Premium Flex Search Guide

This guide is specific to Premium Flex Search functionality. The Air Search Guide contains general information about search requests and responses.

See the TripServices Flights APIs Guide for the basic travel terms you need to know to develop your applications, how the TripServices APIs represent those terms in code, and a workflow summary.

In this guide:

GDS only; not supported for NDC. Available only to specifically provisioned customers; contact your account representative for more information.

Premium Flex Search Endpoint

When sending flex search requests, append /premiumflex to the existing Search API endpoint.

Premium Flex Search Options

Premium Flex Search provides flexibility around search dates, origin and destination, alternate airports (based on distance) and PCCs as follows:

  • Premium Flex Search Point of Sale (POS): In the Search request, send PricingModifiersAir/MultiPricingAgency with up to three PCCs to search in addition to the provisioned PCC. PCCs must be a branch agency provisioned with access for the requested PCC. The flex search options sent in Search carry over to any subsequent Next Leg Search request.

  • Premium Flex Search Dates: In the Search request, send SearchCriteriaFlight/daysBeforeDeparture and/or /daysAfterDeparture with the value/s 1, 2, or 3 to search up to that number of days before and/or after the departure date. The flex search options sent in Search carry over to any subsequent Next Leg Search and Flight Specific Search reference payload request.

  • Premium Flex Search Origin and Destination: In the Search request, send SearchCriteriaFlight/AdditionalFrom and/or AdditionalTo with up to two additional departure and arrival locations. The flex search options sent in Search carry over to any subsequent Next Leg Search request.

  • Premium Flex Search Airport Distance (radius): In the Search request, send radius and radiusMeasurement in the SearchCriteriaFlight/From and/or To objects to search for alternate airports within a specific distance. The maximum distance allowed is 100 miles or 160 kilometers. Up to 4 alternate commercial airports within the specified distance can be returned.

Scope and support

  • GDS only, not supported for NDC.

  • Not supported for split ticketing or sorting.

  • Only one flex search capability can be sent in a request.

  • Supported in the Search API for journey- and leg-based searches for one and two O&Ds; three or more O&Ds are out of scope.

  • Any flex options sent in the Search request carry over to any subsequent Next Leg Search and Flight Specific Search reference payload requests.

  • Flight Specific Search supports Flex Search POS for both the reference and full payload. Neither payload supports Flex Search Dates.

Aggregated and Streamed Responses

The Accept header value controls the format of the response; see Common Headers for details:

  • for aggregated content (all offers are combined into a single CatalogProductOfferingsResponse object), send with the value application/json

  • for streamed content (multiple CatalogProductOfferingsResponse objects are returned consecutively) send with the value application/stream+json

Numbering Formats in References for Aggregated Content

For aggregated content for flex searches, a single CatalogProductOfferingsResponse object contains offers departing on different dates, for different PCCs, or for different airports. To identify offers, the internal IDs in flex search responses have been updated with the letter f and a number:

  • offer ids: f1o1, f1o2, and so on in the first offer, f2o1, f2o2 and so on in the second offer, etc.
  • Do not assume that CatalogProductOffering/id values follow a sequential pattern (e.g., f1, f2, f3) in aggregated flex search responses. Implementations must not rely on this ordering when consuming the data.
  • CombinabilityCode: f1j0, f1j1 and so on in the first offer, f2j0, f2j1, and so on in the second offer.
  • ProductRef: f1p0, f1p1, and so on in the first offer, f2p0, f2p1, and so on in the second offer.
  • BrandRef: f1b0, f1b1, and so on in the first offer, f2b0, f2b1 and so on in the second offer.
  • flightRef: f1s1, f1s2, and so on in the first offer, f2s1, f2s2, and so on in the second offer.
  • TermsAndConditionsRef: f1T0, f1T1, and so on in the first offer, f2T0, f2T1,and so on in for the second offer.

For streamed content for both flex POS and dates, offers are separated into individual CatalogProductOfferingsResponse objects. Each CatalogProductOfferingsResponse contains offers for only one PCC or one date, so the fx numbering format is not used in streamed content.

Flex Search Point of Sale (POS)

Flex Search Point of Sale (POS) allows you to expand your offer options for customers based on the point of sale of your branch agencies. The response returns offers in geographic locations for up to three PCCsClosed Pseudo city code. A travel provider's identification code for the APIs, provisioned from Travelport. Used to determine access and other settings in the APIs for your company. sent in PricingModifiersAir/MultiPricingAgency.

