Sell a rental car from low-to-high availability

Smartpoint Cloud provides an availability display with rates appearing in low-to-high order, so you can choose the best available rate. You can also add search qualifiers to narrow your search for specific types of rates.

Use car availability to display a list of car rental options to determine which best meets your customer’s needs. You can display car availability with or without air segments.

If air segments already exist in the reservation, Travelport+ assumes:

  • The pick-up location, date and time is the same as the arrival of the air segment.

  • The drop-off location, date and time is the same as the departure of the air segment.

Selling a rental car has three steps:

  1. Display low-to-high availability

    This could be a graphical search or using cryptic commands in the terminal window.

  2. Read the details and rate rules

    You should read the rules to verify that you can sell at a particular rate. You can then confirm any particulars with your customer, such as:

    1. Rental requirements (e.g., minimum, and maximum days)

    2. Age requirements

    3. Guarantee or deposit requirements

    4. Cancellation policies

  3. Sell the car

Graphical search

Step 1:  Display low-to-high availability

  1. Press the search icon .

  2. Choose Car search from the drop-down menu.

  3. Enter the location, pick-up, drop-off dates and times and optional car rental company and car size and press search. Some details will be pre-populated if flight segments exist within the reservation (date, time, and pick-up fields). City codes can be used as pick-up and drop-off locations for car rental searches. When a city code is chosen, a location list displays for you to choose a rental location.

  4. If a company is selected, the Corporate discount, Membership number, and Promotional code fields are activated.

  5. Press Search.

Step 2:  Read the details and rate rules

  1. Select any car from the list and the details are displayed on the right hand side of the screen.

  2. Scroll down and read all the rules from all sections before continuing to sell.

Step 3:  Sell the car

  1. Press Book.

  2. The Payment field allows you to add the credit card details.

  3. Enter a name and phone field. These will be pre-populated if adding the car to an existing booking file, or if a profile has been transferred already.

  4. Press Book and confirm.

Additional car reservation information displays in the graphical booking file, such as shuttle information, business hours, payment method, additional charges, drop off charge for one-way rentals, price details, rate rules, and return policies.

Terminal window

Step 1:  Display low-to-high availability

Enter the cryptic command for your search. For example, the basic format to search for a car at Frankfurt airport from 09:00 on 12th February to 17:00 on 15th February is:

CAL12FEB-15FEBFRA/ARR-0900/DT-1700

Go to MyTravelport for more formats or use H/CAL and H/CALQ for more optional modifiers.

The following table lists the components of the low-to-high availability screen:

Component

Description

1

Line number

+

+ = Inside availability participant.

ENTERPR

Car vendor

O / T / C

Location of the car rental pickup:

T = Terminal     O = Off-terminal     C= City

S or N

Availability status:

S = Available to sell. N = On request.

G or Q or @

Rate guarantee indicator:

G = Rate guaranteed.

Q = Quoted rate subject to change.

@ = Rate converted from currency originally displayed (estimate only).

MBMN

Car type code

64.19 RD

(RW / RD / D / W / E /P)

Rate. Shown in local currency, can be daily (D), weekly (W), weekend (E), rate depending on the length of rental. The R reminds agent car must be returned to the rental station where the car was picked up. A P indicates a package (usually prepaid) rate.

FK

Free kilometers or mileage:

UNL= Unlimited mileage.

300 = Specific mileage allowance.

0.29

0.00

Charge for additional mileage or kilometers:

0.29 = Additional mileage or kilometer charges.

0.00 = No charge.

APPROX TOTAL

Estimated applicable car rental charges including base rate, taxes, surcharges, mandatory fees, and any applicable drop charges for car rental duration.

Support car prepaid rates

Smartpoint Cloud supports Pay Now, Pay Later, and Rate Category Y bookings which give agents access to prepaid car rental rates and price breakdowns when booking rentals for their customers.

With a CD number

When you use a corporate discount (CD) number with a CAL request, vendors display car types and rates affiliated with the CD qualifier. You can then view the applicable car types and rates before selling. When viewing rules, it will clearly specify it is a corporate rate.

When you include a CD qualifier in the availability request, the CD number carries over to the reference-sell request.

One-way rental

You may have a customer who would like to pick up a car in one city and drop it off in another city.

When you specify a drop-off location in the availability request, inside availability vendors display car types and rates that allow a pickup and drop-off at the requested points.

Car vendors return base rate totals that include all applicable one-way fees and drop-off charges.

To specify different pick-up/drop off locations, use an entry such as:

CAL02JUN-04JUNLHR/DO-LCY/ARR-1430/DT-1700/EP

Format

Description

CAL

Car low to high availability

02JUN-04JUN

Dates

LHR

Pick up London Heathrow airport

/DO-LCY

Drop off London City airport

/ARR-1430

Pick up time 1430

/DT-1700

Drop off time 1700

EP

Car vendor (Europcar)

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Update an availability display

Once you have requested car availability, you may need to make changes.

