OB Fees (Carrier Ticket Fees)

Synonyms

Also known as:

  • Carrier Ticketing Fees
  • Off Ticket Fees
  • Other Booking Fees

Description

OB Fees are defined by IATA as the industry standard for ticketing and for the application of form of payment fees, including credit card fees. "O" indicates fees "Off Ticket" fees, which are not shown on the ticket. The OB Fee is reported as tax code OB by IATA assignment.

OB Fees are used by airlines to instruct pricing systems how to collect fees on an airline's behalf when they are the validating/plating carrier. OB Fees can only be imposed and/or collected by this carrier. These fees are used by the airline to cover the costs of accepting payment by credit card or other form of payment.

There are two types of OB Fees:

  • OB-T: Ticketing Fees.
  • OB-F: FOP (Form of Payment) Fees. Also known as Credit Card Fees.

If applicable, OB Fees are returned only for:

  • Travelport+ (1G); these fees are not returned for Apollo (1V).
  • Agencies that have OB Fees enabled in their AAT (Agency Account Table).

Displaying Fares with OB Fees

By default, all OB Fees are returned if they are applicable to the fare or were not excluded in the request. To return OB Fees, Smartpoint must have access to:

  • A Form of Payment (FOP). The FOP can be added to either:
  • The PNR/Booking File using F. or the Payment tab of the Customer Information window.
  • The fare quote or fare shopping request using FP and the first 6 digits of the credit/debit card number. For example a Fare Shopping request with an FOP: FSMCI22JANATL28JANMCI+FP123456.

Note: Currently, only credit cards and debit cards return in OB Fee information.

  • If OB Fees are filed for the fare, but no Form of Payment (FOP) is present, TKT FEES and CC FEES in the fare details display: FEE MAY APPLY BASED ON FORM OF PAYMENT.
  • If the FOP was entered incorrectly, an error is returned: FORM OF PAYMENT IS INVALID.
  • The plating carrier for the ticket.

If a plating carrier cannot be determined during pricing, a message is displayed in the response.

PRICE EXCLUDES OB FEES

–

MUST INPUT PLATING CARRIER

If applicable to the agency and fare, OB Fees are returned in the results for several transactions on Travelport+ (1G).

Supported Transactions

Transaction

 Travelport+ Format Fill-In Format or Display Item OB Fees Display

Fare Shopping

FS

Flight Shopping

Smartpanel

  • For Network (GDS) Carriers, applicable OB Fees are displayed in the Fare Details in the Fare Shopping results. These additional fees are added to the fare total.
  • OB-F Fees are displayed in CC FEES-XX, where XX is the code of the plating carrier.
  • OB-T Fees are displayed in OTHER FEES-XX, where XX is the code of the plating carrier.

  • For Direct Payment Carriers, both OB Fees and non-OB Fees are displayed as additional fees and a disclaimer is displayed: ADDITIONAL FEES MAY APPLY. These fees are not included in the fare total.

Branded Fares

   

If present, OB Fees are displayed as a separate subtotal item in the Branded Fares screen for Fare Shopping.

Fare Quote/Air Pricing

FQ

  

Fare Quote and Filed Fare responses display OB Fees as a line item: **FEE TOTAL. These fees are included in the grand total.

You can also click the FO link to see an itemized list of all ticket fees.

Fare Quote Best Buy

FQBB

  

Fare Quote Best Buy Regardless of Availability

FQBA

  

Fare Quote Best Buy/Calculates Savings Between Booked and Rebooked Fares

FQBC

  

Fare Quote Alternate

FQA

  

Note: OB Fees are not supported for Fare Quote Planner (FQP) and FQQ.

Filed Fare

*FF

 

If OB-T or OB-F fees that are present in the fare quote, they are also included in the subsequent Filed Fare. The grand total for the Filed Fare does not include the OB Fees. However, the OB Fees are listed in the fare detail for each passenger.

Trip Quote

 

  • In Smartpoint 8.1 and earlier, OB Fees are listed as ESTIMATED FEES INCLUDING TAX in the Trip Quote shopping cart, HTML emails, and text emails.

  • In Smartpoint 8.2 and later, OB Fees and fee information can also be managed directly in the Fees screen for Trip Quote.

In this example, a GBP 16.00 credit card fee from the airline is listed as CC Fees in the Booking File and OB Fees in the the Trip Quote Itinerary.

If present in the Booking File, OB Fees are automatically displayed in the Fees screen for the selected Trip Quote option. The fee amount cannot be modified in the Fees screen. However, the display of the fees can be changed.

The agent edits the display to change the fee description from OB FEE to Airline Credit Card fee, which is displayed in the updated Booking File.

Known Issue

For split tickets, you can configure the display for each fare/ticket separately to using "Show broken out as". However, the Total fee cannot be configured, so Total fee display is taken from the last configured fee.

For example, if:

  • Fare/Ticket 1 is set as Shown broken out as "OB Fee 1".
  • Fare/Ticket 2 is set as Shown broken out as "OB Fee 2".

Then, the OB fee in the Total section of the is displayed as "OB Fee 2".

This known defect will be corrected in a forthcoming release.

Excluding OB Fees

By default, both Ticketing Fees and FOP Fees are returned in applicable transactions. However, requests can be modified to exclude:

  • All OB Fees
  • Only Ticketing Fees
  • Only Form of Payment Fees

Depending on the type of transaction, OB Fees can be excluded using either terminal or fill-in formats.

Supported Transactions

Apollo (1V)

OB Fees are not typically supported.

Travelport+ (1G)
  • Exclude All Fees: +OBX.
  • Exclude Only Form of Payment Fees: +OBXF
  • Exclude Only Form of Ticketing Fees: +OBXT

Supported for:

  • FS (Fare Shopping)
    Example: FSMCI22JANATL28JANMCI+OBX

Note: OB Fees for Fare Shopping can also excluded using the Exclude check boxes in the Advanced tab of the Smartpanel.

  • FQ (Fare Quote)
  • FQBB (Fare Quote Best Buy)

  • FQBA (Fare Quote Best Buy/Calculates Savings Between Booked and Rebooked Fares)

  • Exclude Only Form of Ticketing Fees: +OBXT