For those of you not at a certain age just yet, we had this thing back in the day called ‘layaway plans.’ You could go into a retail store for a purchase, and the store would put it aside for you – or, lay it away – for a certain amount of time while you made monthly payments to piece it off.

We note that because travel stakeholders in the airlines, hotels and cruise lines are now doing the same thing under the name ‘buy now/pay later.’

According to an interesting article in USA Today , as the overall percentage of Americans using buy now/pay later plans has jumped significantly, travel companies are also utilizing third-party credit companies like Uplift to book more trips – albeit in the travel industry you typically pay interest on the purchase and make payments for a longer term.

Still, the newspaper notes that Expedia, Priceline, Hotels.com and several airlines including United, Alaska, Air Canada, Allegiant and Spirit, already offer the option. So do several airlines' independently operated vacation package arms, including Delta Vacations and United Vacations. Cruise lines Carnival, Norwegian and Royal Caribbean are also among those offering the option.

In April, Southwest Airlines, the nation's largest domestic carrier, began offering a buy now/pay later option for flights through Uplift. Southwest Vacations, which is operated by another company, has offered Uplift financing since 2017, and now accounts for more than 10 percent of the vacation site's eligible bookings, according to Uplift CEO Brian Barth.

Southwest Airlines has added a new financing option via Uplift for plane tickets. Instead of paying more than $1,000 upfront for a ticket to Hawaii, travelers can select monthly payments starting at $102 for 11 months depending on credit.

"During the pandemic, the appeal of installments and the use of installment products really took off,'' said Jonathan Clarkson, the airline's managing director of loyalty, partnerships and products. "For us it's really just about broadening (payment) options and booking those flights that maybe we wouldn't have booked because they were too expensive to pay for at once for somebody.”