OB Fees

OB fees, also known as Carrier Ticketing Fees, are defined by IATA as the industry standard for ticketing and for the application of credit card fees. 'O' indicates fees are 'Off ticket' fees and are therefore not actually shown on the ticket. Ticket fees are used by airlines to instruct pricing systems how to collect ticketing (OB T type fees) and/or credit card fees (OB F type fees) on an airline's behalf when they are the validating carrier. Ticket fees can only be imposed and/or collected by the validating/plating carrier. These fees are used by the airline to cover the costs of accepting payment by credit card. The ticket fee is reported as tax code OB by IATA assignment.

OB F Fees

OB F fees are dependent on the form of payment provided in Low Fare Shopping, Air Pricing, and Air Booking. OB F fees can be broken down into credit card fees and debit card fees and are dependent upon how the carrier files the fee.

Credit Card Fees Debit Card Fees

FCA: Any credit card

FDA: Any debit card

FC1: Credit card numbers starting with "1"

FD1: Debit card numbers starting with "1"

FC3: Credit card numbers starting with "3"

FD3: Debit card numbers starting with "3"

FC4: Credit card numbers starting with "4"

FD4: Debit card numbers starting with "4"

FC5: Credit card numbers starting with "5"

FD5: Debit card numbers starting with "5"

FC6: Credit card numbers starting with "6"

FD6: Debit card numbers starting with "6"

If the carrier wants the same fee to apply to all credit card flavors, the carrier will file the sub-code FCA. If a carrier wants to file different fees for the different types of credit cards, the carrier will use the sub-codes that includes the first number of the credit or debit card (FC4, FC5, etc.). We will only return one fee with the same sub-code, but can return multiple sub-codes (for example, FCA, FC1, FC2, FC3, FC4, FC5, FC6, FD1, FD2, FD3, FD4, FD5, FD6, and FDA can technically all be returned as separate fees) when no form of payment type is specified. When a Form of Payment type is specified (e.g., credit), we will only return the fees applicable to that type (FCA or FC1, for example). If the carrier files both an FCA and an FC4 (for example), we will return both fees because they have different sub-codes. Airlines would file in this manner if they want to charge for both sub-codes; it is an unusual filing, but it can happen.

OB T Fees

OB T fees are ticketing fees independent of the form of payment chosen. Ticketing fees can be based on any of the following criteria: travel dates, ticket issue date, ticketing channel, journey locations, account code, ticket designator, passenger type, and fare basis/fare basis owner.

OB T fees are not related to the form of payment. T type (T01, T02, T03, etc.) are ticketing fees. These fees are defined by the carrier, and can be based on point of sale, cities on the itinerary, account codes, and various other criteria. If the scenario matches the coded data for a OB "T" type fee, the fee will be charged regardless of the form of payment.

OB Fees in Air Book

The OB fees for a Universal Record are returned after the Universal Record is ticketed with a credit card or debit card form of payment.

All OB fees are associated at the itinerary level; they are not returned per passenger.

Important: OB fees are charged after ticketing. Therefore, the AirReservation/Payment @Amount value does not include OB fees. The OB fees listed in FeeInfo (when FeeInfo@Code="OB") is a separate charge made by the provider following ticketing.

Exceptions

Apollo does not support @CheckOBFees and always returns OB Fees as a tax, regardless of any value that might be sent in CheckOBFees and/or FormOfPayment. In both Air Pricing and Air Booking, the following is returned and the fee, as a tax, is added in to the total price:

<air:TaxInfo Category="OB" Amount="CAD23.50" Key="QjtNltgSRk2HgLDDCEKspg=="/>

OB Fees in Air Pricing and Low Fare Shopping Changes

The implementation of Form of Payment and Ticketing fees (OB Fees) in the Low Fare Search and Air Price transactions:

Important: To access 1G OB Fees through LowFareSearch, please contact your Travelport representative.

@CheckOBFees is a string. Possible values include: 

CheckOBFees values vary by provider. These values and defaults apply to both AirPrice and LowFareSearch requests.

OB "F" type fee implementation changed as follows:

The fees returned and their placement in the response depend on whether form of payment information is sent in the request (via AirPriceReq/FormOfPayment or LowFareSearch/FormOfPayment) and, if included, what form of payment was sent.

Refer to DA 646 for sample requests and responses. Log into MyTravelport, then enter search DA 646 form of payment and ticketing ob fee changes. You may need to restrict the search to Product/Developer advisories and click Search again.

 

Exempting OB Fees on Galileo  

Important: Exemption of OB Fees is not supported in 1V, 1P.

Some airlines exempt their corporate customers from paying OB fees. These exempt corporations are identified to Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP) and the airlines by a tour code that is entered at the time of booking.

In Universal.xsd, an ExemptOBFees element was added to support OB fee exemption when using Galileo (1G) only.

The ExemptOBFees element is available in:

UniversalRecordModifyRsp displays the exempt OB fees if the update was successful. If the updates was not successful, an error message is returned as a warning in the response.

Errors are returned in UniversalRecordModifyRsp/ResponseMessage with @Type = Warning.

  • If the modifier contains duplicate Carrier Ticketing Fee OB Fee sub-codes:

    ERROR 9127 – DUPLICATE OB FEE EXEMPT SUBCODE

  • If an invalid Carrier Ticketing Fee OB Fee sub-code exemption is requested, when OB Fees are present:

    ERROR 9128 – INVALID OB FEE EXEMPT FORMAT

  • When more than 8 sub-codes are entered:

    ERROR 9126 - OB FEE EXEMPT SUBCODES EXCEED MAXIMUM

OB fee exemptions are returned when retrieving a Universal Record through an import or retrieve response.