Do I get the airline's booking reference and ticket number straight away when I book a flight through your API?

Yes, in nearly all cases the airline booking reference comes back as soon as the booking is confirmed, and the ticket number follows once the ticket has actually been issued. Both are returned in the API response or through a retrieve booking call, so you can store them against the customer record and show them on the itinerary you send out.

It helps to know that the two things are not the same. The booking reference is the airline's record of the reservation and lets your customer or your staff look the trip up with the airline. The ticket number is the proof that the seat has been paid for and issued. If your setup books and issues in a single step, you will usually see both in the same response. If booking and ticketing are two separate steps, you get the reference first and the ticket number after the issue request goes through, which may be seconds later or may take a few minutes depending on the airline.

Low cost carriers often work differently. Many of them use one reference for the whole booking and do not produce a traditional ticket number at all, so do not treat a missing ticket number as a failed booking on those airlines. What you receive and how quickly also depends on the supplier behind each airline in your account, so the behaviour can vary between carriers on the same portal.

The practical step is to save whatever references the API returns against every booking and have your staff check the retrieve booking response before telling a customer a ticket is issued, and ask us which airlines in your setup ticket instantly so you know what to expect.