GDS Booking Monitoring Policy

GDS Booking Fee Monitoring Policy
Cost Control Initiatives
Policies

GDS Booking Fee Monitoring Policy

American Airlines recognizes GDS as a valuable distribution channel, and as such, we currently participate in all major systems. As part of our participation, we pay incremental fees for travel agent bookings. Billable activity includes sell, cancel, waitlist, desire, change, schedule change, etc.

While the following initiatives and policies are in support of our ongoing effort to monitor and control our GDS costs, they will also improve your work environment by eliminating non-productive activity, allowing your agents to work better and work smarter.

Cost Control Initiatives

·         Waitlist Reduction - AA has reduced waitlist ceilings and eliminated waitlist in most discount classes of service. This modification provides a waitlist product that allows you to waitlist inventory that has the most potential of clearing. For more details about waitlists see Waitlisted Segments.

·         Schedule Change Notification for minor time changes has been reduced, eliminating unnecessary queue and telephone activity.

Policies

·         Duplicate Bookings - AA will monitor booking activity at the travel agent level in order to identify duplicate bookings. American Airlines definition of a duplicate booking is the use of the same Customer name for an additional flight for the same market, date, IATA number, regardless of flight number, class of service or status code.

You should never book duplicate space, as this is a waste of your time and a loss to us.

·         Fictitious Bookings - Fictitious bookings could include those with name field items that read test / traveler / tourist or a surname with fictitious initials, i.e. A / B / C / D / E.

Please avoid the practice of holding space under speculative customer names. We will monitor booking activity at the travel agent level in order to identify fictitious bookings and they will be canceled.

·         GDS Conversions - Agencies will be responsible for payment of booking fees or integration fees associated with conversion to a new GDS for all EDIFACT or NDC bookings.

·         Passive PNR - Passive PNRs will be subject to the unproductive segment fees. Passive segments with status codes of GK or YK (Sabre) and MK or ML (Worldspan) are subject to unproductive segment fees.

·         Schedule Change - AA is billed for both the original WK and replacement SC segment and will only receive credit if the WK or WL segment is canceled. When working your schedule change queue, you must cancel these WK / WL segments.

·         Inactive Segments - Agencies must cancel unnecessary segments with status codes of DL, DS, HX, IX, MM, NO, RM, UC, UN, US, UU, WK and WL at least 24 hours prior to flight departure.

Failure to comply with these policies may result in debit memo issuance to the agency for booking infractions in order to offset the costs incurred by American Airlines and an administrative service fee will be added.

In addition to these policies, you can assist us in controlling booking fee costs by remembering that every time you action an air segment there is a charge. Other requirements and suggestions that will keep booking fee costs down and save you time are:

·         Eliminate excessive cancel and rebook activity by ticketing within the time limit specified in the fare rule.

·         When using low fare products, complete the booking and low fare entry in one transaction.

·         For locations with multiple GDS, book and ticket in the same system.

·         PNR clean up - Agents must cancel unnecessary segments with status codes of DL, DS, HX, IX, MM, NO, RM, UC, UN, US, UU, WK and WL. This will also help in reading, pricing, and ticketing the PNR.

·         Do not book air segments for administrative reasons. Use auxiliary segments whenever possible.

·         Limit the use of open segments. Your customer will be better served being confirmed.

·         Avoid using Passive PNRs whenever possible.

·         Eliminate the practice of holding speculative space under fictitious names.

Working within our initiatives, policy changes and suggestions will improve your overall productivity and support our cost control effort.

Updated: December 2024