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PCI Booking gives you two ways to deliver stored card data to a payment service provider: the Universal Payment Gateway (UPG) and Token Replacement in Request. Both keep card data out of your systems, and both will work. For payment processing, we strongly recommend the UPG. This page explains why, and when Token Replacement is the better tool. The fundamental difference in scope: the UPG is only for PSPs, while Token Replacement works with any third-party API - hotels, OTAs, channel managers, suppliers, and PSPs too. The UPG trades that generality for a far simpler integration when the destination is a PSP.

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How Each One Works

  • UPG: you send one standardized request (token, amount, operation, PSP credentials) to a single PCI Booking endpoint. PCI Booking builds the full PSP request, inserts the card data, sends it to the PSP, and returns a normalized result.
  • Token Replacement: you build the destination’s request yourself, exactly as its API defines it, with tokens where card data belongs. PCI Booking acts as a transparent proxy: it replaces the tokens with real card data in transit and forwards your request unchanged.

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Comparison

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When Token Replacement Is the Right Choice

Token Replacement is the general-purpose tool for delivering card data to any third party. Reach for it when:
  • The destination is not a PSP. A hotel, OTA, channel manager, or supplier API that needs card data inside a booking message can only be served by Token Replacement - the UPG does not apply.
  • Your PSP is not yet among the UPG’s 100+ integrations. Use Token Replacement as a temporary stopgap, and at the same time ask us to add your PSP to the UPG - customers can request new UPG integrations at any point, at no cost. Once the integration is live, switch to the UPG and retire your replacement profile.
  • You need a PSP operation the UPG does not support. Before building it on Token Replacement, contact support@pcibooking.net and tell us what you need - we actively enhance the UPG based on what the market needs, and we may be able to add the operation for you.
Recommendation: if you are sending card data to a PSP to process a payment, use the UPG. Token Replacement exists for delivering card data to arbitrary third parties; using it for PSP traffic means taking on integration and maintenance work that the UPG already does for you.

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Next Steps

Universal Payment Gateway

Process payments through 100+ PSPs with one standardized request

Token Replacement in Request

Send card data to any third-party API through the relay proxy

Get Payment Gateways

Check whether your PSP is already integrated in the UPG

Gateway-Specific Guidance

Per-PSP requirements and capabilities in the UPG