift
A discrepancy between the folio total and the virtual card authorization.
A folio mismatch occurs when the amount posted on the hotel folio differs from the amount authorized on the CLC virtual card — typically because of tax calculation differences, rate code drift, or incidentals being mistakenly posted to the company folio. The most common single root cause of CLC short payments.
Related: Two-Folio Architecture, Rate Mismatch
PMS posted rate differs from the CLC authorized rate.
A rate mismatch is a discrepancy between the rate posted in the hotel PMS and the rate Corpay used to generate the virtual card authorization. Even a $2 mismatch results in a short payment that is rarely flagged by standard accounting reconciliation; over hundreds of stays per year, the cumulative loss is substantial.
Related: Folio Mismatch, Rate Code Drift
PMS rate code updated without updating the CLC contract rate.
Rate code drift is the condition in which the hotel's PMS rate code is updated (e.g., for a new tax assessment, fee, or seasonal pricing) without a corresponding update to the CLC contracted rate. The result: every CLC transaction mismatches by the same drift amount until the contract rate is renegotiated.
Related: Rate Mismatch
Percent of attempted CLC charges that decline.
Authorization failure rate is the percentage of attempted CLC virtual card charges that hard-decline at the terminal. Industry baseline is 8–15%. Problem properties can exceed 50% (and in extreme cases, 90%). Well-managed properties keep this rate under 5% through proper GCC configuration, MCC alignment, and date-window discipline.
Related: Authorization Hold, MCC (Merchant Category Code), GCC (Guaranteed Credit Card) Reservation
The period during which a missed CLC charge is still collectable.
The recovery window is the period during which a missed or short CLC charge can still be collected through Corpay's standard processes. High-confidence recovery is generally possible within 30 days; marginal recovery between 30 and 90 days; and recovery is effectively impossible beyond 90 days. Daily reconciliation is essential to operate inside the high-confidence window.
Related: Late Charge Request
Allocating room and tax to the CLC card while keeping incidentals separate.
Split billing is the operational practice of allocating room rate and applicable taxes to the CLC virtual card while routing all guest incidentals (parking, room service, phone, minibar) to the guest's personal credit card on a separate folio. CLC stays cannot be processed any other way without triggering billing errors.
Related: Two-Folio Architecture, CheckINN Card
An intermediary like Expedia or Booking.com that uses virtual cards to pay hotels.
An OTA (Online Travel Agency) is a third-party intermediary such as Expedia, Booking.com, or Hotels.com. Many OTAs use virtual cards to pay hotels for prepaid bookings. Although CLC is not a consumer OTA, the same VCC dynamics apply: uncharged or undercharged virtual cards become silent revenue leakage for the hotel.
Related: VCC (Virtual Credit Card)
The hotel's core operating system, e.g. Opera, Fosse, OnQ, Maestro, RoomKeyPMS.
A Property Management System (PMS) is the core software a hotel uses to manage reservations, check-ins, folios, and billing. Common systems include Oracle Opera, OPERA Cloud, Fosse, OnQ, Maestro, RoomKeyPMS, and Mews. Most PMS systems treat CLC virtual cards like regular credit cards and do not provide CLC-specific validation.
Related: Folio Mismatch
The end-of-day process where hotels post charges and close out the day.
Night audit is the end-of-day process at a hotel during which the day's charges are posted, payments are settled, and the books are closed. Night audit timing is critical for CLC reservations because virtual card windows often expire at midnight on checkout day; an audit that runs at 3 AM on the day after checkout will see charges decline on expired cards.
Related: Recovery Window, Authorization Failure Rate