Optional Services, also known as Ancillaries, involve separate, "a la carte" fees for additional services that the customer can choose to select. Typically, the traveler selects an itinerary at baseline price, and is then offered additional services or features at discrete prices. Optional Services often include functionality for upselling and branded fares. The availability of a given optional service varies by supplier and itinerary.
Optional Services can come from one of three sources:
- ATPCO-Filed Optional Services. These are services that carriers file directly with ATPCO.
- API-Sourced Optional Services. These services are not filed with ATPCO, but are delivered directly from the carrier, via the carrier's API.
- Low Cost Carrier (LCC). These services are linked to specific LCCs. The best practice is to purchase these services using the Universal API Shop, Price, Book, and Modify workflow, not the Air Merchandising Web Services.
Pre-Booking Workflow
Optional Service can be added pre-booking as part of the Shop > Price > Book workflow. In this case, the Optional Services are returned in the Air Pricing transaction and can be submitted in the Air Booking transaction.
Optional Services can be purchased pre-booking for:
- Low Cost Carriers (LCCs) and API carriers through the Airline Content Hub (ACH).
- ATPCO carriers through Galileo (1G), Apollo (1V), and Worldspan (1P), with the exception of Paid Seats which must be purchased after booking.
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Show me an explanation of each step, including whether it is required.
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Functionality |
Description |
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Required. An itinerary is searched for and selected using a Low Fare Shopping call. Note that an Air Availability call can also be used. |
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Required. The first price request is sent to retrieve the optional services available for the selected flights. Optional Service Rules are returned in OptionalServiceRules in the AirPrice response. |
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| Air Seat Map |
Optional. Used to search for available standard free seats or paid seats. |
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Required, ONLY for Low Cost Carriers (LCC) on ACH. A second price request is then sent to price the available services returned in the first price request. Tokens from the response from the first price request are used in the second re-price request. Optional Service Rules are returned in OptionalServiceRules in the AirPrice response. Note: A second air pricing request for ATPCO-filed carriers is not supported. |
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Optional, but recommended. Fare rules supply the requirements or penalties associated with a specific fare quote. By default, short (abridged) fare rules are returned with an Air Pricing response. However, a separate follow-on request is recommended to obtain more detailed fare rules. |
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Required. After flight and fare options are selected, the priced segment can be reserved. Air booking can include a number of modifiers, such as seat assignments (generic or specific), ticket designators, SSRs/OSIs and other types of remarks, and tour codes as well as forms of payment. |
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The booked flights may be ticketed. Fares (even stored fares) can be subject to change up to the point of ticketing. |
See the Air Merchandising Overview for details about the Post-Booking Workflow.
