Exchange Price Quote

Overview

Exchange Price Quote enables agents to complete an exchange when the itinerary has already been modified and they want only a single exchange quote. This is especially helpful for corporate customers who require direct exchanges for specific flights rather than shopping for alternatives.

Supported scenarios

General scenarios supported:

• Single and multiple PCCs

• Exchanges are supported for the following:

  • One-way, round-trip, open-jaw itineraries (with or without ARNK segments)

  • PNRs with up to 9 passengers

  • All PTC

  • Wholly unflown

  • Conjunction tickets

  • Maintain the brand from original ticket

  • Payment as cash, credit/debit card and invoice added to the booking file.

  • Private fares (including private fares shared through PFAR field with PCC on it)

  • Private fares using an account code

  • PNR has Hotel or Car segment

  • Interline tickets

  • Exchanges with an unused ticket

• BSP Carriers must support EMD:

  • Change fees are collected via EMD

  • Refundable balances are automatically refunded via EMD

  • In both cases, a SVC segment is added and the EMD issued

• ARC Carriers must support MCO:

  • Change fees are collected at time of ticketing

  • MCO is automatically issued for any negative balance when ticket is nonrefundable

  • Refund to original form of payment when ticket is refundable

• Ticket and Hold Exchange are supported

• If MIR is linked on Ticket, it will issue MIR to the back office

• Keep to Brand modifier (no change to origin/destination)

• Commission/Tour Code/Endorsement/IT-BT modifiers

Preparing the PNR with the new itinerary

This flow is designed for agents who work with corporate clients or already know the exact flight their customer wants. It allows them to modify the itinerary before entering into the standard exchange process. This itinerary can be modified in two ways:

• Cancel previous itinerary and book the new one (HK status)

• Keep original itinerary and book new segments (can be booked “HK” or held “HS”)

Note: this release does not have scope when an agent changes the original segment with entry @1/date. This will come in a future release.

Start exchange

1. Once the itinerary is modified, open Graphical Booking File, and select Change Flight. A dialog displays the available exchange options for this booking—provided it is eligible for exchange.

   When itinerary is updated and no filed fare exists, flights display in the Unpriced flights section.

   

   When original itinerary is kept and new segments are added (HK or HS),the original itinerary displays in Reservations section and new flights display in Unpriced flights section.

   

   If you do not have exchange permissions, or if the flight coupons have a status other than OPEN or ARPT, the booking is not eligible for exchange.

2. Select the option Price flights I´ve already changed and select Continue. A price panel displays.

   

Pricing option

The Exchange Price Panel automatically populates flight and traveler information from the booking file. The user must select the flights to price and apply any relevant pricing modifiers to obtain the desired fare.

3. In Travelers and tickets, the passenger’s name and the ticket number associated with each traveler are automatically populated. If there is no ticket in the PNR and you want to perform the exchange using an unused ticket, enter the ticket number manually in the blank ticket field.

4. In Segments to price, all flights are displayed and all segments with HK status are automatically pre-selected. Review the segments you want to price and deselect the ones not needed that will be canceled during the exchange process.

5. In Itinerary modifiers, select As booked or Best buy depending on the desired outcome. Default is as booked.

6. Select the type of fare (Airline Private/Public/Agency Private/Net Fare). If nothing is selected, the default is to send public and private fares.

   

   If original ticket was quoted with a specific branded fare, the name of the branded fare applied is displayed in case the search results are needed on that same brand.

   

7. If a private fare with Account code was applied on the original ticket, the original account code displays and up to four additional account codes can be added. Default is one line, but additional lines can be added/deleted using the + and x buttons.

   If agent wants only to see prices with the specific private fare code entered, then the switch bellows the Private fare code title should be activated and only 1 code is allowed.

8. Select Price to display the reprice response. Select Reset to update the details in the search panel.

Review and confirm

Upon sending the price request, a unique response is returned by the Exchanges API, and the information is populated in the Review and confirm screen. Details of the fare and itinerary display on the left side and the payment, ticket detail information, and PNR information display on the right.

