OmniVillas saves over $100,000 with Airwallex Business Accounts

More than 500 times a month, a guest reaches the door of an OmniVillas property and finds the work already done – shutters open to the water, wine on ice, coffee set out. Almost everyone craves some version of this: somewhere beautiful, with nothing to manage. That desire is not in short supply, and filling the villas has never been the hard part.

"As a founder, you learn that growth does not just depend on having more demand,” said Lidia Cabrera, Founder and CEO of OmniVillas. “It depends on having the right system behind the business.”

Luxury hospitality powered by complex global operations

OmniVillas operates across four continents, so its portfolio doesn’t have one high season – it has several, and together they keep the calendar moving year-round. The rhythm shifts from Bora Bora, Moorea, and Tahiti in French Polynesia to Lima and Santiago, then to the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle. The Côte d’Azur brings a seasonal summer chapter, while Paris adds another year-round destination – with Spain on the horizon.

Whichever month a guest chooses, somewhere in the portfolio is at its best. For OmniVillas, that means collecting, spending, and paying out in all of those markets at once – each with its own calendar, vendors, tax authority, and homeowners waiting to be paid. The company combines high-touch hospitality with local operations, revenue management, global distribution, guest care, and owner reporting.

“Standing in these spaces, it looks effortless. But behind the luxury, it’s a massive cross-border operation,” said Carlos Rios Monterrey, Head of Global Operations at OmniVillas.

As the business grew, OmniVillas needed a financial operating model that could provide clearer visibility by property, reduce unnecessary FX costs, and make it easier for local teams to manage day-to-day expenses.

Airwallex Business Accounts brought OmniVillas’ collections, property-level accounts, FX, payouts, and staff spend into one connected operating model. 

The challenge: coordinating finances across properties and currencies

Finances were spread across providers

OmniVillas was coordinating funds across properties and payment channels and needed a clearer way to connect financial activity to each villa.

“We were using Stripe for guest payments, Wise for international transfers, and Chase for banking,” said Lidia. “It was super hard to track villa-specific revenue.”

The team was juggling these three providers without a clear property-level view across them. Coordinating activity across properties made it more complex to calculate homeowner balances, prepare payouts, and delegate finance operations as the business scaled.

Manual reconciliation took too much time

Before Airwallex, monthly reconciliation was taking three to five days. The process involved reviewing reservation activity, matching payments and expenses, checking balances, and preparing homeowner payouts.

For a business managing hundreds of reservations every month, this created a significant administrative bottleneck.

Multiple currencies meant multiple FX costs

OmniVillas coordinated collections, spending, and payouts across several currencies as funds moved between entities, properties, vendors, and homeowners. Each additional conversion could add cost, result in less favorable rates, and increase exposure to currency movements before funds reached their final destination. “That fragmentation hit our regional teams hard,” said Carlos. “We were constantly losing money on double FX conversions.”

Local property expenses were hard to track

Local teams managed immediate property expenses, including supplies and maintenance-related purchases. The central team then had to collect receipts and determine which property should absorb each expense. The process took time and made it harder to manage property-level spend.

The solution: intelligent financial infrastructure for every villa

Lidia Cabrera

Founder and CEO, OmniVillas

“Airwallex changed the way we manage money across the business.”

Airwallex Business Accounts bring structure to property finances

OmniVillas is bringing intelligence and automation to their global treasury management through Airwallex Business Accounts – unlocking access to AI agents that can provision accounts, prepare payouts for review, and optimize liquidity 24/7.

With a unique account for each villa, OmniVillas can now collect payments around the world. This gives the team a more structured way to organize funds around individual properties and currencies, while creating a foundation for more intelligent, controlled financial operations as the portfolio grows.

With Business Accounts, OmniVillas can:

• Provision and maintain account structures as new villas and entities are added.

• Match incoming funds with the correct villa and improve property-level visibility.

• Collect and hold funds in relevant currencies until they’re needed.

• Prepare transfers, scheduled payments, and homeowner payouts through business-defined rules, permissions, and approval workflows, with a person approving each payout in Airwallex.

• Reduce unnecessary double FX conversions by managing when and where funds are converted.

• Monitor and optimize liquidity across properties, entities, and currencies where appropriate.

AI-assisted workflows reduce manual finance work

OmniVillas is using Airwallex’s AI assistant, Kai, and AgentOS to reduce repetitive finance work while maintaining human oversight.

“Airwallex’s AI workflows can help review reservations, invoices, fees, and villa data – then prepare homeowner payouts inside Airwallex for our team to review and approve,” said Lidia.

Payments, Business Accounts, and Spend support the full money lifecycle

OmniVillas uses Airwallex Payments for card acquiring, Business Accounts for FX and Transfers (including Global Payouts to homeowners, contractors, and tax authorities), and Spend for corporate cards used for local property expenses.

Together, these capabilities support the flow of money from guest payment through property expenses, vendor payments, tax obligations, and homeowner payouts.

Where possible, OmniVillas can hold funds in the currency they will ultimately be paid in, reducing unnecessary conversions and improving control over cross-border money movement.

Property operations and finance workflows are now connected

OmniVillas’ platform connects Guesty, Airwallex, and Xero. It brings reservation and property information into finance workflows, links every transaction to the correct villa, and prepares each payout. A person then reviews and approves each payout in Airwallex.

For OmniVillas, this is important because each reservation can generate multiple financial events, including guest collections, cleaning fees, repairs, vendor expenses, tax obligations, and homeowner payouts.

Airwallex Corporate Cards support local property spend

With controlled funds for property-related expenses, local teams have more autonomy to keep properties running smoothly. This helps OmniVillas reduce reimbursement administration and improve property-level visibility.

Carlos Rios

Head of Global Operations, OmniVillas

“We gave Airwallex corporate cards to our local staff with built-in spending limits. Now, when a cleaner or a maintenance partner buys supplies, that expense is automatically linked to the correct property.”

The results: lower costs, less manual work, and a stronger foundation for growth

More than $100,000 saved on fees and FX

Since switching to Airwallex in 2024, OmniVillas says it has saved more than $100,000 on fees and FX. The company has also reduced the manual work involved in reconciling villa-level revenue and expenses, preparing homeowner payouts, and managing property-related spend.

With property-specific accounts, AI-assisted payout preparation, controlled cards, and connected payment workflows, OmniVillas has a stronger financial foundation for continued growth. Each property has its own account, OmniVillas’ platform prepares every payout and then routes it for human review and approval in Airwallex, while every owner receives a monthly statement.

The right system behind growth

For OmniVillas, growth is about more than generating demand. It also requires the infrastructure to manage money accurately across properties, currencies, homeowners, vendors, and markets.

“Partnering with Airwallex was one of the best decisions we made,” Lidia shared. “It gave us the financial foundation to scale globally, reduce unnecessary costs and spend more of our energy on what truly matters: our guests, our homeowners, and the quality of every stay.”

Explore what Airwallex can do for your business

Build a more connected global financial operation with Airwallex Business Accounts. Bring FX, payouts, corporate cards, spend management, payment acceptance, and intelligent AI finance workflows into a single solution.