Mastercard Inc. beat quarterly profit estimates on Thursday as an uptick in international travel powered card spending and said a recent drag on cross-border travel from the Omicron variant was unlikely to persist. Increased vaccinations and easing pandemic-related curbs had backed a recovery in spending, but rising COVID-19 infections from the Omicron variant pressured cross-border travel in the tail end of the fourth quarter and into January. Chief Executive Officer Michael Miebach, however, said cross-border travel will return to pre-pandemic levels by the end of the year. “There are early signs that the Omicron will be relatively short-lived.” Shares of the company rose 4.3 percent to $359.22 as cross-border volumes—a key metric that tracks card spending beyond the country of issue—surged 53 percent during the quarter. Mastercard’s gross dollar volumes jumped 23 percent to $2.1 trillion from a year earlier. The metric represents the dollar value of the transactions processed. …