As regulators treat buy now, pay later as credit, the same phone that puts PayLater one tap away can also help travelers check they can afford it

PayLater has become one of the fastest ways to pay for a trip. On a phone, splitting the cost of a holiday into instalments takes a few taps at checkout, and it can make a trip possible sooner, especially when flights for a peak date are cheaper booked early. But speed can hide the order of decisions that matters. Regulators in Southeast Asia are now asking PayLater providers to check whether customers can afford a plan before they lend, and travelers can apply the same logic to themselves, using the same phone.

The rules point the way. In Indonesia, OJK Board Member Regulation No. 2 of 2026 caps the share of income that PayLater repayments may take: 40 percent in 2027 and 2028, falling to 30 percent from 2029. In Malaysia, buy-now-pay-later providers must now be licensed under the Consumer Credit Act 2025, which covers conduct, disclosure and responsible lending. Thailand's central bank is preparing its own licensing framework.

For travelers, budgeting first means three steps, and most can be done in apps they already use. The first is to add up the whole trip, not just the flight: hotel, activities, local transport and travel insurance, ideally in one booking so the total sits on one screen. The second is to list every repayment already due in the months ahead; PayLater and banking apps typically show upcoming instalments and card bills in one place. The third is to check that the new instalments fit alongside them with room to spare. Only then does it make sense to choose how to pay.

The flight is a good place to start, because fares that look similar on screen are not always like for like. On regional routes, airlines such as AirAsia, Batik Air and Scoot handle extras like checked baggage, seat selection and meals in different ways, so the lowest fare in a search result is not always the cheapest trip. Checking what each ticket includes before tapping through, and adding the extras a traveler will actually need, gives a truer number to build the budget around.

Airpaz, the Asia Pacific online travel booking platform, makes the first step easier. Its app, downloaded more than 3 million times, lets travelers book flights, more than 1.2 million properties, activities and ground transport in one place, so the full cost of a trip is visible before checkout. PayLater is one of its 100+ payment methods, alongside cards, bank transfers, virtual accounts, QR and e-wallets, with checkout in 61 currencies on a PCI DSS-certified platform.

"A holiday budget should be settled at home, not at the checkout," said Wesley Wijaya, Chief of Partnership at Airpaz. "When travelers know the full cost of the trip before choosing how to pay, PayLater becomes a tool they control rather than a bill that surprises them later."

A good holiday budget answers one question before the final tap: if every instalment is added together, does the total still fit the month comfortably? If it does, PayLater can help. If it does not, a smaller trip or a later date is the better plan.