Apple wants to make its digital wallet an indispensable part of payments for travel, according to a company executive who spoke at an industry conference last week.
The tech behemoth aims to have travelers use its digital wallet at numerous points on their journey, said Jennifer Bailey, vice president of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet. The firm has embedded Apple Wallet as a payment method at airports, hotels and in public transit systems, Bailey said.
In some cases, travelers can download their airline boarding pass to Apple Wallet and use an ID stored on the app to get through Transportation Security Administration checks, she said during a question-and-answer session at the Money 20/20 conference in Las Vegas on Oct. 26.
But the use of the digital wallet can start even before arriving at the airport, she said. “If you’re like me and you live in the suburbs, you probably drive a car,” Bailey said. “I use a tap to unlock my car with a digital key that’s in my Apple Wallet.”
Users of the digital wallet can also use Apple Pay to ride public transportation in 800 cities, she said.
Cafe and restaurant chains like Starbucks, which are common in airports, also accept Apple Pay, as do ride-share services like Uber and Lyft, along with many hotels, Bailey said.
Apple Pay is the payment service that lets Apple Wallet users make transactions with credit cards stored on their digital wallets.
The tech giant has in recent years delved deeper into providing wallet services for airline travel needs. American Airlines, for example, announced last month that it would let travelers add a boarding pass to their Apple Wallet, and Alaska Airlines started accepting Apple Pay for in-flight purchases in 2023.
To be certain, the tech company faces an uphill battle in its quest to expand travel payments as large banks and their airline and hotel partners dominate travel spending.
Competitors like card company American Express as well as the bank card issuers Capital One Financial and JPMorgan Chase see hundreds of billions of dollars spent through their payment products each year.
American Express, for example, reported $376 billion in travel spending on Amex cards so far in 2025, Forbes reported in September. Meanwhile, the card network Visa – which has co-branded credit cards with airlines like Southwest and United – saw between $920 billion and $1.2 trillion in estimated travel and entertainment spending for the year, the news outlet said.
Apple has not disclosed in recent earnings reports how much consumers spend on travel through its digital wallet. Company spokespeople did not respond to a request for information on how much Apple users spend on travel-related purchases.
