Can I hold a flight booking for my customer without paying straight away?

Yes, in many cases you can, but it is not possible on every flight, so please treat it as something to check case by case rather than something you can count on. Where it is allowed, the booking is created and held under a reference without a ticket being issued, and you get a deadline by which payment and ticketing must happen. If that deadline passes without payment, the airline cancels the hold on its own and the seats go back into the pool.

Whether a hold is offered, and how long it lasts, is decided by the airline and the supplier the fare comes from, not by us. Full service airlines booked through a global distribution system are the most likely to allow it. Low cost airlines and most of the cheaper web fares usually need instant payment and ticketing, because the seat is only confirmed at the moment the ticket is paid for. Some fare types also allow a hold but will not guarantee the fare, meaning the price can move before you ticket it, so the safest approach is still to collect payment from your customer early.

One thing worth being clear about with your own staff and your sub agents is that a held booking is not a confirmed ticket. Your customer has no travel document until ticketing is done, and a hold that quietly expires can look to the customer like a confirmed trip that has vanished.

When you are testing, try a hold on a full service airline and on a low cost one and see which options appear and what deadline you are given, and ask us which of your connected suppliers support holding so you can tell your team where to expect it.