• The New Fare section contains an overview of the price change per passenger, including the penalty fee. The Guaranteed banner indicates that the fare is covered under the Travelport Fare Guarantee Policy.

• Select View pricing detailsto display the complete fare breakdown per passenger, including the tax breakdown. Select Go back to return to the previous screen.

  

• If there is a refundable amount that cannot be issued as EMD due to lack of EMD refundable activation from the airline, a message displays at the bottom of the Fare card.

  

• Itinerary Details displays all the information of the itinerary including City Pair complete name, Airport Name, Terminal information, Date/hours, Brand Name, Fare Basis code and Equipment.

Payments

The Payments section provides a summary of fare or/and fees and provides a payments method drop down which can be used for any additional collection or permitted refund back to the traveler.

9. For any additional collection, select from the form of payment options.

   Currently, the available options are:

   • Cash

   • Credit/Debit card

   • Agency Invoice

     

10. If there is a refund applicable on exchange balance, then select the refund method.

    There are 4 refund methods:

    • EMD

    • MCO

    • Original FOP

    • Unknown (when airline is not sending any refund details, so the agent has to contact airline to get the refund details)

      

11. If necessary, add ticketing modifiers such as:

• Commission: If original commission can be pre-populated the original commission amount or percentage displays.

• Endorsement: Endorsement from the new offer displays as a read only.

• IT/IB: No previous IT/BT selection displays.

• Tour Code: No previous tour code displays.

12. Traveler information contains all the passenger information taken from the booking file (PNR). At this point all fields are not editable.

13. Once any necessary adjustments are made to the payment method, select Ticket to immediately complete the exchange.

    Upon selecting Ticket, Enhanced Exchanges will:

    • Issue the ticket(s)

    • (When applicable) - Create the SVC segments for penalty (BSP only)

    • (When applicable) - Add penalty fee as a tax (BSP only)

    • (When applicable) - Issue an EMD for the penalty (BSP only)

    • (When applicable) - Penalty charge at time of ticketing (ARC only)

    • If there is a residual value, then a refundable EMD is issued (BSP only)

    • If there is a residual value and it is not going back to the original form of payment, then a residual MCO is issued (ARC only)

14. Alternatively, select Hold instead of Ticket.

    Upon selecting Hold, Enhanced Exchanges will:

    • Store the new filed fare that will be used for the exchange, once it is processed manually later

    • Update the ticketing modifiers in the new filed fare with the FEX modifier and original ticket number

    • (When applicable) - Create the SVC segments for penalty (BSP only)

    • (When applicable) - Add penalty fee as a tax (BSP only)

    • (When applicable) - Add the Penalty charge at time of ticketing (ARC only) to the ticketing modifiers in the new filed fare

    Note: At present, once the PNR is in hold state for a future exchange, you cannot process the final exchange using the Enhanced Exchanges GUI. The final exchange will need to be processed manually (i.e. using TKP entry and issue also EMD).

15. On completion of a successful exchange, a confirmation screen displays.

    Note: If the payment type is unknown on refund/residual cases, the final confirmation screen displays a banner advising the agent If you wish to process the refund or this trip, the airline requires you to contact them.

Error messages

If any system error occurs during the exchange process a red warning message displays.

• If error occurs during pricing, Price panel is kept open so the pricing modifiers can be changed and try again

• If error occurs during fulfillment and there is a payment error, Review and confirm screen remains open so payment can be updated

• For any other error, there is a redirect to the PNR view to start the exchange process again or ignore it.

Known issues

• For Hold exchanges, if the FOP is changed on the Review and Confirm screen, the new FOP is saved in the exchange transaction. When issuing the exchange with cryptic entries, it will maintain the FOP selected during the transaction, but the F. field will remain with the original FOP that was on the PNR.