Task: Low Fare Shop Request

The Low Fare shopping tool allows a user to find the best price options for a proposed journey, using origin/destination and date information, without requiring a booked itinerary. It allows a user to enter criteria to limit the shopping request, such as time period, specific carriers to include or exclude, private fare modifiers, passenger types, etc.

Section 1: Short Answer

Transaction Name:

FareQuoteSuperBB_8_1

Can any other transaction(s) perform this same task?

Yes. Use FareQuoteFinder_8_0_1 to fare shop if you have a booked itinerary and you want other itinerary and price options which fulfill the origin/destination and date parameters.

Can this task be performed in a sessionless environment?

Yes.

Are the request and response identical on both the Apollo and Galileo systems?

Yes.

Industry-specific knowledge required to understand this task in terms of the specific business process:

• To receive web/private fares, a user must know the Pseudo City Code under which the fare was filed.
• A user must know valid passenger types.
• A user must understand which flights (contained within the element tags of the <RulesInfo> tag),  relate to which price (contained within the element tags of the <GenQuoteDetails> tag) and which booking codes pertain to which flight.

Special limits or distinct restrictions to the input data:

• A maximum of 8 origin/destination pairs can be entered.
• A maximum of 4 passenger types can be entered.
• A maximum of 3 carriers in the carrier preferences can be entered.

Section 2: Detailed Description

Request:

A user needs to send the <AirAvailMods> tag with a general availability <GenAvail> element tag. The user can send arrays of origin/destination pairs. The user must also send a <SuperBBMods> tag with the <PsgrMods> element tag or the <FqPicOnly> element tag. The <PsgrMods> element tag  looks for a lower fare with the specified passenger type. If a lower fare does not exist, it sends back the lowest adult fare. The <FqPicOnly> element tag only looks for a lower fare for the specified passenger type.

<AirVPrefs>, an optional air availability request tag, provides the ability to include or exclude air vendors via the array <AirVAry>. <AirVAry> may contain up to 24 <AirVInfo> items. Including more than 24 <AirVInfo> items results in a host error.

If the <Optimize> element tag is sent up on the request, then response data will be organized and filtered according to data contained in the <Optimize> element tag. The user can specify only the reply element tags that they are interested in receiving, in order to minimize the amount of data being returned.

If the user wishes to have ‘Airline Private Fares’ considered when quoting, the <PFInfo> element tag must be sent on the query with the <ReqAirVPFs> sub-element for Airline Private Fares set to ‘Y’ and a <PFQual> section. The response formats do not vary if ‘Airline Private Fares’ are returned.

Availability and Classes of Service
There are three basic ways to request flights with respect to flight classes:

• Return flights for a specific class only.
• Return flights for a preferred class, with downgrade functionality.
• Return flights for all classes available.

• Class Specific Request
  Use the <Class> element inside <GenAvail> (AAGA 2.0) inside <AirAvailMods> (1000 6.2) to specify the class 'F’, ‘C’, or ‘Y’.
  The response will return flights available only for that class. If that specific class is unavailable for one or more legs of the journey, the response will be “NO AVAILABILITY FOR THIS REQUEST.”
  Note: using the 'S' option in the <Class> element will yield results for all scheduled flights, regardless of the number of passengers in the party, and actual seat availability.

• Downgradeable Class Preference
  Use the <ClassPref> element inside <ClassPrefs> (GQCL 1.0) inside <SuperBBMods> (1400 8.0) to show the class preference 'F’, ‘C’, or ‘Y’.
  Leave the <Class> element (described above) blank.
  The response will return all flights available for that class, including flights where a class downgrade is possible for one or more legs of the journey when the preferred class is unavailable.
  Note: the 'S' option is not valid for <ClassPref>.

• Return all flights for all classes
  Leave both elements, <Class> and <ClassPref> (described above) blank.
  Note: using the 'S' option in the <Class> element will yield results for all scheduled flights, regardless of the number of passengers in the party, and actual seat availability.
  
  IMPORTANT: There is a <Class> element (like the one described above) in both the <AirVSpecificAvail> (AACS 2.0) and the <SpecificAvailMods> (AASA 1.0) tags. It is not advised to use either of these for FareQuoteSuperBB requests. FareQuoteSuperBB is designed to work only with the <GenAvail> (AAGA 2.0) tag.

Prerequisite tasks:

There are no prerequisite tasks.

Expected response:

The response sends back the <FareInfo> tag with the summary fare information in the <GenQuoteDetails> element tag and the <FlightItemCrossRef> element tag, related flight information (referenced in the <FareInfo> tag summary) in the <AirAvail> tag, and all other fare details in the remainder of the <FareInfo> tag (see the Response Tables in Section 3).

Error and warning responses:

The following error/warning messages might display:

• Invalid Sequence (origin/destination in wrong order).
• Invalid dates, city codes, carriers, etc.
• Error to indicate you are not signed up to use FareQuoteSuperBB_8_1.

Follow-on requests:

The follow-on requests for this transaction are:

• FareQuoteMultiDisplay_8_2 – task Rules Display.
• PNRBFManagement_7_11 – task Air Segment Sell via Reference Sell.

Section 3: Tables

Request (Input) Tags

Response (Output) Tags