Techtalks: Traveltech

Hi Cho
 
Yes, Travelpayouts looks like a nice option. Rome2Rio doesn’t have booking capability. It has search only.
 
If you’re fine with affiliate programs, also check Skyscanner, Allmyles, and KIWI. You may also consider Booking.com and Expedia affiliate programs, but they mostly address accommodation booking.

As per my outlook The best flight API are :-

1. Amadeus
2.  Flightapi
3. Sabre
4. Mystifly
5. TravelPort
6. Travelfusion

These are the api that I would suggest . Hope this information will help you . To know more about flight api go through this following link .

The main providers of car rental APIs are global distribution systems (GDSs): Sabre, Amadeus, and Travelport. You should contact them directly to gain access and receive and API key.

It may be a challenging task for a small business to get full access to GDSs solutions, so you can consider traveltech providers that support car rental connection like Trawex or Travelpro.

There’s also some support at online travel agencies (Skyscanner, Priceline, etc). To access those, you normally must use affiliate partner contacts. Finally, one of the largest car rental suppliers, Avis, has a public API.

Besides APIs, many suppliers support affiliate links and banners, if that works for you. You may check car rental connectivity options in our article in more detail.

Galileo is one of three GDSs along with Apollo and Worldspan that comprise Travelport GDS. Travelport has a pretty straightforward workflow to get started with product.

1. Request trial access to Galileo APIs and submit a form on Travelport’s website. There, you’ll have to choose your preferred GDS from the three (Galileo in your case). This is free, and you will receive a key to Galileo in a few minutes. Here’s a link to documentation to help you.
2. When you’re done with testing, contact an Account Manager from your profile or Travelport itself, and they will supply you with authorization.
3. After you are authorized, contract finalization and certification will start. This is called the Pre-Production stage. Travelport asks you to complete a Universal API Requirements Questionnaire [.docx] to evaluate your capacity needs. After completion, you should request a sales representative call to review your questionnaire and finalize certification.
4. When you receive your API certification, you enter the Production system. Make sure your developers and systems comply with Travelport’s requirements. You will receive further instructions from your account manager.

Hi Saikat,

The Self-Service APIs offer 2 different environments:
- Test environment: free of charge but limited (limited number of API calls per month and access to a subset of the production data). Good for prototyping and testing.
- Production environment: No restriction on the number of API calls and access to production live data without restrictions with a pay-as-you-go business model.
 
Moving from test to production is fully automated on the portal, no need to contact Amadeus for this.

Cheers,
Anthony

It depends. There’s no single best flight API. Your choice depends on the specific problem you’re trying to solve (e.g. enable flight and fare search, or track flight status with departure and arrival times, or enable flight booking). Generally, there are two basic options: source data from global distribution systems (or GDSs, the major, worldwide flight aggregators) or directly from airlines. In some cases, you can check APIs by tech providers like FlightStats.

If you need the widest airline coverage and you want to implement flight booking, check GDS APIs by Sabre, Travelport, and Amadeus. Each of them covers about 400 active airlines. They search for flights and low fares, and do booking and ticketing. The problem with this approach is that some airlines like Lufthansa set surcharges for booking through GDSs because they want to encourage direct booking or direct cooperation with resellers.

So, the option is to integrate and partner directly with each airline you need. That, however, presents an even larger number of problems as there are only about 40 airlines that have standardized XML-based APIs and each of them is slightly different. So, the engineering effort may be enormous. On the bright side, with direct connections, you get the widest ancillary booking support, seat selection, baggage customization options, etc. The most balanced approach to flight search and booking is to combine GDSs with some direct integrations.

If your goal is general info without booking capabilities, you may not need GDS or direct integration. The first place to go for fresh flight fare data is ATPCO, the main fare distribution provider. The largest pool for timetables, routes, and connections is provided by Innovata, a travel tech company. Also check FlightStats and Flightradar24 for flight and airport details like delay indexes, arrivals and departures, aircraft equipment, airport FIDS, flight status, etc.
If you need something simple and don’t want to go through raw airline data, you may contact OTAs or metasearch platforms to integrate their APIs. The key provider here is Skyscanner, but also consider Expedia or Kiwi.

For more details, have a look at our travel API's articles.

MakCorps - Hotel Price Comparison API
1) Provides data from more than 200 OTAs like Booking, Expedia, Agoda, etc.
2) Compare prices and provide JSON response with top  cheapest vendors
3) Search any city, any hotel of any country.
4) FREE pack available with 420 requests per month.
 

Hi there,

We mostly work with GDSs. So, Amadeus suggests 2,000 free requests per month for low-fare search and 3,000 requests for a regular search, given that you use their self-service APIs. Sabre doesn’t have fixed rates and everything must be discussed individually.

As for other players, Skyscanner claims to provide all API services for free, if you can negotiate commercial partnership with them. Their limit is up to 100 requests per minute for live prices. You are right that Kiwi doesn’t provide open info on their rates, so it’s worth contacting them directly. The same for Travelfusion, Orbitz, and Priceline.

You can also try your luck with ATPCO, that’s where all flight prices come from.

Hi Olexander
Sorry I didn't reply sooner and thank you for your detailed answer which has helped explain the differential between numbers of deployed channel management products versus numbers of hotels presented within the larger OTAs.
Best regards
Ted
 
 

Hi there,

It’s nearly impossible to get access to all airline seating info as some airlines may not share this data in the first place.

