NDC FAQs

The JSON APIs search for content for all available and participating carriers for the itinerary as provisioned for your PCC.

The schedule change will fall into the agent's Q11 as it does today in Smartpoint for ATPCO bookings. As the plugin and Smartpoint sync in the same session, there is no specific queue for the plugin.

For 1V and 1P users, these will be placed on a queue. The plan is to follow the queue numbers used for GDS bookings queues (i.e., Q11 for 1V and Q7 for 1P).

The timeline for advanced search is controlled by each individual carrier. Travelport will support whatever timeline the carrier supports for advanced searching.

Penalty conditions (change/cancel permitted etc) are returned in Search. Penalty amounts, if applicable to the offer selected, will be returned in Price and Book.

This example shows the penalty conditions within the Penalties object of the Price response.

  "Cancel": [
                                    {
                                        "@type": "CancelPermitted",
                                        "penaltyTypes": [
                                            "BeforeDeparture"
                                        ],
                                        "higherPenatltyAppliesInd": true,
                                        "Penalty": [
                                            {
                                                "@type": "PenaltyAmount",
                                                "Amount": {
                                                    "code": "USD",
                                                    "minorUnit": 2,
                                                    "value": XXXX

You can issue an instant ticket or hold a booking for a time period to ticket at a later date – usually only 24 hours.

Not in the same PNR. You can book single NDC airline bookings only. This is on the Travelport+ roadmap (no timeframes yet).

No. It is however our long-term plan to ensure that this is supported in Travelport+ and will be communicated in due course.

There are specific FCMI codes to identify NDC transactions (3, 4, or 5); however, according to ARC, the airlines are not using these.

In NDC the airline is responsible for presenting and returning the offer and confirming the order. Therefore, there should be no debit memos.

There is no facility to support passing credit card authorization codes to the airlines in NDC. When paying by credit card, the carrier acts as merchant of record and will authorize the credit card when it is passed to them. They will decline, if necessary, without issuing the ticket.

Currently, NDC carriers do not have Interline flights supported but they do support codeshare flights.

Yes, if commission is present with the agency and the offer is eligible, it will be returned at Price and Book (Smartpoint will return commission, JSON – in the commission object). Commission can also be claimed and added manually via the ARC portal (pre-ticket only).

Yes, this is supported and will show chargeable price as 0.00. For some carriers, a loyalty card status will obtain a free seat. A CLID number is not recognised through Travelport’s NDC products; however, it may allow certain upgrades when the passenger arrives at the airport if included in the PNR.

Seats can be booked through Smartpoint and JSON. If you add or modify seats on the carrier's website, any changes made will not reflect back in the booking file or PNR. Once you make changes on the carrier's website, the ownership of the booking file or PNR passes to the airline.

JSON allows separate forms of payment if desired. A virtual card number is treated the same as a normal credit card. The virtual card authorization will be given for 1 transaction only; a separate authorization will be required if paying by 2 or more forms of payment.

This is currently not supported but is on the roadmap.

Refunds are processed as per the airline's policy.

Yes they are no different, but do always check the fare conditions as there could be some exceptions.

The agency can look at the IAR (ARC portal) or BSPlink (BSP portal).

Yes, however, if you modify the booking on the carrier's website, the ownership of the booking transfers to the carrier. These changes will not be reflected back into the booking file/PNR.

Yes. The connection is broken with Travelport, so the agency will not be able to receive updates through Travelport.

Each carrier may handle no-shows differently. We recommend contacting the airline directly.

The DI. lines and remarks fields can be used for MBOS data; the agent will then have to use their own methods to extract this to create a customer invoice.

No, the MIR or TAIR is not automatically updated with these modifications. A DI. line (Travelport+ and 1V) or remark line (1P) will be added to the PNR with these actions. Keep in mind that a PNR with no segments will go into a past date status and a MIR or TAIR cannot be generated. A workaround is to ensure you input retention lines in the PNR before doing these actions to keep the PNR alive so you can re-send the MIR.

In NDC all passengers in the booking are exchanged together and the amount per ticket is reported together for all passengers in the DI lines and not per passenger. We are aware MBOS providers logic is to capture data for one passenger at a time. So MBOS providers will need to have new logic in place to capture this information for all passengers. In NDC if you are only exchanging the ticket for one passenger, then that passenger needs to be split out on his/her own PNR.

HMPR and DDL will not be updated, as these are the GDS record of ticket numbers, which we create. As the airline is doing the ticketing, they are in control of the ticket number and ticket number reports. Some airlines are looking at order history, but this is not implemented yet through IATA standards.

NDC bookings made through Travelport+ and Apollo will automatically create a passive (ZK) segment with all the NDC flight data, fare, taxes, etc. captured in the DI lines (1V and Travelport+) or Itinerary Remarks (1P), and these will flow through to the MIR (1V) and TAIR (1P) to flow through to mid- and back-office systems. This similar process is used today for booking low cost carriers via the LCC’s API.

American Airlines NDC content is available at this time.

The priority and immediate focus is American Airlines. United Airlines is being scoped and is under review.

AA NDC content is available in several countries. See the NDC Guide for Apollo and Worldspan for countries supported by each airline.

Apollo and Worldspan customers in Canada, Mexico, and the United States will be provisioned. However, content will also be available for Apollo and Worldspan customers in other points of sale using the current NDC provisioning channels.

Shopping and booking NDC content on 1V/1P is available through existing JSON API requests and responses. The only difference between 1V/1P and Travelport+ is the value the source of the response.

You must be specifically provisioned to access American Airlines NDC content on Apollo or Worldspan:

1. Sign in to https://my.travelport.com.

2. Select the Help and resources menu then Travelport support.

3. Scroll to the bottom of the page. In the Raise a Case box, click Open a Request.

4. On the next page, select Developer Product Services.

5. In the Problem Type list, select API activation/provisioning.

6. In the Product list, select RESTful JSON API.

Once you receive your pre-production credentials, you can begin developing and testing. Refer to Ready to Certify? for certification steps.

Yes, developing against JSON API services for 1P/1V prepares the agency to migrate to Travelport+. This is not technical debt and will be a step closer to moving to Travelport+. The same services used for 1P/1V will also be used to shop and book content on Travelport+. The only difference between 1V/1P and Travelport+ is the value of the source of the response.

Users will need separate JSON credentials for each GDS.

If you currently have any negotiated or private fares with American Airlines, contact your sales representative to access it via NDC. Note: NDC does not support net fares.

MIR and TAIR data is transmitted in the same way as any type of booking, and NDC data will be stored in the DI remarks. It is not automatically transmitted.