Question 1

Will my portal show hotel star ratings and guest reviews so my customer can compare?

Accepted Answer

Yes, star ratings almost always come through, and guest reviews usually do as well, though how rich they look depends on the supplier feeding the hotels. The star rating is part of the basic property content, so your customer will normally see it on the search results page next to the photo and the address, and can sort or filter on it. Reviews are a separate piece of content, and while many suppliers send a review score and a count of how many travellers left one, not every supplier sends the written comments themselves. Where the written reviews are available, they are shown on the hotel page under the description and the facilities, so a customer can read a few before deciding. Where only a score is available, the portal shows the score on its own rather than inventing anything around it. Star ratings can also differ slightly from one country to another, because they are awarded by local tourism bodies and not by a single worldwide standard, so a property rated four in one market may feel different from a four somewhere else. It is worth remembering that this content belongs to the supplier and refreshes on their schedule, so a review score can lag a little behind what your customer sees on a large public review site. If the same hotel reaches you through two suppliers, the ratings attached to each can also differ, and the one your customer sees will be the one tied to the rate they are looking at. The thing to check next is a handful of hotels in the cities you sell most, and see what actually appears on the hotel page for each. That will tell you quickly whether your current supplier gives you full reviews or only a score, and your account contact can tell you what else can be switched on.

Question 2

Will my portal tell my customer how much baggage they can take on their flight?

Accepted Answer

Yes, in most cases the baggage allowance is shown with the fare, so your customer knows what they are getting before they pay. The allowance comes from the airline itself through the booking connection, and it normally appears in the fare details on the results page and again on the review page, covering the cabin bag and any checked bag. How much detail appears depends on the airline. Full service airlines usually send a clear allowance, such as one checked bag of a stated weight plus one cabin bag, and that reads well on screen. Low cost airlines often sell a basic fare with hand baggage only, and a checked bag is bought separately. In those cases the portal shows the fare as hand baggage only, and the extra bag is offered as a paid add on when the airline shares that option through the connection. There are honest limits. A few airlines send the allowance in a short coded form that does not read neatly, and on some journeys the allowance changes between legs, for example when two different airlines carry your customer. The portal shows what the airline has sent, and the airline remains the final word at the airport. Airlines can also change their baggage rules on a route at short notice. Before you go live, run a few test searches on the routes your customers use most and check that the baggage line reads clearly on the results page, at payment and on the confirmation, and pass on anything that looks blank or confusing so it can be checked for you.

Question 3

Can my customers see and pay in their own currency on my portal?

Accepted Answer

Yes, a white label portal can show prices in more than one currency, and you decide which currencies your customers are allowed to choose from. One currency is set as the base for your business, and the others are shown by converting from that base using an exchange rate that is refreshed regularly. Your customer picks the currency they are comfortable with, and the search results, the fare rules and the final page all follow that choice. The part that catches people out is the difference between the currency shown on screen and the currency the money actually moves in. A customer may see and understand the price in their own currency, but the payment gateway and the supplier behind the booking may still charge in the currency the fare or the room was originally quoted in. Which one your customer is billed in depends on the gateway you use and the agreement you have with it, not on the portal alone. Be ready for small differences. A converted price is a conversion and not a real quoted price, so the amount on the card statement can differ slightly from the amount on the screen, and the bank may add its own charge on top. Refunds usually come back at the rate applied on the day of the refund rather than the day of booking. Some suppliers also quote in one currency only, and in those cases the other currencies shown are always a conversion. The sensible next step is to confirm with your payment provider which currencies they can actually settle in, then switch on only those currencies and add a short line at the payment step explaining that the final amount may vary a little.

Question 4

Can my company customers approve staff travel before a booking is confirmed?

Accepted Answer

Yes, an approval step can often be added for company travel, but the exact options depend on your glideFares plan and the booking setup. A traveller or travel arranger can submit a trip request, and the person responsible for approval can review it before the agency completes the booking. The approval may cover details such as the traveller, route, hotel, travel dates and reason for the trip. Some businesses may also want separate rules for different teams or types of travel. What can be shown and who can approve each request depends on the access and approval features available with the portal. Approval does not always hold the original flight or hotel option. Fares, rooms and availability can change while the request is waiting, especially when the supplier does not allow a reservation to be held. The agent may need to search again after approval and tell the customer if the selected option is no longer available or the terms have changed. Before setting this up, check who should request travel, who should approve it and whether approval is needed for every booking or only certain trips. Ask glideFares to confirm which approval options are included in your plan and how they work with the travel products you intend to sell.

Question 5

Can I change the guest name after a hotel booking has been confirmed through the API?

Accepted Answer

No, a guest name cannot always be changed after a hotel booking has been confirmed. Some hotel suppliers allow a simple correction, while others treat any name change as a new booking. The result depends on the supplier rules, the hotel and the room rate that was booked. If a change is allowed, your staff may be able to request it through the booking system, but it may not be confirmed immediately. The supplier or hotel might need to approve the request, and a charge may apply. Small spelling corrections are often easier than replacing the original guest with a different person, but even a minor correction is not guaranteed. When the supplier does not support changes through the API, the booking may need to be cancelled and booked again. This can affect the room price and availability, and cancellation charges may apply. You should not cancel the original reservation until you have checked that a suitable replacement room is still available and that the customer accepts any change in terms. Before confirming a hotel booking, check that every guest name matches the travel document they plan to use. If a correction is needed later, review the booking conditions first and ask your support team to confirm what the supplier allows before making any change.

