Vehicle Search Modifiers

The @PreferredCurrency attribute can be added to the request to search by a specific or alternate currency.

Prior to Vehicle v50.0, when sending a VehicleSearchAvailability request, the Galileo (1G) provider returned a converted rate based on the country of pick-up rather than returning the rate that the vendor provided. Since the rate was converted, it reflected as an approximate rate and did not return the @RateGuaranteed=”True”. This caused a problem for customers who did not display a rate on their website if it was not showing as guaranteed. This caused a loss of sales as certain locations such as MEX always returned with the Galileo (1G) converted currency rather than the guaranteed vendor currency.

Universal API release 20.3.2 and later provides the ability to send a VehicleSearchAvailability request with the modifier ReturnSourceCurrency="True" to return the rate details in vendor-filed currency. The modifier defaults to false. When the rate in the response reflects the currency that the vendor provides, it shows RateForPeriod rather than an approximate, and shows RateGuaranteed=”true” :

<vehicle:Vehicle VendorCode="ZE" AirConditioning="true" TransmissionType="Automatic" VehicleClass="Fullsize" Category="Car" DoorCount="TwoToFourDoors" VendorLocationKey="hBexw7BAAA/BDSqJAAAAAA==" AcrissVehicleCode="FCAR">

<vehicle:VehicleRate RatePeriod="Daily" UnlimitedMileage="true" Units="KM" RateSource="M" RateAvailability="Available" RateCode="AFLXD1" RateCategory="Promotional" RateGuaranteed="true" DropOffChargesIncluded="true">

<vehicle:SupplierRate RateForPeriod="USD73.81" EstimatedTotalAmount="USD73.81" ExtraMileageCharge="USD0.00"/>

<vehicle:RateHostIndicator InventoryToken="E" RateToken="XIMATXW92T"/>

</vehicle:VehicleRate>

VehicleSearchAvailabilityReq/VehicleSearchModifiers @ReturnSourceCurrency

VehicleSearchAvailabilityRsp/Vehicle/VehicleRate

• @RateGuaranteed
• /SupplierRate @RateForPeriod

If UnlimitedMileage="true", vehicle rate options with unlimited mileage are requested. The default is false.

While responses should return rate options with unlimited mileage, Universal API does not validate the mileage data returned by suppliers. Therefore, some suppliers may return rates that contain mileage restrictions.

Requests availability by rate category. E.g., Association, Business, Corporate, Government, etc.

The RateGuaranteed modifier is used to request availability for cars with a guaranteed rate. When the Guarantee indicator for vehicle rate is to "true", only vehicles with a guaranteed rate are returned. Rate information in the response is returned in VehicleReservation/Vehicle/VehicleRate.

The RatePeriod attribute identifies the period of time for which the rate should be processed, as most suppliers vary rates based on the unit of rental time requested. E.g., daily, weekly, etc.

Supplier codes can be added to a request to either permit (include) or prohibit (exclude) specific vendors from the response option.

Requests availability by one or more of the following vehicle modifiers:

• Air conditioning

• Transmission type

• Vehicle class

• Vehicle category

• Door count

Requests a standard list or classification of available vehicle types.

Requests availability by one or more of the following vehicle rate modifiers:

• Rate code

• Discount number (Corporate Discount ID)

• Vendor Code

• Promotional Code
• Tour Code

• Vendor Location Reference

Requests availability by one or more of the following vehicle rate modifiers:

• Rate code

• Rate category

• Discount number

• Supplier (vendor) code

• Guaranteed rate

The RateHostIndicator includes two tokens: Inventory Token and Rate Token.

• Inventory Token is vendor information about the rate to adjust pricing as needed.
• Rate Token associates the shop response to the sell request.

Note:The Worldspan providers are expanding Travelport’s car database to be able to accept the Open Travel Alliance (OTA) 2014 standard for Search/Reference ID token size. This enhancement modifies /RateHostIndicator/ @InventoryToken and @RateToken in VehicleSearchAvailabilityRsp, VehicleRulesReq and VehicleCreateReservationReq to support the expansions of the Rate Qualifier node, including the RateAuthorizationCode (expanding 8 Bytes (1-28)) and SequenceNumber (bytes 21-24 moved to 29-32).

Supports a frequent traveler loyalty program membership.

Requests a list of available rental cars close to a reference point.

The BookingSource element contains two attributes: Code and Type.

• Code is the alternate booking source code or number.
• Type is the type of booking source sent in the Code attribute.

Notes:

• This element is only supported in Worldspan (1P).
• Only the IATA Number (Type="IataNumber") is accepted for Vehicle Search, but the other enumerations are valid for Vehicle Booking, Air Booking, or Hotel Booking.

The Vehicle Search request includes four elements for distance and direction as a search parameter for the required vehicle availability.

The response includes distance and direction for each vehicle result.

This element implements an age-based surcharge for younger or older drivers, if applicable.

• In the Vehicle Search and Vehicle Rules requests, the DriverInfo @Age modifier is added to determine if a surcharge is applied.
• When vehicle suppliers request to have the age during sell to ensure the proper rates are used, VehicleCreateReservationReq/ReservationName
  /NameOverride @Age is populated.
• Universal API returns the applicable age-based surcharges in the response.
• This benefit allows customers the ability to send the driver's age in vehicle availability response to ensure that they receive back the age based surcharges from participating vendors, which allows them to provide their customers with true price details for the vehicle rental. Release 21.3

Notes:

• The requirement for an age-based surcharge and the surcharge amount is determined by the vehicle supplier.
• Universal API ignores the specified Age and returns a Warning message when Age specified is > 99.
• This enhancement is implemented for Galileo (1G), Apollo (1V), and Worldspan (1P).

• @Age and @Surcharge in

  • VehicleSearchAvailabilityReq/VehicleSearchModifiers/DriverInfo
  • VehicleSearchAvailabilityRsp/Vehicle/VehicleRate/RateInclusions/IncludedItems

Modifies a default Vehicle Search request to include a specific location type such as a railway station, resort, car dealership, or cardinal location from the city center. The location type can also be used to search by a city code rather than an airport code.

Note: This request returns all vendor locations that match the request location type. To request a specific vendor location, search by Unique Location ID.

Modifies a default Vehicle Search request to include availability for a specified vehicle rental location.

Note: This request returns results for a specific vendor location. To obtain availability for a general location type, such as a railway, resort, or city code, use Vehicle Search by Location Type.

Vehicle Search Availability request for Vehicles/Rates that are status “SS” only when @SellableRatesOnly is set to "true." This applies to Worldspan (1P), and with Universal API release 22.2.2, SellableRatesOnly option is valid for providers Galileo (1G) and Apollo (1V).Release 22.2

Vehicle Search Availability supports multiple Merchant Rates. A Merchant Rate is the ability to request multiple vendor/ multiple specific-pickup-locations in a single request.