Air High-level Workflow Hotel High-level Workflow Vehicle High-level Workflow The Universal Record Standalone Merchandising High-level Workflow

High-Level Workflow Overview

The travel industry has a similar workflow regardless of whether you want to book a hotel, car, or fly to a favorite destination. This similarity is evident in Universal API, where most flows share the same overall structure and rely on multiple transactions to accomplish the goal of making a booking. In general, the order is:

Preliminary travel plans are often finalized in combination with various shopping functions. For example, a traveler interested in lower airfares may modify their preliminary travel dates to take advantage lower fare possibilities offered on other dates.

Universal API provides shopping options to obtain a list of services that meet a traveler's plans and preferences. Each of the alternatives can be further evaluated by requesting descriptive information:

  • Availability – Searching for and selecting specific inventory from a travel provider.
  • Low Fare Shopping - Searching for and selecting specific air or rail inventory from a travel provider, based on fare and availability.

Depending on the type of travel arrangement, availability is determined before, after, or in tandem with pricing.

The traveler's preferences and requirements typically drive the type of scheduling or availability transaction that is requested. The type of availability and pricing options vary for air, car, and hotel requests.

After availability is determined, the airfare or rate can be selected. Depending on the type of travel arrangement, pricing may be determined in tandem with availability. The type of availability and pricing options vary for air, car, and hotel requests.

All providers support completing the booking process (also known as selling or reserving). The standard booking process involves creating an itinerary; this process varies somewhat for air, vehicle, and hotel reservations. However, after the reservations have been sold, variations on the standard process can be used to cancel or modify all or part of the reservation.

When travel is booked, a reservation or Passenger Name Record (PNR) is created, depending on the content source. If this is the first booking for a passenger for a specific trip, a Universal Record is also created. Reservations/PNRs can be added to existing Universal Records, as well.

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Review the workflows: