FAQs: Shopping and booking

Smartpoint supports three types of fare rules, with traditional (host) accommodating all three formats while NDC only supports two:

• Short Rules: These are abbreviated fare rules that provide a summary of each rule category. They are typically high-level conditions, making them more suitable for experienced travel agents.

• Structured Fare Rules: These rules are categorized into one or more of the following groups: advance reservation/ticketing requirements, minimum/maximum stay, stopovers, penalties, and voluntary exchanges and refunds.

Currently, Flight Search only offers access to short rules. However, there are plans to introduce structured fare rules by 2025. This improvement will allow agents to choose between short rules, which provide a general overview of fare regulations, and structured fare rules, which will outline any associated penalties in detail.

No, booking NDC content is only available on Smartpoint in a graphical environment. The booking file which holds the NDC content can be viewed in both a green screen/cryptic view or a graphical view. However changes can only be made in the graphical view. For example, entering the command ‘XI’ in cryptic green screen workflow will not cancel an NDC segment.

Important: Cancellations and other changes can only be performed in the graphical NDC workflow.

If you currently have any negotiated or private fares with a carrier, contact your sales representative to access it via NDC. Refer to the Airline Capabilities to see which carriers support net fares.

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

For Travelport+ users, yes. If no carrier is specified, the system will look for content for all available carriers.

For 1V/1P users, only AA and UA are available. Apollo and Worldspan users can search for both AA and UA if neither airline is specified in the shop request or drop-down box in Smartpoint.

No, this is the long-term goal, but the current solution will provide a side by side not an aggregated view.

Currently some of the information in a Smartpoint booking file is moved into the plugin screens. The name, telephone numbers, email addresses, and delivery address is populated in the traveler screen. The gender and DOB may need to be entered.

No, this is currently not supported. It is however our long-term plan to ensure that this is supported in Travelport+ and will be communicated in due course.

The key difference between a tracking number or tour code and a Frequent Flyer Number is that the tracking number or tour code are programs for businesses, and Frequent Flyer is a program for individuals. Any business goes in the Corporate Agreement field and the frequent flyer number goes in the Membership field.

The offer is only guaranteed when the order has been created and is ticketed within the airline permitted time lines.

The offer time limit is the time the offer will expire. This time limit is not a price guarantee. Offer time limits vary by carrier. Smartpoint does not return the offer time limit. Therefore, for Smartpoint, we recommend that you book the offer as soon as you choose the flights.

The plugin is behaving as expected and designed – to show a warning banner to the user that a price difference has occurred. The user can choose to accept it or re-shop. NDC offers are not guaranteed until booked, as the offers are dynamic and inventory can often change. This is the nature of NDC – the offers are constantly changing.

Yes, there can be a price change, as this is live inventory and also the offers are dynamic. The price is only guaranteed when the order is created. Where there are price differences between shop-price-book, the Travelport helpdesk team will not be investigating these UNLESS there is a common reoccurring issue. Note: There is an effort to build out NDC pricing and booking performance metrics, and when this is ready, Travelport will be able to run more diagnostics and identify pricing discrepancies.

Yes, most NDC carriers support India Goods and Services Tax within NDC. Any carrier exception is called out in MyTravelport.

Important: Goods and Services Tax information must be added to a booking file prior to accessing the NDC search panel.

This will be similar to EDIFACT. The airline determines and calculates prices/taxes for all PTCs and returns it back as part of the offer.

These brands will automatically come back in the shopping offer response if they are available for the itinerary.

Correct, see below formats to add an email address to a booking file/PNR.

• For Apollo, use entry MT:Tom.Hill³OUTLOOK.COM

• For Worldspan, use entry 5-MTT*SUSAN.ADAMS@CFTSTANDARD.COM

• For Galileo, use entry MT.Tom.Hill@OUTLOOK.COM

No, AA does not require a billing address when adding a credit card payment. If you select the Same as Address on file option, make sure you have added the country code. Anytime you fill in the billing address, the country code must be present.

If an itinerary is shopped that results in an ARNK, the passive PNR will reflect it.

Traditional fares are filed flight schedules and prices that are non-NDC and non-LCC.

For more information about Flight Search, refer to the knowledge base article Travelport+ Smartpoint Desktop - Flight Search.

You cannot mix traditional and NDC content in the same booking file. You will need to create two separate bookings. This will be planned in a later release.

No, this capability is only available on Travelport+.

This error is received due to the way the Flight Search capability performs a ‘handshake’ - or authentication - with the API services that serve up the content. This is an error that will be rectified in a future version to be a more user friendly message.

American Airlines' (for example) NDC search responses may not return every combination of flights that exist for round-trip or larger searches, particularly for routes with many possible route options or where there is a particularly high frequency of flights between airports. For round-trip searches and beyond, the volume of potential flight combinations increases exponentially; it is often not possible to enumerate every possible combination of flights. For searches where one-way pricing is consistent with round-trip pricing (as is the case with most US domestic routes), searching on a one-way basis will typically provide the flight option(s) that a travel agent or traveler is looking for as combinability of flights across outbound and inbound journeys is not needed. Later this year, AA expect to support leg-based search workflows that function similarly to what is already offered by AA on their website. This enhancement will allow a user to build their itinerary based on offer selection for each leg of their journey and Travelport’s NDC workflow will be expanded to include this capability, once it is available for use.

Retrieve using the record locator, as you would with any booking.

No, any modifications to the booking file must be performed through the plugin. If you make any amendments to the booking file (for example changing a seat allocation using the carrier's website), this change will not be reflected in the plugin or the GDS.

You can issue an instant ticket or hold a booking for a time period to ticket at a later date. Refer to the ticketing deadline in the plugin.

Not in the same booking file. 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.

Yes, the rules will be applied and treated the same way as they are for airlines in LCC (e.g., EasyJet or Ryan Air). For example, if you have agency robotics that apply booking file remarks or quality control checks, you can use QCC to run these rules on an NDC PNR. Some rules may need amending for the NDC flow.

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.

The accepted forms of payment are controlled by the airline.

Our current participating NDC airlines accept credit cards, debit cards, and cash for BSP and ARC payments. The type of credit card accepted will vary by carrier and will be displayed in the Form of Payment tab of the plugin. Cash payments are allowed for agencies set up for BSP and ARC WebLink Pay with carriers. Transaction details will appear on your BSP and ARC monthly report.

Your agency may not be set up to use the payment type provided. Please choose an alternate payment type.

NDC facilitates interline bookings and provides the capability to modify them for select carriers.

This is not currently supported. You cannot modify when the HOLD and ISSUE TICKET buttons will be enabled or disabled for users. For 1P users, the ticketing script will also not be supported.

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). Commission can also be claimed and added manually via the ARC portal.

The schedule change will fall into the agent's queues 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 Travelport+, it is queue 11.

• For Apollo, it is queue 22.

• For Worldspan, it is queue 7.

Refer to Schedule Changes for more information and screen examples.

The American Airlines schedule changes process is as follows:

1. American Airlines books the customer on the next best flights and reissues the ticket(s).

2. The schedule change falls into the agent's queue.

3. If the customer is not happy with schedule change, call American Airlines to obtain a waiver code that you can use to modify the flights within the plugin. Refer to Apply waiver code for more information.

4. If American Airlines is called and a change goes through this process, this will break the connection and information will not be returned into the NDC PNR in Travelport. AA should not charge a fee if the customer calls direct.

5. The schedule change information will show up in the DI lines (Travelport+), Ticketing Remark lines (1V), or Remark lines (1P).

6. If AA needs to issue tickets, they do the reissue, and the new ticket number will show up in the DI, Ticketing Remark, or Remark lines.

The schedule change will fall into the agent's queues 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 Travelport+, it is queue 11.

• For Apollo, it is queue 22.

• For Worldspan, it is queue 7.

Refer to Schedule Changes for more information and screen examples.

The American Airlines schedule changes process is as follows:

1. American Airlines books the customer on the next best flights and reissues the ticket(s).

2. The schedule change falls into the agent's queue.

3. If the customer is not happy with schedule change, call American Airlines to obtain a waiver code that you can use to modify the flights within the plugin. Refer to Apply waiver code for more information.

4. If American Airlines is called and a change goes through this process, this will break the connection and information will not be returned into the NDC PNR in Travelport. AA should not charge a fee if the customer calls direct.

5. The schedule change information will show up in the DI lines (Travelport+), Ticketing Remark lines (1V), or Remark lines (1P).

6. If AA needs to issue tickets, they do the reissue, and the new ticket number will show up in the DI, Ticketing Remark, or Remark lines.

A passive booking file with a status code of ZK is automatically created with a record locator reference when the live order is created in the airline's own reservation system.

You would need to use the override entry prior to using the NDC search tool. The agency might need to modify some settings to allow the override entry acceptance.

Bookings created will show the flight data as a passive segment and status code ZK. The fare and tax breakdown, flight details, payment, etc. are stored in the DI lines (Travelport+), Ticketing Remark lines (1V), or Remark lines (1P).

Refer to the MIR examples (1V) and TAIR examples (1P) to see how the NDC booking flows through to these applications.