| Guaranteed Payment Carriers JetBlue is now participating in Apollo® as a Guaranteed Payment Carrier (GPC) and other airlines may become GPC participants in the coming months. Some carriers that are already GPC carriers in Canada are: Westjet, Calm Air, Hawkair. So, let’s review the GPC booking process. Guaranteed Payment Carriers settle payment directly with travel agencies rather than through BSP. You send them a credit card number in an SSR and they respond with a confirmation number and the fare. Here is the best practice for booking a GPC and issuing and itinerary/invoice. 1. Book the air segments.
An alert appears indicating that payment is required at time of booking. 2. Add car, hotel, etc. segments to the PNR. 3. Add an SSR with the credit card number to pay for the air.
Example: ¤:3SSRGUARCCNN1VI444444444444444/D0312/LISA LEE
(CC is the airline code.) 4. Complete the PNR and end transact.
The Guaranteed Payment Carrier:
- Validates and debits the credit card.
- Returns an SSR message with a confirmation number and the fare. 5. Add an unassociated remark to the PNR with the airline’s confirmation number.
Example: RMU:CC CONFIRMATION NUMBER A12345 6. Build and store a pricing record.
Note: A pricing record enables you to issue an itinerary, invoice, and MIR.
Hint: If the PNR autoprices at the same fare that the airline returns, use the format HH$PR/Z0 to display a pricing record screen that is prepopulated with the $B pricing information.
Once the pricing record is displayed:
- Tab and enter at the B in BOOK
- Enter HBT and T:OK
-Add a Received field and end transact. 7. Issue an itinerary, invoice. Example: HB:DID For more information, see: HELP PYMT To check if a carrier is a GPC, see S*AIR/CC | | | | |
Booking WestJet | | Did you know that WestJet can be booked through Apollo? WestJet is now an electronic ticketing participant in BSP Canada! Here are more details: - WestJet is changed from a ticketless carrier to a full participant in Travelport - Effective Saturday, October 17, 2009.
- WestJet is now an electronic ticketing participant in BSP Canada.
- You will issue a ticket on WestJet as you would any other ET carrier.
- The commission can be entered in the stored fare (ATFQ field) e.g. T:$BZ7 or at the time of ticketing e.g. HB:Z7
- WestJet supports ticketing time limits of 23:59 hours of the booking day in the time zone of the ticketing pseudo city.
- You can now use the normal shopping, pricing, and booking commands for WestJet.
- The SSR with the form of payment is no longer utilized by WestJet and is ignored if transmitted, resulting in no ticketing action by them.
For more information, see: - S*AIR/WS
- In ASK Travelport – see the WestJet FAQ published by WestJet: WestJet FAQ
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Availability Shortcuts | | It’s been a long day and who should call but Mrs. Whatabout. You check availability for her next trip and she asks, "What about West Palm? What about Continental? What about an evening flight?" You say to yourself, "What about those availability shortcuts I learned in my Apollo® training?" To refresh your memory, here are some of the most popular follow-on formats to update your original availability request: | To display availability for: | Enter: | | New board point | A*BPBI | | New destination | A*DYUL | | Specific carriers (max.3) | A*+CO.DL | | All carriers | A*ALL | | Nonstop and direct flights only | A*D | | Single online connections | A*SO | | Original response | A*R | | Current availability | A*C | | New time | A*5P | | New date | A*21JUN | | Opposite direction | A*O3JUL | And don’t forget those prompts at the bottom of the availability screen: | To display: | Tab to this prompt and press Enter: | | Meals Plus | A*M | | All booking classes | A*C0 (add availability line number) | | More availability | A* | | Previous availability | A– | For more availability shortcuts, see: HELP A* Need a refresher course on availability? Then take our self-paced air courses. To register: - Go to: http://support.galileo.com/SGC/LMS/AMERICAS/en-ca
- Enter your pseudo city code and agency PIN, and then enter your Apollo sign-on and initials.
- In the Self-paced Online section, click the air course you wish to take and register.
- Launch the course.
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| First Availability | | As the leaves fall and Jack Frost nips, many customers decide that they really need that winter vacation—and they want the best price. But, according to OAG, “The number of domestic flights is set to fall by almost 11% and capacity by 9% in the 4th quarter of 2008 compared to a year ago.”
