Overview

Occasionally, not all components on a booking can be confirmed by suppliers. Two configuration options are supported by TripBuilder on how different scenarios can be handled upon a booking, resulting in different outcomes, namely:

1. Create a partial booking: the itinerary is confirmed, but follow-up actions are required for the components that were unable to book.
2. Abort the entire booking: the itinerary isn't confirmed, and all components that were able to be previously booked are cancelled. Actions aren't possible on an aborted booking.

How to manage component confirmation failures during booking

Two configuration options are available:

When the setting Cancel None is selected, customers have the ability to create partial bookings instead of aborting the entire booking if any component, for any reason, fails to book.

One reason a component fails to book might be an issue with a live supplier, meaning it wasn’t possible to get a confirmation, for example, for a hotel in the itinerary.

Using this setting gives the Tour Operator better visibility of what happened on the booking. The Tour Operator will be notified via email of which components failed, and the customer has the possibility to perform a partial booking instead of fully aborting the booking.

When a partial booking is created, Tour Operators will have access to the booking change actions so that changes can be performed to reach a completed booking state or cancel the itinerary booking.

This setting is particularly relevant for customers using non-refundable live supply since it eliminates the need to have extra steps asking to cancel a non-refundable component (with costs associated).

When the setting Cancel All is selected, components that were able to be previously booked are cancelled, and the itinerary isn't confirmed.

Payment Handling

When a booking switches to Manual Processing because a component booking has failed, and the set abort strategy is Cancel None, TripBuilder will still gather the payment. This ensures that all booked components are paid for. However, if no components have been booked at all, any payments or pre-authorisations will be cancelled since there is no need for it.

If the abort strategy is set to Cancel All, all payments, pre-authorisations, and successfully booked components will be cancelled or deleted as per the defined settings.

Process of a Partial Booking

With the setting Cancel None enabled, when completing a booking as an Agent, and if any of the components fail to book, instead of getting a booking failed page and a status Checkout Started on Customer Care, you'll get a normal booking confirmation page confirming your booking.

When the Tour Operator receives an email (below) detailing which components couldn't be booked, they can address the issue by following up with the agent (B2B or B2C). This email will direct the TO/Cockpit user to check the Manual Processing tab in Customer Care to locate the partial booking where components have failed to book.

And the TO will see the Status Manual Processing & Not Paid in Customer Care:

Manual Processing in Customer Care

In the Manual Processing option, inside Customer Care, you’ll find the itinerary bookings where at least one component failed to book. When using this configuration, it's important to check the Manual Processing option in Customer Care on a regular basis.

In the Overview of the itinerary booking, if you go to the Services & Price List option, you can see the components that didn't fail with a Booked status and the ones that failed with an Open status:

By clicking on Actions (top right corner), the available actions for the manual processing booking are presented. You can either initiate a booking change or manually confirm the booking.

Alternatively, the Tour Operator can direct the Agent to initiate a booking change from the Agent Dashboard.

Confirm Booking Manually

You should only confirm the booking offline once all components are available, and the booking is ready to be completed.

If you confirm the booking manually without changing any of the components that failed to book initially, you’ll be asked to confirm your decision:

Cancelling a Partial Booking

If you choose to cancel a booking that's on Manual Processing, you need to either initiate a booking change or confirm the booking manually. After that, on the Actions menu, you can select Cancel Booking.

Initiate a Booking Change

You can initiate a booking change and replace the component that failed to initially book. For a detailed how-to, refer to Itinerary Action - Initiate Booking Change.

After you complete the booking change, the booking will change to the Change Completed status and be removed from the Manual Processing Bookings section, marked as Booked.

Failed Booking Change

If a booking change fails to complete due to a component's failure to confirm, already booked components won't be cancelled and will remain booked. In Customer Care, the itinerary status changes to Change Initiated, and a warning message is displayed.

Process of a Cancelled/Aborted Booking

With the setting Cancel All enabled, if any of the components fail to book, the failed booking page is displayed on the Planner.

And the booking is shown on Customer Care as Checkout Started & Not Paid:

As the booking fails, any component already booked in the external supplier system is also cancelled. If the component is non-refundable, it will incur cancellation fees.

In some cases, the reply to one or more cancellation actions from TripBuilder to external supplier systems takes too long to arrive. After reaching a timeout, the abort process is concluded, and any reply received from an external supplier system after this time is ignored. This potentially causes some individual components' status not to reflect the correct status in the external supplier system.

When this happens (for example, in B2C), Travel Agents need to contact the Sales Support of the Tour Operator, so they can check if any non-refundable components were cancelled as a result of the booking failure.