Low Fare Shopping (Synchronous)

Low Fare Shopping serves as a fare shopper tool for users who want to check prices for a general itinerary. It is best suited for fare-driven travelers. A number of modifiers can be added to the Low Fare Shopping request to return specified responses. These modifiers include: time period, included or excluded carriers, private fare modifiers, and passenger types.

Low Fare Shopping functionality combines air availability and a fare quote request to return the lowest available fares for a specified itinerary, using origin/destination and date information. Fares are available for one-way, round-trip, and multi-city travel. Low Fare Shopping does not require a booked itinerary to return fare data.

If a client is provisioned for RCS, a Low Fare Shopping search can include an aggregated search for both fare and Rail itineraries that meet the requested search parameters.

If a search is more oriented toward scheduling or availability than lowest fare options, an Air Availability request followed by an Air Pricing request can be made as an alternative to a Low Fare Shopping transaction.

Note: Search from multiple PCCs in a single LowFareSearchRequest is not supported.

Schema

Located in Air.xsd:

Request

Use LowFareSearchReq in AirReqRsp.xsd to make a Low Fare Shopping request.

  1. Enter the minimum required data:
    • Information to identify the requestor, sent in BillingPointOfSaleInfo @OriginApplication.

    • Elements from SearchAirLeg.

    • Each instance of SearchAirLeg represents a request for a discrete leg of an air trip and identifies the departure and arrival dates, times, and locations for each leg of the trip:

      • The Origin and Destination city/airport codes using typeLocation.

      • A departure or arrival date. The maximum days in advance for a search is 361.

      • A departure or arrival time.

      Note: Requests for multi-destination journeys that contain three or more destinations follow the same structure and logic as one-way or round-trip journeys.

  2. Enter additional modifiers to narrow the search results. Because Low Fare Shopping combines both air availability and faring, availability and/or pricing modifiers can be used to narrow the request parameters.
  3. PCC

    Pseudo City Code details as follows:

    Note: The Enumeration child element is not currently in use.

  4. If Filtered Fare Rules are desired in the response, send FareRulesFilterCategory/CategoryCode values. This option returns rules for the requested categories, which can be displayed in a matrix to provide users with an overview of the rule options available for a specific fare. A subsequent Air Pricing or Fare Rules request can then be made to obtain the full rules text.

  5. If using the Travelport Search Control Console (SCC) or Content Optimizer - Air (COA), it is optional to use LowFareSearchReq to activate or override the SCC / COA filters.

  6. LowFareSearchReq can be used to request a split ticketing search. Refer to Split Ticketing Search for more information.

Rail Requests

If a client is provisioned for RCS, a Low Fare Shopping search can include an aggregated search for both Air fare and Rail itineraries that meet the requested search parameters. For rail requests, LowFareSearchReq is mapped to RailAvailabilitySearchReq in the Rail service.

By default, applicable rail itineraries are included in the responses. If Rail responses are not desired, the RCS provider can be excluded from the request.

See Rail Low Fare Shopping for details.

Response

A Low Fare Search response is returned in LowFareSearchRsp.

An unsuccessful LowFareSearchRsp message returns a generic error message.

A successful LowFareSearchRsp message returns flights with price options and rail journeys or rail segments with price offers. The amount and type of data included can vary by the supplier and provider.

Aggregated Response: Depending on your provisioning, a Low Fare Shopping response can contain aggregated data with GDS (i.e., Apollo, Galileo, and Worldspan), Air Content Hub (i.e., Low Cost Carrier), and rail data. To determine where the data for a particular air segment in the response originated, look in AirSegment/AirAvailInfo @ProviderCode.

Air Pricing Solution

AirPricingSolution is the container that references combinations of availability and pricing responses. For brevity, only one instance of a particular fare or availability is listed in the Low Fare Shopping response, even though the same fare or availability may be referenced multiple times by multiple providers and suppliers.

AirPricingSolution is returned in the response when @SolutionResult is "true". If SolutionResult is "false", AirPricePointsList is returned in the response. The default for @SolutionResult is "false".

A response contains either AirPricingSolution or AirPricePointList, not both. The prices in the response are the same, regardless of which is returned. See Low Fare Shopping by Air Price Points for more details.

Note: For Worldspan, if SolutionResult="true", BaggageAllowance is not returned in FareInfo. Therefore, use SolutionResult="false" to return BaggageAllowance.

For GDS providers, such as Galileo and Worldspan, one AirPricingSolution node is typically returned for a complete itinerary; this node references all requested segments which are typically fared as a single unit. ACH responses typically return two AirPricingSolution nodes for a complete round-trip itinerary, which reflects the Low Cost Carrier model of offering separate availability/pricing for the respective outbound and inbound segments of a trip.

Air Itinerary Solution

For ACH responses, an AirItinerarySolutionRef may also be returned in AirPricingSolution. AirItinerarySolution is the container for specific air segment references, and groups outbound and inbound segments, respectively.  

Many Low Cost Carriers in ACH return only single, one-way fares, which requires the user to select two Air Pricing Solutions from a list of multiple fare options to complete a round-trip itinerary. Each instance of AirItinerarySolutionRef references a single one-way trip. References from both the first group (inbound) and the second group (outbound) in AirItinerarySolution are required for a round-trip itinerary.

AirItinerarySolution are typically returned for ACH responses, but not GDS responses.

Rich Content and Branding

The response may also contain Brand details for the fares. See Rich Content and Branding in the Low Fare Shopping Response for details on the BrandList and FareInfoList elements, which return branded fare information.

Rail Response Data

See Rail Low Fare Shopping for more details.

Next Steps

While the Low Fare Shopping response frequently returns all of the necessary information to perform an Air Booking, it is strongly recommended, and in some instances required, to confirm the fare data in an LFS response with an Air Pricing request for the selected Air Pricing Solution.

Important! An Air Pricing request is required for Low Cost Carriers (LCCs) before Air Booking.

Depending on the data source, some LFS responses may return cached fare data that does not contain the most current information. However, Air Pricing returns the most current available data for fares.

Also some Low Cost Carriers on ACH may return only partial pricing data in a Low Fare Shopping response; these responses may exclude taxes or other fees. Therefore, an Air Pricing transaction is required to return complete pricing information.

Also, for brevity, Low Fare Shopping responses do not return Fare Rules. Therefore, a Fare Rules follow-on request is also recommended using FareInfoList/FareInfo/FareRuleKey from LowFareSearchRsp. Fare rules in text format also return in the price response when @FareRuleType="long" or "short" is sent in the price request. Structured rules are currently not supported in AirPriceReq. To obtain structured fare rules, please use the FareRules transaction.

Exceptions

In addition to the exceptions listed below for general Low Fare Shopping functionality, exceptions for requests and responses for search and pricing modifiers are listed in their respective topics.