Online Exchanges

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Online Exchanges
  • Overview
  • Exchange a Flight
  • Round Trip/Multi-leg exchanges
  • Summary of exchange capabilities

Overview

Spotnana allows you to perform many exchanges for travelers directly within the OBT. The benefit of this is that you no longer need to perform these exchanges in the GDS or run scripts (for most scenarios)

• Trip Exchanges: The OBT supports exchanges for one-way, roundtrip and multi-city destination bookings.
• Exchange Limit: There is NO Exchange limit on either GDS or NDC bookings.

The OBT will attempt to provide exchange quotes that are the same as the fare booked or those closest to the original fare category.
Possible fare category Downgrade: Agents need to examine the new fare category displayed and quoted on the OBT when conducting exchanges. If the customer has a "flex" ticket, be sure not to select a "restricted" fare. For example, basic economy fares may be available, but they are often non-refundable, non-changeable, and have no baggage allowance.

Penalties: 

• Quick Rules collects all the applicable rules for the exchange in single place.
  • For "automated exchanges" on the OBT, the system looks at CAT31 (voluntary changes) on Sabre. This is because CAT31 (Voluntary changes) and CAT33(Voluntary refunds) are automated categories used by Sabre APIs to display the "Quick Rules". 
  • For all other general scenarios, agents may continue referring to CAT16 (Penalties) on Sabre, which is a non-automated field. Quick rules will read CAT16 only when there is no information present in CAT 31/33.

NON-refundable exchanges:

• If a traveler has booked a non-refundable flight and then wants to exchange it and choose a refundable flight fare as the replacement, the airline rules state that the new fare will remain non-refundable (since that was the type of fare being used to start the exchange). In general, we should try to discourage travelers from purchasing a refundable fare with a non-refundable credit or exchange. If the traveler insists, clearly state that the new fare will be non-refundable if the original ticket was non-refundable. 
• Since refundable fares are often associated with a higher cost and cabin, it is not beneficial to travelers to choose this option when exchanging a non-refundable flight. If the traveler chooses to cancel, the credit will also be non-refundable (if they use the credit to purchase a ticket, that credit will be non-refundable).
• These details will be communicated to travelers in two separate locations in the OBT exchange workflow. 

Below are references to demo videos which illustrate the exchange workflow. 

• Notification that fare is non-refundable - See relevant attachment at bottom of this page to view the video.
• Attempting exchange during void window - See relevant attachment at bottom of this page to view the video.
• Support contact options - See relevant attachment at bottom of this page to view the video.

Exchange a Flight

For the steps to make changes to flight bookings, including exchanging a flight, see Edit a flight booking. 

Remember to check for a change in fare that may be more restrictive than what the original ticket is booked for.

If  new fare is lower, there will be a residual. The OBT will display a note mentioning Refund/Credit on the Checkout page. 

Whether customer will be refunded or a credit/MCO voucher will be generated is determined by the airline's applicable fare rules.

The exchanged ticket will be briefly shown in a Pending status in the OBT while Compleat checks it and gets it ticketed.

In Sabre, you will see that the open ticket is now in an Exchanged (EXCH) status and a new ticket (OPEN) has been issued.

The Itinerary is also updated in the GDS.

Here is what the new itinerary will look like:

Round Trip/Multi-leg exchanges

You can exchange round trip and point to point multi-city tickets using the Spotnana OBT. These tasks were previously only possible via GDS scripts.

To perform an exchange, locate the booking you wish to exchange and click Modify.

If the flight is under a single PNR, you can modify it via any segment. If the flights have separate PNRs, you must select each PNR that requires a change individually. 

For basic instruction on how to edit a flight booking, see editing a flight booking in the OBT. Note that if you are adding a new leg, click Add Flight.

Some things to be aware of when booking the new flight:

• Note any difference in the fare and ensure that the traveler is made aware of it.
• Be careful when selecting the new ticket and ensure you don't exchange a flexible ticket for a non-flexible one.

Review all flights and information with the traveler before clicking Book Flight.

Once booked, the record will go through the usual quality checks and then the ticket will be issued. The itinerary will updated in the OBT and display a status of Confirmed.

Once complete, you will see the original ticket with a status of EXCH in the GDS.

And the new ticket issued with a status of OPEN.

Summary of exchange capabilities

• The exchange of both Domestic and International itineraries via the OBT is supported.  
• Both partially flown and wholly unused tickets can be exchanged in the OBT.
• Exchanges that involve rerouting can be performed in the OBT so long as the fare rules allow it.
• One-way, Roundtrip, and Multi-City exchanges can be performed in the OBT.
• If the exchange can be issued using a WFRF (Auto-exchange) in Sabre, then it can be performed in the OBT. If the exchange requires a WFR (Known as Q-rex), then it will require manual changes in Sabre.