Digital Connect gives airlines an option to support exchanges in the MYB:CI (Manage Your Booking: Change Itinerary) flow.

Types of exchanges: 

• ADD COLLECT – user would need to pay the difference between the original and new flight(s) 
• EVEN EXCHANGE – no additional payment is required 
• RESIDUAL VALUE- the difference between the old and new calculation is returned to the original FOP (if allowed by the fare filing) 
  • To original FOP  
  • To Travel Bank (if enabled for an airline)

Supported scenarios:  

• Ability to add seats (paid or free) during an exchange. 
• Ability to add ancillaries during an exchange. 
• If same ancillaries are available on the new flight(s), the reassociation of “old” ancillaries/seats can happen if reassociation criteria are met.    
• Ability to refund seats (in sequential order) 
• Ability to refund ancillaries (in sequential order) 
• The passenger can modify the passenger details and SSRs while selecting a new booking or modifying an existing booking.

Prerequisites:

• The airline needs to enable the exchange flow
• The end user supplied the information needed to retrieve the booking.
• The PNR contains all mandatory elements required by DC to service post bookings

Limitations:

• Exchanges for Multicity scenarios (MC) are not supported 
• Multiple active VCRs for a single passenger is not supported  
• GDS, group, staff PNRs are not supported 
• Codeshare flights with the CTRL status

Supported Scenarios:

• Fully unflown reservations 
  • OW itinerary  
  • RT itinerary 
    • Outbound exchange 
    • Inbound exchange 
    • Entire itinerary  
• Partially flown reservation (past segment must be purged from the face of the PNR)

Digital Connect Manage Your Booking – Change Itinerary Flow Services 

This group of services provides functionality that enables an airline to present existing bookings for modifications by passengers. Passengers who retrieve bookings can exchange booked flights.

Using the Digital Connect Service Suite – Manage Your Booking – Change Itinerary 

To make use of the services - exchange booked flights use the services in the following order: 

PNR Retrieval 

Reservation can be retrieved by providing reservation code and supplying basic PNR information or by logging in to a Frequent Flyer account. The /login GET service enables airlines to give passengers access to their accounts and display their account information.  

If the user is logged in, the airline can retrieve all his reservations by calling GET /profile/mytrips. 

If user is not logged in /pnr service will validate data provided from the GET /pnr request (Reservation code and first/last name and/or email) against data stored in the PNR. If the data provided in the request matches the stored data, the /pnr service returns detailed information from the PNR including all flights and payment details, such as forms of payment used.   

If no PNR is found or the provided data does not match, the /pnr service returns an error.

Exchange Initialization

After retrieving a PNR, the application calls /pnr/exchange request, GET operation to initialize Exchange process.

Search Flight

When the end user selects search criteria the application submits a /pnr/exchange/products/air/search request, POST operation with the appropriate “exchangeType” to get a list of flights matching the search criteria.  

Application returns flight(s) options to the end user. The response will also include a shoppingBasketHashCode for each flight.

Select Flight 

Once flight options are returned end user will need to select one or more flights from the available flight options returned in the previous step. The application calls the /pnr/exchange/products/air   POST operation to add the flight(s) into the itinerary and store the itinerary in session.

Shopping Cart

After the end user has selected his new flights or any time after an itinerary has been stored in session, the application can call /pnr/exchange /products GET to request the latest price breakdown for current booking, with prices of products that the end user has added to the itinerary. The data is collected from the session, so no downline calls are necessary. You can format price breakdown for display to the passenger in the shopping cart.

Change Passenger Details (optional) 

After an itinerary has been stored in the session, the airline can call /pnr/exchange /passengers, POST operation to change some passenger's details (FF number, Contact Details, Email address, Travel Doc info). The application updates the end user's reservation with the updated details.

Add Ancillaries 

If the original reservation contains ancillaries (paid Ancillaries with EMD(s) issued) the airline needs to check if the re-association criteria are met: 

• same carrier code (operating), 
• same origin and destination points, 
• direct to indirect flight exchange, 
• connecting flights to connecting flights exchange (same connecting point).

Full Exchange – OneWay – Unflown: 

• EMD-S for FOP Surcharge – no re-association involved, 
• Free to paid – verification only – the passenger can select new ancillaries, 
• Paid to paid: 
  • The passenger already has ancillaries in the original reservation -> Validation that same ancillaries were selected for all segments. Ancillaries (AEs) are re-associated to the OLD EMD (no new EMD); OLD EMD is re-associated to NEW VCR after exchange; 
  • The passenger adds new ancillaries -> Ancillaries (AEs) are added to the PNR, NEW EMD is created and associated to the new VCR.

Full Exchange – RT – all segments are Unflown: 

• EMD-S for FOP Surcharge – no re-association involved, 
• Free to paid – verification only – the passenger can select new ancillaries, 
• Paid to paid: 
  • The passenger already has ancillaries in the original reservation -> Validation that same ancillaries were selected for all segments. Ancillaries (AEs) are re-associated to the OLD EMD (no new EMD); OLD EMD is re-associated to NEW VCR after exchange; 
  • The passenger adds new ancillaries -> Ancillaries (AEs) are added to the PNR, NEW EMD is created.

After checking the re-association criteria, the airline calls /pnr/exchange /products/ancillaries operations to show passengers the ancillaries available on the flights they have exchanged and to add any ancillaries selected by the passenger to the itinerary.

Add Seats 

The end user can add seats, the application calls /pnr/exchange /products/seats GET operation to show passengers the seats available on the flights they have exchanged and POST operation to add,update or delete any seats selected by the end user to the itinerary. 

Payment Options 

After the end user has selected new flights (including exchange process for the ancillaries and seats) the next step of the flow is to submit a GET /pnr/exchange/paymentOptions call to obtain refund targets and available Forms of Payment and any surcharges.   

This service GET returns payment combinability mapping. The information returns proper payment methods and returns multiple forms of payment permitted.  

If refund target is Travel Bank the end user must be logged in, if not logged in then application prompts login, the application uses the/login POST service to login the end user. 

If the end user has no Travel Bank account and the refund is to Travel Bank, the airline prompts the end user for the credentials and creates new web profile by calling /POST profile.  

Learn more about passenger profile feature.

The airline uses /profile GET service to retrieve the passenger profile details 

The service POST /pnr/exchange/paymentOptions  also returns the list of permitted second forms of payment for selected first form of payment.  In exchange path is it possible to use 2FOPs as payment eg 2 credit card or credit card +TB.

Purchase 

After the end user has completed exchange process with updating the itinerary in the session, (including exchange process for the ancillaries and seats), payment data collected from the end user, the application submits a /pnr/exchange/purchase request, POST operation to initiate the payment process and refund (if applicable). 

The /pnr/exchange/purchase request will submit billing data to the FOPs supplied by the end user and, if payment is authorized, the reservation is updated with the new flights, supporting documents are issued and or reissued and any necessary remarks are added to the PNR. The purchase response will return results that documents were successfully exchanged.