Question 6

Can a flight fare change after my customer finds it but before the booking is confirmed?

Accepted Answer

Yes, a flight fare can change between the search and the final confirmation. Flight availability and fares come from the airline or flight supplier, and another traveller may take the last seat at that fare while your customer is entering their details or making payment. A search result therefore shows what was available at the time of the search, but it does not normally reserve that fare. Before the booking is completed, the flight booking API can ask the supplier to check the fare and availability again. If the original fare is no longer available, the supplier may return a different fare or say that the selected flight cannot be booked. What happens next depends on the supplier, the API connection and how your portal is set up. The customer may be asked to accept the new amount, choose another flight or start the search again. A fare should not be treated as confirmed until the booking has been accepted and the required confirmation or ticket details have been returned. Even a short delay can matter when seats are limited or demand is high. The portal can make the change clear, but it cannot force an airline to keep a fare that was never reserved. Check that your booking process performs a final fare check and clearly asks the customer to review any changed amount before payment or ticket issue.

Question 7

Can my staff add private notes to a booking that the customer cannot see?

Accepted Answer

Yes, your staff can usually add internal notes to a booking so important information stays with the reservation without appearing on the customer’s confirmation or voucher. This can help your team record matters such as a promised follow up, a special request that still needs checking, or the reason a booking was changed. The exact way notes work depends on the travel service, the booking source and the features included in your plan. Some notes may be visible only to your agency staff, while other comments may be sent to an airline, hotel or supplier. A note sent to a supplier is not guaranteed to be accepted or acted upon, and it should not be treated as confirmation of a request. Access may also depend on each staff member’s permissions. This can help prevent people who do not handle a booking from viewing or changing sensitive internal comments. Staff should avoid placing card details, passport information or other unnecessary personal information in a free text note, even when the note is intended to remain private. Before using notes for live bookings, check which note field is for your agency only, who can read or edit it, and whether any part of it is passed to the customer or supplier.

Question 8

Can I choose the colours and photos on my portal so it looks like my own brand?

Accepted Answer

Yes, the look of your portal is yours to set, and most agencies adjust it before they go live so the site feels like part of their own brand rather than a template. The parts you can control are the ones a customer notices first. Your logo sits in the header, the main colours are set to match your brand so buttons and headings carry your shade instead of a default one, and the large banner pictures on the home page can be swapped for images of the destinations you actually sell. The wording around the search box, the footer links and the small print can be changed as well, so nothing on the page reads as though it belongs to somebody else. There are sensible limits worth knowing. The search results, the booking steps and the payment page follow a layout that is kept consistent because it has been tested to work on small phone screens and to keep customers moving through to payment, so those screens are coloured and branded to suit you rather than redrawn from scratch. How far the styling can go, and whether a fully custom design is included, depends on your plan. Any photograph you supply has to be one you hold the rights to, because images picked up from the internet can cause trouble later. Put together a good quality copy of your logo, your brand colours and a handful of pictures you own, then pass them to your setup contact before the build begins so the portal goes live already looking like yours.

Question 9

Can my customers search for hotels near a landmark or a particular address, or only by city name?

Accepted Answer

Yes, in most cases they can search by more than just the city name. A hotel search on your portal can usually be run against a city, an area or neighbourhood within that city, an airport, a well known landmark, or a hotel your customer already has in mind by name. The results are then worked out by distance from whatever point was chosen, so somebody looking for a room near a conference venue or a railway station does not have to scroll through every hotel in the city to find one. How well this works does depend on the supplier and on the destination. Big cities and popular tourist areas tend to have good landmark and neighbourhood coverage, because the suppliers have done the work of mapping hotels to those points. Smaller towns and less visited places often have city level coverage only, so a landmark search there may quietly fall back to showing you the whole town. Searching by a full street address is the least reliable of the options and is not something every supplier supports. Once results are on the screen your customer can normally narrow them further, by distance from the chosen point, by star rating, by price range and by the facilities they care about. Many portals also show the results on a map, which is often the quickest way for somebody to judge whether a hotel is genuinely walkable from where they need to be. Before you rely on it for a particular destination, run a few test searches on the places your customers actually ask for and see how sensible the results look.

Question 10

If my staff issue a flight ticket by mistake, can I cancel it straight away without losing the whole fare?

Accepted Answer

Often yes, if you act quickly. Many airlines allow a ticket to be voided within a short window after it is issued, usually the same working day, and a void is not the same as a refund. A voided ticket is treated almost as if it was never issued, so the money comes back in full or very close to it, and it comes back far faster than a normal refund would. Whether the option is there depends on the airline and on the supplier the fare came through. Some low cost airlines do not offer a void at all, and some suppliers do not pass the option on to you even where the airline allows it. Once the window has closed, the ticket stops being a mistake you can undo and becomes an ordinary cancellation, which means the fare rules decide what your customer gets back and the airline may keep part of it. Because the window is short, the practical answer is to treat a wrong ticket as urgent rather than raising it as a normal support request the next morning. Have your team check the passenger name, the date and the route on the booking screen before they confirm, since almost every void request comes from something that could have been caught in that last look. If it has already happened, open the booking on your portal and see whether a cancel or void option is offered, and if it is not, contact your account team the same day rather than waiting.