Will a flight booking API tell me how much baggage is included in the fare before my customer books?

Yes, in most cases a flight booking API can show the baggage allowance for each fare before your customer books. Airlines now sell the same route at several different fares, and the cheapest one often includes only a small cabin bag, so the allowance is normally sent back with the price and you can display it next to each option in your search results.

How much detail you get depends on the airline and on the source the fare comes from. Some carriers return a clear allowance for every fare, such as the number of pieces or the weight allowed for the checked bag and the cabin bag. Others send only a short code or a line of text that has to be shown exactly as it arrives. Low cost carriers in particular sometimes give nothing at the search stage and reveal the allowance only once a fare is selected, because for them the bag is a paid extra rather than part of the ticket.

Because of that, it is safer to treat the allowance as information that comes from the airline rather than something that can be promised for every flight on every route. Where the airline sends it, your portal can show it. Where it does not, your portal shows what is available and your customer sees the full baggage position on the airline confirmation.

Before you go live, run a few searches on the routes you sell most often and look at what the allowance shows for the cheapest fare, the middle fare and the flexible fare, then decide how you want that wording to appear on your search page so that your customers are not surprised at the airport.