Question 1

When I connect a flight API to my website, will I be able to see the baggage allowance and seat options before my customer completes the booking?

Accepted Answer

Yes, baggage allowance and seat options should show up before your customer finishes booking, but what you see depends on what the airline makes available through the API. Most airlines do share this information, so your customers can see how many bags they are allowed and whether they can pick their seat or buy extra legroom. Some airlines are more generous with this data than others, and a few may only show basic details upfront and reveal seat maps or baggage costs later in the journey. The way this information displays on your portal also matters. Your portal needs to be set up to pull in and show these details clearly at the right point in the booking flow. If your portal is not configured to display baggage and seat options, your customers will not see them even if the airline is sending that information through. You can usually customize how much detail shows up and at which step, so you have some control over what your customers see. Some airlines charge extra for seat selection or checked bags, and those charges should show up so your customer knows the full price before they pay. However, a small number of airlines do not include this information in the API, which means you might not be able to show seat prices or baggage fees until after the booking is made. Ask your API provider to confirm which airlines in your region share seat and baggage data, and how your portal can be set up to display it clearly to your customers.

Question 2

Can I set up different user roles on my portal so my staff only see what they need to do their job?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can create different user roles with different permissions so that staff members only see the parts of your portal they need to use. For example, you might set up a booking agent role that can search and book flights and hotels but cannot access financial reports or customer payment details. You could create a manager role that can see bookings and sales reports but cannot change portal settings. You might also want a finance role that can see invoices and refunds but not make bookings. The specific roles and permissions available depend on your plan, so you should check what options come with the plan you choose. Setting up roles this way helps protect your business because staff members cannot accidentally change things they should not touch. It also makes your team more efficient because people spend less time looking through parts of the software that are not relevant to their work. If you have sub agents or branch offices using your portal, you can give each one their own role so they can only see their own bookings and credit balance. You can usually manage roles and permissions yourself from your portal's admin section without needing help from support. When you first set up your portal, start by thinking about what different people in your team need to do, then create roles that match those jobs. You should check your plan details and your portal's settings page to see exactly which roles and permissions you can create.

Question 3

Can I stop my customers from booking flights or hotels that are too expensive for their budget?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can set spending limits on your portal to help guide your customers toward options that fit their budget. When you build your portal, you can configure maximum price thresholds for flights, hotels, and other travel products. Customers who search will then see only the results that fall within those limits, which means they cannot accidentally book something that costs more than you have decided to allow. Keep in mind that these limits work differently depending on what you are selling. For flights, you can set a maximum price per person for the entire journey, so a customer searching for two passengers will see different results than someone searching alone. For hotels, you can set limits per room per night. The way these limits interact with your own profit margins means you should test different settings on your portal before you let real customers on, to make sure the prices and availability look right. If you work with corporate clients or travel managers who need more control, you may be able to set different limits for different groups of users, but this depends on which plan you have chosen and what your suppliers allow. Some suppliers change their inventory and pricing throughout the day, so a price limit you set in the morning might mean fewer results show up by evening as cheaper options sell out. Log into your portal settings and look for the pricing or budget control section to see what options are available for your account, and test a few searches to understand how your limits affect what customers can book.

Question 4

Can I see how many rooms are actually available at a hotel before my customer tries to book one?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can see real-time room availability on your portal, but what you see depends on what the hotel suppliers give us. When a customer searches for hotels, the availability shown reflects the current stock at that moment. However, availability can change very quickly because multiple travel agencies and booking websites are selling from the same hotel inventory, so a room that shows as available during a search might be booked by another agency before your customer completes their booking. The hotel data comes through automatically from the suppliers we connect to, so you do not have to manually check availability yourself. Your portal will show the number of rooms available for each property and room type. If a hotel runs out of stock while your customer is going through the booking process, they will see a message that the room is no longer available, and we will suggest alternatives instead. This protects your customers from being disappointed after they have already decided to book. Some hotels update their availability more frequently than others, and some have different rules about how many rooms they release to different booking channels. This means occasionally a hotel might show limited availability on your portal even though they have rooms left, because that is all they have chosen to make available through our suppliers. You cannot change how a hotel manages their inventory, but you can always talk to your customers about booking as early as possible to secure their preferred room type. Check with your account manager if you want to understand how a particular hotel chain manages their availability on your portal.

Question 5

Can I show my customers alternative flights if the one they want to book is no longer available?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can show alternatives, but how smoothly this works depends on how your portal is set up and what the airline systems tell us at the moment your customer tries to book. When someone searches for flights, they see real-time availability from the suppliers, but between the search and the final booking, an airline might release more seats, close off a fare class, or sell out completely. Your portal can be configured to automatically suggest the next best options based on price, time, or convenience so your customer does not have to start their search over from scratch. The way this works in practice varies depending on which airlines and booking methods you use. Some airlines make alternative inventory available instantly through their systems, while others have delays or restrictions on what can be shown as a backup option. If you are using scheduled flights from major carriers, you will generally have good options to present. If you work with smaller airlines, charter operators, or niche routes, the alternatives available might be more limited, and you should check what your specific suppliers can offer. Your portal can also be set up to let you manually add fallback flights or create rules that suggest certain routes when others sell out, giving you more control over the customer experience. You should talk to your account team about how your current setup handles flight availability changes and whether you want to add features that show alternatives automatically or if you prefer to manage suggestions yourself.

