Question 1

Can I hold a flight seat for my customer while they decide, without paying for it straight away?

Accepted Answer

Yes, on some airlines you can hold a seat for a short time before paying, but it is not something every airline offers and it is never guaranteed. Where it is available, the hold works by creating the booking in the airline's system without issuing the ticket. The seat, and usually the fare, are kept for a set period, which can be a few hours or a day or two depending on the airline and the fare you picked. Your customer gets a booking reference and can come back and pay before the deadline. If the payment does not arrive in time, the airline cancels the booking by itself and the seat goes back on sale, so your staff should always treat an unpaid hold as something that can disappear. Whether the option shows up for a particular search comes down to the supplier behind that fare. Full service carriers are more likely to allow it than low cost ones, and cheap promotional fares are often left out even on airlines that normally permit a hold. Some suppliers also charge a fee for keeping the seat. Because of this you will see the option on some results and not on others, so it is safer to treat it as a bonus rather than something you promise every customer up front. If holding seats matters to the way your agency sells, ask which of your connected suppliers support it and how long their deadlines run, and set a simple internal rule for chasing customers before a hold expires.

Question 2

Will my portal keep working if one of my suppliers goes down?

Accepted Answer

Yes, in most cases your portal will keep working. Your portal talks to several suppliers at the same time, so if one of them stops responding, the search simply carries on with the ones that are still healthy. Your customer sees results and can book as normal. They are not shown an error page just because one of the connections has gone quiet. What they will notice is that there is less to choose from. A supplier that is down takes its hotels or its fares with it, so the list may be shorter than usual, and a property your customer saw yesterday may not appear today. Prices can look a little different too, because the cheapest option for that route may have been coming from the supplier that is now silent. There are limits worth knowing. If you only have one supplier for a product, then while they are down that product cannot be sold at all, and no setting on your side can create availability that is not there. Bookings you already made with that supplier are safe, but changes, cancellations and document requests on those bookings usually have to wait until the supplier is back. Your portal also puts a time limit on each connection, so a very slow supplier is dropped from that one search rather than being allowed to hold up the whole page. The sensible next step is to check how many working suppliers you have for each product you sell, and to arrange a second one for whatever earns you the most. Keep an eye on your search reports as well, because a supplier that quietly returns nothing for days is easy to miss while the page still looks normal.

Question 3

Can travel agency software remind my staff about bookings that still need attention?

Accepted Answer

Yes, travel agency software can help your staff keep track of bookings that need action. Depending on the setup, it may show pending bookings, payment checks, document requests, supplier confirmations, ticketing deadlines and customer follow ups in one place. This can make it easier for the team to see what is outstanding without relying only on handwritten notes or personal reminders. The exact reminders available depend on the software, your plan and the information returned by each supplier. Some actions may appear automatically when a booking changes status, while others may need to be added by a staff member. A reminder does not always mean that the required action can be completed automatically, especially when supplier approval or a manual check is needed. Access may also be controlled so that each staff member sees the bookings or tasks assigned to them. Managers may be able to review overdue work and reassign it when someone is unavailable. These options depend on the permissions and workflow features included with the agency setup. Before choosing your setup, check which booking events can create reminders, whether staff can add their own follow ups, and how overdue tasks are shown to managers.

Question 4

Can a flight booking API issue the ticket automatically after my customer pays?

Accepted Answer

Yes, a flight booking API can issue a ticket automatically after the customer completes payment. This can make the booking process faster because your staff do not need to issue every ticket by hand. The customer may receive a booking confirmation first, followed by the ticket details once the airline or flight supplier has approved the booking and completed ticketing. Automatic ticketing is not guaranteed for every flight. It depends on the airline, the flight supplier, the payment result and the ticketing rules connected to your plan. Some bookings may need a manual check, especially when the airline changes the fare, payment needs review or the booking has a special condition. A confirmed booking reference also does not always mean that the ticket has already been issued. Your portal should show whether the booking is confirmed, waiting for ticketing, ticketed or unsuccessful. Your staff should check for a ticket number before telling the customer that travel is fully confirmed. If ticketing fails or remains pending, the booking may need attention from your team or the relevant supplier. Before you start selling, check whether automatic ticketing is available with your chosen flight supplier and confirm how pending or failed ticketing will appear to your staff.

Question 5

Can my customer cancel their own booking on my portal and get a refund?

Accepted Answer

Yes, your customer can cancel their own booking on your portal, but whether money comes back, and how much, is decided by the airline or hotel supplier and not by your website. When a customer presses cancel, the portal passes the request through to the supplier that holds the booking and waits for their answer. The supplier checks the fare or the room rate that was actually booked and replies with what is refundable. A flexible hotel rate cancelled before its deadline usually comes back in full, while a cheap non refundable air ticket may return only the taxes, or nothing at all. Your portal shows the customer that answer rather than an amount you have decided yourself. The money goes back the way it came in. If card payments land in your own account, the refund leaves your account once the supplier confirms the cancellation, so allow for the gap between that confirmation and the bank putting the amount back on your customer's card. That gap belongs to the card networks and the banks, and no travel system can shorten it. Where the supplier collects the payment instead, the refund comes from them on their own schedule. You can also switch self service cancellation off and ask customers to call your office instead, which many agencies prefer for anything already ticketed. Decide which of the two suits the way you work, then read the cancellation terms of each supplier you are connected to, because those terms, and not the portal, set what your customer will actually receive.

