Can I hold a seat on a flight for my customer for a day or two without paying for it through your API?

Sometimes yes, but it depends entirely on the airline and the fare you have selected. Many full service carriers allow you to create a booking and hold the seats until a ticketing deadline, and where that is possible the API returns the booking along with its deadline so your staff can see exactly how long they have to collect payment. Low cost carriers almost always need payment at the moment of booking, so there is no hold option on those fares at all.

Where a hold is allowed, the length varies by airline, route and fare type. Some airlines give you only until a set time on the same day, others allow a day or longer. That deadline is set by the airline, not by us, and it is often shorter during busy travel periods or when departure is close. The held fare is not always protected either, so if the airline withdraws that fare before you issue the ticket, you may have to reprice before you can complete the booking.

If the deadline passes without payment, the airline usually cancels the booking by itself, which is why the software can display these deadlines alongside your bookings so nothing quietly disappears. Whether you see hold options in the first place also depends on which supplier connections are enabled on your plan, as some content only supports instant ticketing.

Before you promise a customer a hold, check with us which of your connections support it, and always read the ticketing deadline returned on that specific booking rather than relying on what the airline normally allows.