Can I hold a flight booking for a customer who needs time to decide?

Yes, you often can, but whether a hold is offered at all comes down to the airline and the exact fare your customer has chosen. A hold means the booking is created and the seats are reserved, but no ticket is issued yet. The flight booking API returns a ticketing deadline along with the reservation, and your portal can show that deadline to your staff so everyone knows how long the customer has before the airline releases the seats.

When a hold is available, the booking will usually sit in your system with a status showing it is reserved but not ticketed. Your team can send the customer the itinerary, wait for payment, and then issue the ticket against the same reservation without starting the search again. Many low cost carriers work differently and expect payment at the moment of booking, so for those flights you will normally see no hold option and the only way to secure the seats is to pay straight away.

It is fair to be honest about the limits. Deadlines can be very short, especially close to departure, and some fares are sold on the condition that the ticket is issued immediately. If the deadline passes without a ticket, the airline can cancel the reservation on its own and the fare may no longer be there when you look again. Whether holds appear in your portal also depends on which suppliers you are connected to and what your agreement with them allows.

The practical step is to ask us to confirm which of your connected airlines and content sources support holds, and to make sure your staff get a reminder well before each ticketing deadline so no reservation is lost by accident.