Servicing of Held Booking

SANDBOX ENVIRONMENT

For testing purposes, this feature will only be available via our Sandbox environment. If you would like access to this environment please fill in the form here

Background

As of today, British Airways offers selected agents the option to hold a booking for a period of time prior to ticketing, using British Airways distribution capability. This allows customers time and flexibility to confirm travel plans prior to payment and ticketing. In certain instances, customers have a requirement to change one or more O&D of the itinerary prior to ticketing.

For example, a corporate customer may need to take an early flight to attend a meeting. Today, British Airways NDC does not support the capability to service an unticketed booking. As part of this project British Airways aims to further enhance its NDC functionality to allow agents the capability to service an unticketed or ‘held’ booking.

Objective

To enhance existing NDC servicing APIs to allow agents to service one or more segment of an unticketed or ‘held’ booking while retaining the original PNR reference and inventory of the unchanged segment.

Scope

Enable the servicing of an unticketed or ‘held’ booking via NDC API’s for both instant and hold scenarios.

Servicing Parameters considered in scope:

Minimum Viable Product

Date & Time

Backlog Items

Flexibility
Fare Type
Cabin

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Versioning and Release Plan

Version	Description	Release Status	Pre-Live Date	Live Date
0.1	17.2 OrderReshop (Reshop and Reprice) TMC’s usually create held bookings to secure the inventory for the corporate clients whilst they are seeking approval for their duty travel. For corporates, it is much more expensive for them to get their TMC to cancel a booking and start from scratch than if they change an existing booking. Leisure agents create held bookings many months in advance as part of bigger tour packages which can include hotels and cruise packages. They are unable to ticket these bookings as their customers usually pay closer to departure or in instalments. Due to the long lead time they have a regular requirement to amend held bookings. Currently NDC only supports servicing of ticketed orders but, this new feature is to extend that capability to unticketed orders, while ensuring that BA revenue management strategy and principles are not compromised. With this new feature, Agents can change the date and time of one or more origin and destinations (up to six at maximum) on an unticketed booking and pay for it instantaneously. Agents can change the date and time of one or more origin and destinations (up to six at maximum) on an unticketed booking and pay for it later. Out of scope for this release: Cabin upgrade changes Change of fare preference i.e. changing from flexible fare to restricted fare Fare type change i.e. changing from Negotiated fare to Non-Negotiated fare and vice versa Change of leisure fare product i.e. changing from Tour Operator fare to Contract Bulk fare Change the originally booked origin and destination changes to the booking. i.e., changing the O&D from LHR-JFK to LHR-BOS is not a valid scenario	UPDATED	12 Feb 2020	12 Feb 2020
0.2	17.2 OrderReshop and 17.2 OrderChange (See Release Note) TMC’s usually create held bookings to secure the inventory for the corporate clients whilst they are seeking approval for their duty travel. For corporates, it is much more expensive for them to get their TMC to cancel a booking and start from scratch than if they change an existing booking. Leisure agents create held bookings many months in advance as part of bigger tour packages which can include hotels and cruise packages. They are unable to ticket these bookings as their customers usually pay closer to departure or in instalments. Due to the long lead time they have a regular requirement to amend held bookings. Currently NDC only supports servicing of ticketed orders but, this new feature is to extend that capability to unticketed orders, while ensuring that BA revenue management strategy and principles are not compromised. With this new feature, Agents can change the date and time of one or more origin and destinations (up to six at maximum) on an unticketed booking and pay for it instantaneously. Agents can change the date and time of one or more origin and destinations (up to six at maximum) on an unticketed booking and pay for it later. Agents can change the fare preference (Flexible/Restricted) on an unticketed booking and pay for it. Agents can change the fare preference (Flexible/Restricted) on an unticketed booking and pay for it later. Out of scope for this release: Cabin upgrade changes Fare type change i.e. changing from Negotiated fare to Non-Negotiated fare and vice versa Change of leisure fare product i.e. changing from Tour Operator fare to Contract Bulk fare Change the originally booked origin and destination changes to the booking. i.e., changing the O&D from LHR-JFK to LHR-BOS is not a valid scenario Limitation: Agents that do not have negotiated deals with BA would not be able to change an unticketed booking.	UPDATED	30 Mar 2020	30 Mar 2020