Use First Availability to find the best price for customers with flexible dates. After you determine the booking class and airline for the best fare, first availability searches for a specific booking class and number of seats for the requested day, and then a period two days back and five days forward. Focalpoint® Here are some handy formats to check for the first available flight in a specific class. | To display First Availability for: | Use this format: | | One Q seat on Air Canada | A/Q/24DECYYZORD+AC | | Four T seats on Delta direct flights | A/T4/1JANYULATL/D+DL | | A different date | A*23DEC | | New boarding city | A*BMIA | | Return availability | A*O3JAN | For more formats, see: HELP A/ S*PRO/RSVN-FIRST AVAILABLE Viewpoint™ On the Air Availability Request dialog box, First Availability section, enter the booking code, select Class, and enter the number of passengers. For Help on any Viewpoint screen, press F1. | |
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Avoiding Space Issues with airlines
| | Here are some helpful hints to avoid space issues with airlines: When you book a segment in Apollo®, make sure you get an asterisk at the end of the segment for all link-participating carriers. After you end transact the record, redisplay it to make sure you receive an acknowledgement with the airline’s own record locator. Both the link indicator and acknowledgement are required to get full cooperation from the airline. Make sure that you get additional acknowledgements from the airline every time you change the flights. This indicates that they have received the change. Carriers do not honor space if there are duplicate bookings in Apollo. If carriers send any type of "unable" message, such as UC or UN, they are only obligated to send it once. If you try to book that same class of service again after getting an unable message, they may not always send the unable message a second time and that space may not be confirmed. If you are booking a flight within six hours of departure, even though it shows availability via the link, the carrier has the right to place that flight under airport control anytime after midnight on the day of departure. We highly recommend verifying with the carrier that the space is confirmed to avoid disservice to your customer. For assistance with future travel, look under HELP 411 on the support Web sites to queue the record for assistance. For immediate travel assistance, please contact the Support Desk to contact the carrier on your behalf. | |
GUAR vs. TKLS Airlines | | Both Guaranteed Payment (GUAR) and Ticketless (TKLS) airlines settle with travel agencies outside of the Airline Reporting Corporation (ARC) or the Bank Settlement Plan (BSP) without paper or electronic tickets. Here are some FAQs about GUAR and TKLS airlines and how each one works. If GUAR and TKLS airlines don’t work through ARC or BSP, how do we pay? You send credit card information in an SSR in the PNR. How do I know if an airline is GUAR or TKLS? GUAR or TKLS designation is noted at the bottom of the airline’s profile. S*AIR/CC
(CC is the airline code) What’s the essential difference between Guaranteed Payment and Ticketless airlines? - GUAR airlines require payment by SSR before you can end transact the PNR.
- TKLS airlines allow you to end transact the PNR. They send an SSR confirming the booking and advising you when payment is due. You are then required to send credit card information in an SSR before the deadline.
What is the format to send a credit card by SSR? - For GUAR airlines: ¤:3SSRGUARCCNN1VI444444444444444/D0310/LISA LEE (CC is the airline code)
- For TKLS airlines: ¤:3SSROTHSCCNN1CA5210000010001001/D1210/ANA MARTINEZ (CC is the airline code)
Are there any exceptions? Southwest Airlines requires a GUAR SSR, but it must be sent after you end transact the PNR. Some of their other procedures are slightly different as well. See HELP WN for exact formats and procedures for Southwest. Where can I find procedures for GUAR and TKLS airlines? | |
Itinerary Cancel and Rebook | | You’ve just booked the perfect itinerary for your client but now he wants different flights! You know you can cancel and rebook in one transaction, but you don’t remember how. Here are a few handy formats. | To cancel: | Enter: | | Segment 2 and rebook same flight | X2/028NOV | | Itinerary and reference sell | XI/01T1 | | Segments 3 – 5 and sell single-class connection | X3-5/01Q3* | | Segments 1 and 2 and sell multi-class connection | X1+2/01Y3C4 | | Segment 4 and direct sell | X4/0AC429V1JULYULYYZNN1 | For more formats, see: HELP CANCEL To take self-paced courses on booking air: - Click here.
- Select your country and log on.
- In the Self-paced Online section, select a course in the "Air" category and complete the registration.
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