  • If more than 3 PCCs are sent in MultiPricingAgency, only the first 3 are validated, and the warning “MAXIMUM NUMBER OF PREMIUM FLEX SEARCH MULTI PRICING AGENCIES HAS BEEN EXCEEDED” is returned.

  • If a both PricingPCC and MultiPricingAgency are sent with PCCs, the PCC in PricingPCC is ignored, and the warning “PREMIUM FLEX SEARCH MULTI PRICING AGENCY CANNOT BE COMBINED WITH PRICING PCC” is returned.

In the response, each offer returns its corresponding PCC in ReferenceListTermsAndConditions/TermsAndConditions @TermsAndConditionsAir/Pricing Agency.

The following example shows the high-level structure of a streamed response to a flex POS request. All major objects except for instance of CatalogProductOffering have been replaced with ... to emphasize the overall structure of returning multiple CatalogProductOfferingsResponse objects. For the one offer shown below, the corresponding ReferenceListTermsAndConditions returns PricingAgency with the PCC for that offer.

Flex Search Dates

Flex Search Dates allows you to return offers for a range of dates around the specified departure date. In the request, in either or both daysBeforeDeparture and/or daysAfterDeparture in each instance of SearchCriteriaFlight, send the value 1, 2, or 3 to specify that many days to search before and/or after the date in departureDate.

When a customer sends a reference based Flight Specific Search request after a successful Premium Flex Search Origin/Destination response, the error PREMIUM FLEX SEARCH OPTION REQUESTED IS NOT SUPPORTED is returned.

When departureDate and arrivateDate are in the request, departureDate is validated and arrivalDate is ignored. If only the arrivalDate is sent, the request acts like a normal search and does not return flex search options in the response. A warning is returned.

The following example shows an aggregated response to a flex search dates request. For brevity, only two offers are shown, and the Result and ReferenceList objects have been replaced with ... to show the overall structure. For aggregated content for a leg-based search, per below, each offer returns FlexNextLeg to identify the return date of the product (the next leg) that is combinable with the outbound product at the price and terms and conditions in that offer.

Flex Search Origin and Destination

Flex Search Origin and Destination allows you to include additional departure and/or arrival locations in Search. Send SearchCriteriaFlight/AdditionalFrom and/or AdditionalTo with up to two additional departure and arrival locations.

In this example, the From airport is JFK, and BOS and EWR are included as additional departure airports. The To airport is MIA, and FFL and LGB are included as additional arrival airports.

For the leg-based Premium Flex Search Origin/Destination response, where the offers/products of the first and additional departure and arrival locations are returned, FlexNextLeg Departure and Arrival airport are returned under each CatalogProductOffering. This identifies the departure and arrival airport of the offer/product that is combinable with the outbound offer/product.

The following example shows an aggregated response to a flex search origin and destination request, which means that all offers are combined into a single CatalogProductOfferingsResponse object. For brevity, only the first offer is shown completely, and other options, the Result, and ReferenceList objects have been replaced with ... to show the overall structure.

Flex Search Airport Distance

Flex Search Airport Distance allows you to search for offers from alternate airports that are within the specified distance from the origin and/or destination airport. To search by airport distance, send radius and radiusMeasurement in the SearchCriteriaFlight/From and/or To objects. The maximum distance allowed is 100 miles or 160 kilometers. Up to 4 alternate commercial airports within the specified distance can be returned.

When using Flex Search Airport Distance, it is recommended that you specify airport codes in the From and To fields and that you also set "cityOrAirport": "Airport Only". If a city code is provided instead, and that city is served by multiple airports, the search response may return duplicate offers and products.

For the leg-based Flex Search Airport Distance response, where the offers/products of the first and additional departure and arrival locations are returned, FlexNextLeg Departure and Arrival airport are returned under each CatalogProductOffering. This indicates the departure and arrival airport of the offer/product that is combinable with the outbound offer/product.

The following example requests offers from OGG and airports within a 25-mile radius of OGG to LAX. Both the From and To locations are set to “Airport Only”.

In the Search response, the CatalogProductOffering with “id” that starts with “f1” returns offers from OGG (Kahului airport on Maui) to LAX. The CatalogProductOferring with “id” that starts with “f2” return offers from JHM (Kapalua airport on Maui) to LAX. For brevity, only two offers from each departure airport are shown; details from other sections have been replaced with ... to show the overall structure.