What changed
Two travel platforms that already dealt with crypto — Nomadz, native to Solana, and Cryptorefills — expanded their reach this week. Now you can book flights with more than 300 airlines (and over 1 million accommodations) by paying with USDC or SOL, using Solana Pay as the processing layer. Nomadz is also waiving the flight booking fee for the first 30 days after launch.
How it works, in practice
It’s not the airline that accepts crypto directly. The flow is: you search the flight on the platform (Nomadz or Cryptorefills), pay in a stablecoin, and the platform makes the usual booking with the airline — which receives the payment in fiat currency, typically through partners certified by IATA. For you, the end result is a ticket issued in your name, with a standard locator, but the payment came from your Solana wallet.
And the Brazilian companies?
LATAM, GOL, and Azul are the three largest in the country and usually show up in broad distribution networks like this — they’re very likely among the hundreds of airlines covered. But here’s an important point: looking directly at these companies’ official channels, there’s no mention of crypto or USDC as a payment method. They continue to work with card, Pix, digital wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Mercado Pago), and loyalty programs. In other words: you can buy a ticket with USDC, but only by going through these intermediary platforms — not directly on the company’s website.
A contrast worth noting
This model of intermediation is different from what Emirates adopted in July, when it integrated Crypto.com Pay directly into its own booking engine — in that case, the company accepts crypto payments without going through third parties. There are two different routes to get to the same place: using crypto to travel.
Paying for a ticket in stablecoins still depends on an intermediary in Brazil, but the path is getting shorter. I’m keeping an eye on every advance in this — follow me here on Binance Square.
#USDC #solana #latam #GOL #azul $SOL
