10:50 AM
MasterCard Brings Contactless Cards to Vegas Airport
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, especially the money you spend on gambling, hotels, shows, food and whatnot. MasterCard is speeding up the process of losing money in Vegas by setting up the city's McCarran International Airport to accept PayPass contactless payments in its parking lots.
Consumers can tap their MasterCard PayPass contactless cards or devices at exit lanes to pay for their parking at the airport. The card will be accepted in 64 locations, including 31 pay stations and 33 entry/exit lanes at the airport’s four main parking lots.
Airport parking lots are the one of the latest merchant environments where acceptance of contactless payments is growing versus traditional cash payments, MasterCard says.
In 2009, McCarran International Airport was the seventh-busiest airport in North America, serving more than 40 million passengers. It is hoped the contactless card solution will help reduce airport congestion by streamlining parking payments.
There are currently more than 75 million PayPass cards and devices in use at approximately 230,000 merchant locations worldwide, according to MasterCard, including new acceptance environments such as vending, taxis, toll booths and transit. PayPass also is accepted at some football and baseball stadiums. All told, MasterCard processes more than 22 billion transactions a year.