The annual floods in Botswana’s Okavango Delta attract vast herds of wild animals, who treat its ilala palms and juicy aquatic plants like a 6,000-square-mile salad bar. Sky Lanham, a 29-year-old sales representative from Louisville, Ky., wanted to go, too, but the safari package she was eyeing—an 11-day trip by tour operator Contiki —cost more than $4,000, a lump sum she didn’t have.

“I just put down a couple hundred,” said Lanham, who used pay-over-time financing, which Contiki has offered since 2020, to book. Contiki’s requires that customers using the option pay off the entire amount before they depart. After around a dozen monthly installments, she hit the total and, earlier this year, found herself in a small boat, exploring the Okavango. “Elephants, hippos and giraffes came down to the water to drink, and they were really close,” she said. “It was amazing.”

Booking travel with installment loans—some of which are called “ buy now, pay later ,” or BNPL loans—is the Labubu of consumer finance: not new, but much more prominent over the past five years or so. They can also take a number of forms, from interest-free, pre-trip payments like at Contiki, to loans that can be paid off long after your trip concludes.

According to a survey by finance website NerdWallet , nearly a fifth of summer travelers planned to pay with buy-now-pay-later services in 2025. Younger travelers especially seem to love them. In a 2025 study by J.D. Power , some 42% of millennial and Gen Z consumers said they had used BNPL services, twice the rate of other generations.

The inner workings of these offerings vary. Many companies partner with third-party loan providers like Klarna , Zip and Sezzle . The process is simple. The troubles can arise after that post-vacation glow subsides if you miss payments and incur penalties, as you would with a credit card.

As BNPL loans have become the norm for everything from bicycles to bathroom renovations, travel consistently ranks among the biggest purchases: Loan provider Affirm said the average price for travel orders is triple that for other transaction types.

So should you succumb to the temptation to spend big and pay later? While travelers appear to love the option, some travel experts regard it warily. “There’s a big skull and crossbones across the whole concept,” said Bill McGee, senior fellow for aviation and travel at American Economic Liberties Project, a corporate accountability nonprofit. As compared with credit cards, McGee says BNPL loans are relatively unregulated, exposing consumers to risk if companies fold, or trips go sideways. They lack some of the basic protections offered by credit cards, including chargeback rights, as  well as perks like travel insurance that buffer vacationers from disruptions.

Some money managers counsel against BNPL vacations , as well. If you can’t pay a trip off “by the end of the month, don’t do it,” said Dinon Hughes, a financial adviser at Nvest Financial. According to a 2025 report by market research agency C+R Research , roughly half of BNPL users say they’re currently behind on a payment.

Luke Gordan, 25, successfully used Airbnb’s “pay over time” option, offered via Klarna, for a Maui rental this summer. “I was pretty much thinking: beach,” admitted Gordan, a project manager in Milwaukee. “The house was our big expense, and this let us break it up into smaller payments.” He had done the math ahead of time and made all the payments without incident upon his return. While BNPL loans for trips with no-name travel companies might give him pause, Gordan said, Airbnb’s record and reputation offered some peace of mind.

Given the pitfalls, travelers who regularly use payment plans tend to be strategic and disciplined. Elise Johnson, 45, a healthcare worker in Charlotte, N.C., could have put $1,800 round-trip flights to Johannesburg on her credit card, but opted for an interest-free plan from Paylater Travel , an installment loan provider that specializes in flights. “I don’t like debt with interest,” she said. Forgoing dinners out for a while, she put the cash saved toward payments. When she arrived in South Africa in February, the landscape astonished her. Next, she’s thinking about Bangkok.

“These are places I’ve always wanted to go, but felt they were out of my reach,” she said. “This just makes it easy.”