Question 6

Will a flight booking API show the budget airlines as well as the big carriers?

Accepted Answer

Yes, a flight booking API can usually show low cost airlines alongside the regular scheduled airlines, but the two do not always arrive from the same place. Full service airlines are mostly reached through the global distribution systems that agents have used for years, while many budget carriers sit outside those systems and have to be connected one at a time, either directly or through an aggregator that has already done that work. What this means in practice is that your search results may be built from more than one source at once. Your customer still sees a single list, sorted by price or by departure time, and does not need to know where each fare came from. Whether a particular budget airline appears at all depends on your supplier and on the plan you are on, so it is worth asking for the list of carriers included before you commit to anything. There are also real differences in how these fares behave after the search. Budget carriers often charge separately for baggage, seats and meals, they may not allow the same changes and refunds as a normal ticket, and some will not let a booking be cancelled once it has been issued. A good API passes those conditions through so they can be shown on your results page, but how much detail comes back varies from airline to airline. The sensible next step is to ask your supplier which low cost carriers are live on your account today, and then run a few test searches on the routes your customers actually fly, so you can see for yourself what comes back before you go live.

Question 7

Can a hotel booking API show suitable rooms when children are travelling with adults?

Accepted Answer

Yes, a hotel booking API can show room options for adults travelling with children, as long as the search includes the correct number of guests and the children's ages. This information helps the hotel supplier return rooms that match the property's occupancy rules and calculate the available rate correctly. The results may vary between hotels and suppliers. Some hotels allow a child to share an existing bed, while others require an extra bed, a larger room or an additional room. A child may also be treated as an adult after a certain age. These rules come from the supplier, so the API can only display the room details and conditions it receives. Your portal should ask for the children's ages before starting the hotel search. It should also show the maximum room occupancy, any available child policy and whether an extra bed or meal charge may be collected at the property. Some suppliers provide complete details, while others may provide only limited information, so important conditions should remain visible before payment. Before accepting a family booking, check that every guest is included in the search, review the room occupancy and read the supplier's booking conditions for any extra charges or restrictions.

Question 8

Will my white label travel portal work properly on a mobile phone?

Accepted Answer

Yes. A white label travel portal is built to work on a mobile phone as well as on a laptop, because most travellers now start their search on a phone. It is the same portal and the same booking engine, not a separate product. The pages simply rearrange themselves to fit a smaller screen, so the search box, the results, the passenger details and the payment step all stay usable with one thumb. You do not need a separate mobile app for your customers to book. Your own branding carries across in the same way. Your logo, your colours and your web address show on the phone just as they do on a computer, so a customer who finds you on their phone sees your agency and nobody else. There are honest limits worth knowing. Some parts of a booking page come straight from the supplier, such as hotel photographs, room descriptions and airline seat maps, and a few older suppliers send content that looks plainer or more cramped on a small screen. The payment step is often hosted by the payment provider, so that page follows their design rather than yours. Pages with many photos can also feel slow on a weak mobile connection, especially on long hotel result lists. The sensible thing to do is to test it yourself before you tell customers about it. Open your portal on your own phone, run a real search for a flight and for a hotel, and go all the way through to the payment page. Try it on both an Android phone and an iPhone, and ask a member of staff to do the same, so you find anything awkward before a customer does.

Question 9

Can a flight booking API show whether a ticket can be changed or refunded before my customer books?

Accepted Answer

Yes, a flight booking API can usually show whether a fare allows changes or refunds before the customer confirms the booking. This helps your staff and customers understand the main conditions before choosing a flight, especially when similar flights have different levels of flexibility. The exact detail depends on what the airline or flight supplier sends through the API. Some fares include clear rules about changes, cancellation and missed flights. Others provide only a short summary, or require the full fare conditions to be opened separately. Restrictions may also differ between each part of a journey, so a return booking may not have the same conditions in both directions. Showing that a fare is changeable or refundable does not always mean it can be changed or refunded without a charge. Airline penalties, fare differences and supplier service conditions may still apply. Taxes and optional extras may also be treated differently. The final decision remains subject to the airline rules in force when the request is made. Ask glideFares which fare rule details are available from your chosen flight suppliers, and check how those conditions will appear before payment on your booking portal.

Question 10

Can I let other small travel agents sell through my portal with their own login and their own price?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can. Most travel agency software lets you create sub agent accounts underneath your own account, so another agent gets their own login to the same portal and can search and book for their customers without having to call or email you every time. Every booking they make still sits inside your account, so you can see it, report on it and help with it if something goes wrong. On price, you normally decide what each sub agent sees rather than showing them your cost. You can usually give one markup to one group of agents and a different markup to another, and the sub agent can then add their own margin on top for their own customer. How finely you can split this, and whether a sub agent can hold a running balance with you or has to pay for each booking as it is made, depends on your plan and on how your payment setup is arranged. There are limits worth knowing about. Many suppliers require every booking to be made in your agency name, so the sub agent is selling through you rather than holding a contract of their own, and settling the commission between you and that agent is something you handle yourself. Cancellation and refund rules stay with the supplier as well, so you cannot offer a sub agent easier terms than the ones you are given. Before you open this up, work out how many agents you expect and whether they will pay you before or after travel, then ask for sub agent access to be enabled on your account and test one agent login from search through to booking yourself before you invite the rest.