ticketing

Revalidating ETRs

When a passenger changes their flight, such as flight dates, it may be possible to revalidate the ticket, instead of reissuing the ticket.

Revalidation is governed by IATA rulings, which state that you can only revalidate a ticket to the same carrier, fare, class and routing. If you forget to revalidate an e-ticket, the reservation in the Worldspan system will not match the e-ticket data held in the airline system.

The validity of the ticket may determine whether it must be reissued rather than revalidated. You cannot revalidate tickets that:

  • Have any past-date segments.
  • Change a closed flight to an open segment.
  • Are booked on an airline that does not permit revalidation of tickets. See Unsuccessful Revalidation for more information.
To revalidate ETRs:
  1. Retrieve a PNR.
  2. From the Documentation menu, select Display Ticket. Or, enter ETR[TICKET NUMBER] at the command prompt.

The Display Ticket script in the Smart Panel is displayed.

  1. Click the Document History radio button.

  1. Click the ticket number link to display the ticket information.

  1. For the desired flight coupon, click the Select Segment drop-down arrow to select the desired segment. In this example, two conjunctive tickets are displayed.

At least one segment must be selected. You can select more than one segment in Smartpoint, however, some airlines will not revalidate more than one segment in a single request. For these airlines, you must repeat the revalidation request for each segment.

  1. Optional. Click the Calendar icon for Not Valid Before and/or Not Valid After if you changed the dates for your segment.
  2. Click CONTINUE to process the revalidation.

Or, click the Delete icon to clear the fields on this screen and begin again.

Successful Revalidation

A successful response displays the revalidated ETR information with the message REVALIDATION PROCESSED.

The updated e-ticket now matches the information in the PNR.

Unuccessful Revalidation

Two common causes of an unsuccessful revalidation are:

  • An airline that does not support revalidation.

If the airline does not support revalidation, the ticket must be reissued with no additional collection.

In some cases, a REVALIDATION REQUEST DENIED error message indicates that the airline does not support revalidation. In other cases, a successful revalidation response is displayed, but the ticket information is not changed based on the requested revalidation dates.

  • To confirm if an airline supports revalidation, see INFO ETxx0 in the Worldspan system, where xx is the 2-character airline code.
  • Contact the airline to request the airline to process the revalidation.
  • An airline supports revalidation, but limits the number of segments/coupons that can be revalidated at one time.

Some airlines limit the number of segments/coupons that can be revalidated in a single request. Typically, an error message is displayed: REVALIDATION REQUEST DENIED.

  • To confirm if an airline restricts the number of segments for, see INFO ETxx0 in the Worldspan system, where xx is the 2-character airline code. You may need to move down (MD) to see if the there is additional information that indicates an accepted number of segments.
  • For example, INFO ETAF0 shows YES to Revalidations, but Note 2 states: Revalidation is limited to one segment at a time. If more than one reval is necessary such as the case with connecting flights, the revalidation template must be completed for each flight segment.
  • If the airline has a limit of one segment/coupon at a time, send a separate request for each segment/coupon revalidation.