Question 6

Can I see real-time availability when my customers search, or do they sometimes book something that has already sold out?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you get real-time availability when your customers search, but there is a small window where a flight or hotel room can sell out between the moment they see it and the moment they finish booking. This happens because travel inventory changes constantly across the whole industry, and even with live connections to suppliers, there is always a tiny delay between what you show and what is actually still available right now. When a customer finds something in search results, the system checks availability again at the point they try to complete the booking. If the flight or room has sold out in those few seconds or minutes, the booking will fail and they will get a message telling them it is no longer available. This is rare, but it does happen, especially with popular flights or discounted hotel rates during busy travel seasons. Your portal can be set up to handle this gracefully by offering customers an alternative search right away if their first choice sells out, rather than just showing an error. The exact way this works depends on which suppliers you are connected to and how their systems communicate with ours, since some suppliers update faster than others. If you want to reduce the chance of this happening, check with us about the specific travel suppliers and products you plan to sell, since some have faster inventory updates than others.

Question 7

Can I control which hotel chains and properties show up in my portal's search results?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can control which hotels appear in your portal, but the options depend on how your API connection is set up. When you connect to a hotel supplier through our API, you get access to their full inventory, but we can help you filter and manage what your customers actually see. This means you can choose to show only certain hotel chains, exclude specific properties, limit results to particular star ratings, or focus on hotels in certain areas that matter most to your business. How much control you have depends partly on the supplier you are connected to. Some suppliers give you detailed tools to create custom filters and exclusion lists that work automatically every time someone searches. Others may have simpler filtering options, so you might need to work with their team to set up restrictions. We can show you what your supplier offers and help you configure the best setup for your needs. You might also want to combine supplier inventory with your own direct hotel deals. If you have negotiated rates with specific properties, we can help you layer those into your portal alongside the supplier results, so your customers see both options. This gives you flexibility to highlight the hotels where you make the best margin or the ones you want to push for other business reasons. Check with your account manager about what filtering options are available through your current supplier connection, and we can walk you through setting up the rules that work best for your travel agency.

Question 8

Can I set up my portal to show different flight options based on what my customers care about, like the cheapest price or the shortest journey time?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can offer your customers different ways to sort and filter the flight search results on your portal. Most travel portals let passengers arrange flights by price, departure time, arrival time, journey duration, number of stops, or airline. This helps each customer find what matters most to them without you having to create separate search results for different type of traveller. What you can show depends on what the flight search engine gives you back. Some search engines provide more sorting and filtering options than others, and the choices available may vary by route or region. You should check with us about what sorting options come through on your particular setup and which ones are switched on by default for your customers. You can also choose whether to show only the absolute cheapest option or to display a range of prices so customers can make their own choice. Some portals highlight the fastest journey or the most convenient times alongside the lowest fares. The goal is to give your customers enough information to book with confidence instead of feeling like they are missing out on a better deal. To see exactly which filtering and sorting options are available for your portal, log in to your back office and check the search settings, or get in touch with our support team to walk through what you can customise for your customers.

Question 9

Can I choose which destinations and travel products customers can book on my portal?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can usually control which types of travel products are available on your white label portal, and in some cases you can also limit what is shown by destination, market or supplier. This can help if your business only sells certain holidays, serves a particular region or does not want customers booking products that your team cannot support. The level of control is not always the same for every product. Flights, hotels, transfers and other services may each have different settings because their availability comes from different suppliers. Some restrictions can be applied across the whole portal, while others depend on what the supplier allows or how your plan is set up. It is also important to understand that hiding a product does not change the supplier's actual stock or booking rules. A destination may still appear in a general search if it is included within another available product, and some results can only be filtered after the search has been made. Very detailed restrictions may therefore need to be checked before the portal is opened to customers. Before launch, decide exactly what you want to sell, where you want to sell it and whether any suppliers or destinations should be excluded, then ask glideFares to confirm which controls are available for your portal.

Question 10

Can I set different profit margins for flights and hotels instead of adding the same amount to every booking?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can usually set different profit margins for flights and hotels, so you do not have to use the same markup for every type of booking. This helps you protect your earnings while keeping the final selling price suitable for each product. The available controls depend on your glideFares plan and the suppliers connected to your portal. You may be able to use a fixed markup, a percentage markup, or separate rules for particular products, destinations or suppliers. Some fares and special rates may have restrictions that limit how they can be marked up or displayed. Before applying a new rule, check whether taxes, supplier charges and payment charges are included in the amount used to calculate your margin. It is also important to review the final price shown to the customer, because a rule that works well for one booking may make another booking less competitive. Changes normally apply to new searches and bookings, not to reservations that are already confirmed. Check the markup settings available in your plan, then test a few flight and hotel searches to make sure the selling price and expected profit appear as intended.