To update, use the format function identifier CAU/ followed by the update you want to make. For example, to update the vendor code: CAU/ZE

The following table lists frequently used formats:

To update availability:

Use this format:

Dates

CAU03JUN-06JUN

Change pick-up time

CAU/ARR-1000

Change drop-off time

CAR/DT-1800

Specific Car type

CAU.FCAR

All intermediate cars

CAU.I

Alternate currency

CAU/VSEK

Specific rental company

CAU/ZI

Step 2:  Display rate rules

You can display rate rules from any availability screen. The function identifier is CAV followed by A and the line number.

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In the above example to display rate rules for the CDMR car on line 3, enter CAVA3. You will need to move down (MD) through each page of information.

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The following table lists the rate rule components and their descriptions:

Component

Description

** INSIDE AVAILABILITY RULES DISPLAY ** 

Rules display header lines and sell promptly.

*SUMMARY INFORMATION*

Confirmation of car rental pickup/return date, times, and location. Includes car type description and approximate total.

*RATE DETAIL*

Day/hour charges, recap of unit rate, breakdown of the approximate total amount, drop charge, rate guarantee period, rate code, rate type and category.

Note: Weekend rates appear as a daily rate e.g., Wkend Daily

*TAXES*

All applicable taxes and amounts.

*SURCHARGES / FEES AND OTHER REQUIRED CHARGES*

All applicable mandatory charges.

*COVERAGE*

Types of insurance coverage.

*ADVANCE BOOKING AND PICKUP/RETURN RULES*

Rules for advance booking and pickup/return.

*PICKUP/RETURN LOCATION SUMMARY*

Summary information on pickup location.

*CREDIT CARDS ACCEPTED*

Credit cards accepted for payment and guarantee.

*RESERVATION GUARANTEE/DEPOSIT/PREPAY REQUIREMENT*

Requirements for reservation guarantee, deposit, and prepay.

*SPECIAL TEXT COMMENTS*

Freeform text of additional rules.

BACK TO CARS

SELL CAR ADVANCED SELL

Matching prompts from the top of the display

In addition, for prepaid rates, the amount due now and amount due at the counter is shown.

Note: Once you have displayed the rate rules screen, you can either sell the car from there or redisplay the availability CAL*R

From a sold car segment

To display rules from a sold segment, press the blue rate in the segment. Alternately, enter CAV followed by the segment identifier (S), and the car segment number.

Enter: CAVS3

Note: When viewing rules, it will clearly state if a corporate rate or promotional rate is applied.

Step 3: Sell rental car

You may do a basic sell, or you may need to add additional information to the sell command, such as a frequent renter ID or e-voucher information. For a full list of formats relating to selling cars, see H/CAR/

The sell response varies with the participation level of the car rental company. However, the sold segment appears the same way in the booking file. Some rental companies may require a guarantee or deposit payment, or your agency may use e-Vouchers.

Ensure the passenger’s name has been entered prior to selling a car. Depending on the vendor’s participation, an instant confirmation will be made prior to end transaction.

To sell a basic car from availability, enter: N1An or 01An, where n is the line number.

Entry: N1A3

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The car booking has been made. Enter *R to redisplay the booking and then complete the other mandatory fields as required and end the booking. A ticket arrangement field is not required for a “car only” booking.

Note: Never just ignore a car reservation, as the reservation will remain live, and the traveler or agency could be charged a “no show” fee. If the traveler no longer requires the booking, complete the booking file, and then take the steps shown later in this module to cancel it.

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The fields in blue can be used to access information and modify the PNR.

Enter *I to view any additional information. In this example, we can see the approximate total.

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Additional car sell formats

Other formats you can add to the basic car sell entry N1An:

Format

Explanation

/CD-nnnnnnnn

Corporate discount

/ID-nnnnnnnnn

Customer membership number

/FT-nnnnnnnnn

Airline frequent traveler number

/SI-free text

Service Information

/SQ-CSI

Special equipment (e.g., child seat)

/NM-JONES JOHN

Name override

/BN-nnnnnnnnn

Billing number

/BR-nnnnnnnnn

Billing Reference

/EVV-

E-voucher. Options can be:

Full Credit /EVV-FC

Group/Day /EVV-GDA

Specified amount /EVV-GBP200.00

/TM-TEST.EMAIL@TPORT>COM

Traveler email

/PT-LON4682742742

Traveler phone number

More formats can be found in the Online Formats Guide, accessible from MyTravelport.

The car reservation can be viewed in the graphical environment by using the toggle icon to switch.

Next lesson: Cancel a car segment