However, there are two main options. The first one is obvious: you may contact airlines directly and ask for their API access with seating capabilities. For instance, Lufthansa Open API provides seat maps. But most airlines don’t support APIs at all.

The second option is to source seating info from GDSs.

Amadeus provides seat maps in their enterprise APIs.
Sabre has a broad set of APIs for seating.
And TravelPort Universal API has a seat map capability.

They still may be limited by the data that carriers provide.

It doesn’t look like SeatGuru has an open API, but it’s also worth trying to contact them directly.
Getting access to GDS APIs isn’t that simple, but it seems like the best option for your problem.

Hotelbeds Group has a huge market coverage allowing you to distribute accommodations, activities, and transfers in 185 countries. It has a few APIs but all with the same integration process, so we’ll walk you through it.

1. Register for a test key. This will create an account in Mashery – an API database that powers Hotelbeds and many other APIs in different industries.
2. After receiving a confirmation email, generate your API key, which will give you access to documentation and the Sandbox. At this stage, you’ll also need to choose at least one Hotelbeds API that you’re planning to choose. There are three: Booking API, Content API, and Cache API. Read a brief explanation here.
3. Be prepared for integration. You will be contacted by a Hotelbeds representative.

There are mainly two types of use cases for integrating Booking.com APIs.
Accommodation booking by travel providers. The model is quite simple. You enroll in the affiliate program and then use the Booking.com API and other affiliate products to either sell rooms from their inventory for a part of a commission or redirect users to Booking.com. The example of the former integration is Aegean Air, a Greek airline that allows travelers to book rooms in addition to flights. The latter is Rome2Rio.com, an itinerary planning and travel search platform. While Aegean uses full Booking.com functionality under its brand, Rome2Rio suggests accommodations, ratings, and pricing with range filters coming from the Booking.com inventory.
APIs for channel managers. Another major API package is Connectivity. It suggests channel managers and other connectivity providers integrating Booking.com as one of the sales channels. Examples for integration are all the popular accommodation channel managers that you can think of (SiteMinder, Dhisco, DerbySoft, etc.) Also keep in mind that Booking.com doesn’t allow properties to connect directly. If you’re a hotel owner, you must connect via a channel manager only. You can set your property management page on the Booking.com portal and pick your channel manager from there.

Hi there,

One of the places you could go is Byhours. They offer Sabre-based integration and have their platform for travel agents.

Also, Dayuse has a booking platform for online travel agencies. Try contacting them directly. We aren't sure they have an API, but worth a try. 

Hi there,
It’s not unusual for PMS providers to separate their Revenue Management module from the base software. With providers such as Protel and eZee Absolute, you will have to either pay extra for RM features, while others like Little Hotelier have simple tools for integrating with third-party revenue management software. Both of these options are normal in the industry and are not complicated to set up.
 
If you still require RM to be included in the base PMS package, consider these products:

• OPERA 5 and OPERA Cloud have rate management functionality and flexible inventory control features out-of-the-box, plus numerous add-ons. Read more about Oracle’s proposition here.
• Maestro PMS has an integrated dynamic rate and yield management module.
• Hotelogix has dynamic pricing features and offers price recommendations.
• IQware provides occupancy forecasts and calculates five levels of yield.

We have a more detailed overview of these and other PMSs in a separate article, so make sure to check it out. Hope it helps!

what are the basic airline IT requirements when setting up and airline (including back office technology)? to allow the airline to operate a scheduled operation. 

Hello, 

There are several options you can try.

1. The hard way is to contact Amadeus directly and ask whether they can help you partner with a flight consolidator and get an Enterprise partnership. Consolidators do have IATA ID and can ticket your flights via Amadeus. According to our experience, Amadeus support Middle East bookings for their Enterprise partners. If you manage to negotiate an Enterprise partnership, you can get API access. This may not work, because the Enterprise option is designed for businesses having IATA ID. But you may still try.

2. A simpler way is to contact consolidators directly. They have booking APIs and can ticket your flights. We had a positive experience with Mondee, so try contacting them. If Mondee doesn’t work, check other consolidators. Here’s our article with several consolidator options to consider. 

3. You may also check Travelfusion. They must have ticketing covered and you don’t necessarily need IATA ID. But you should check the Middle East coverage with them.

Let me know if that helps!

Hello Everyone,

I am planning to learn Salesforce Administration Certification, but I can't find the best modules for great learning.

I just know that Salesforce plays an enormous part in various businesses, thus investing in certified administrators can become a successful career platform for several applicants. 

Is there anyone help me to solve this problem?

Thanks,

Pankaj

I’m sorry for the slow response. If you have IATA ID, you can try negotiating the Amadeus Enterprise partnership. It has wider API support across regions.

If you don’t, try contacting consolidators. We had a positive experience with Mondee. If Mondee doesn’t work, check other consolidators. Here’s our article with several consolidator options to consider. You may also check Travelfusion. They must have ticketing covered and you don’t necessarily need IATA ID. 

Let me know if that helps! 

Hello,

Unfortunately, we haven’t heard of such a booking engine available on the market. Normally, you implement that filtering by price within your internal business logic. Similarly, you can hide prices on your side. 

To do that you must have API integration with your inventory suppliers and a booking engine that you can customize, either internal or white-label, given that a provider can help with customization. Let us know if you need further consultation. 

Which are the CRS/PMS/Channel Manager solutions which have both of these features:
1. Break/Merge stay (One booking into multiple nights or merge multiple bookings into one) API    AND
2. Name change APIs.