Can I test your flight booking API before I go live, so I don't make a mess of a real booking?

Yes, you can test the flight booking API before you go live. You get a separate set of test credentials, and your developer can run searches, build a booking and see exactly what comes back without touching real airline inventory or taking real money from anyone. The responses in a test setting are usually sample data rather than live fares, so do not judge the fares or the airline choice by what you see there. The purpose is to check that the search, the passenger details, the payment step and the booking confirmation all behave the way you expect before a customer ever sees it.

How far the testing can go depends on the supplier sitting behind each airline. Some give a full test setting where you can search, book, cancel and get a reference number back, which is ideal for training your staff as well. Others only allow searching in test mode and ask you to complete a few small live bookings as part of their certification before they open everything up properly. Low cost carriers tend to be the stricter ones, because many of them run on live systems with no practice mode at all.

It is also worth testing the messy cases, not just the easy ones. Try a name that is too long, a card that gets declined, a fare that expires before payment, and a search with no results. Those are the situations that cause arguments at the counter, and it is much better to see how the system handles them while nothing is at stake.

When you are ready, ask us for test credentials and tell us which airlines matter most to your business, so we can confirm which of those can be tested fully and which will need a live booking to finish.