A travel payment intermediary system implemented using computer processing and memory resources and configured to integrate with one or more travel booking systems and one or more external virtual credit card issuing systems via a communication network, the system comprising: a travel booking system interface configured to communicate with at least one travel booking system to obtain travel booking data stored in the travel booking system of a travel booking associated with at least one traveller the booking data having been prepared using the travel booking system, the booking data including traveller data enabling identification of the at least one traveller, and trip data defining one or more trip components of an itinerary for the at least one traveller; and characterised by: a booking analyser engine configured to analyse the obtained booking data and automatically determine, for each trip component, cost component data associated with the trip component and assess whether a virtual credit card payment can be used to pay for that trip component; and a virtual credit card interface comprising a machine to machine (M2M) interface configured to utilise a generic superset API to communicate with one or more VCC supplier application programming interfaces (APIs), manage asynchronous requesting and receiving of VCCs and a queuing system comprising at least one temporary database, the VCC interface being configured to: automatically generate a VCC request using the cost component data for a trip component where the trip component is assessed as eligible for VCC payment; forward the VCC request to an external VCC issuing system via the communication network using the M2M interface; store a copy of the transmitted VCC request in a database record, the database record including VCC request data and VCC request status; monitor for asynchronous receipt of a VCC generated by the external VCC issuing system; receive the VCC from the external VCC issuing system via the communication network using M2M interface, and in response to receiving the VCC from the external VCC issuing system, updating the database record with VCC details and the VCC status, triggering the analyser engine to associate the VCC with the trip component in the cost component data and send updated trip component data to the travel booking system to update the travel booking data stored in the travel booking system for the trip component to enable payment for the trip component using the VCC. a booking analyser engine configured to analyse the obtained booking data and automatically determine, for each trip component, cost component data associated with the trip component and assess whether a virtual credit card payment can be used to pay for that trip component; and a virtual credit card interface comprising a machine to machine (M2M) interface configured to utilise a generic superset API to communicate with one or more VCC supplier application programming interfaces (APIs), manage asynchronous requesting and receiving of VCCs and a queuing system comprising at least one temporary database, the VCC interface being configured to: automatically generate a VCC request using the cost component data for a trip component where the trip component is assessed as eligible for VCC payment; forward the VCC request to an external VCC issuing system via the communication network using the M2M interface; store a copy of the transmitted VCC request in a database record, the database record including VCC request data and VCC request status; monitor for asynchronous receipt of a VCC generated by the external VCC issuing system; receive the VCC from the external VCC issuing system via the communication network using M2M interface, and in response to receiving the VCC from the external VCC issuing system, updating the database record with VCC details and the VCC status, triggering the analyser engine to associate the VCC with the trip component in the cost component data and send updated trip component data to the travel booking system to update the travel booking data stored in the travel booking system for the trip component to enable payment for the trip component using the VCC. automatically generate a VCC request using the cost component data for a trip component where the trip component is assessed as eligible for VCC payment; forward the VCC request to an external VCC issuing system via the communication network using the M2M interface; store a copy of the transmitted VCC request in a database record, the database record including VCC request data and VCC request status; monitor for asynchronous receipt of a VCC generated by the external VCC issuing system; receive the VCC from the external VCC issuing system via the communication network using M2M interface, and in response to receiving the VCC from the external VCC issuing system, updating the database record with VCC details and the VCC status, triggering the analyser engine to associate the VCC with the trip component in the cost component data and send updated trip component data to the travel booking system to update the travel booking data stored in the travel booking system for the trip component to enable payment for the trip component using the VCC.