Airline Booking Engine Options Can Vary

Most airline booking software can provide “live” connectivity with airlines so that the most up to date pricing and availability is used. Some air booking engines even have the ability to search multiple content sources simultaneously for the best price, allowing agency owners the ability to combine their own content with content from other sources. Many travel agents look for an online booking engine that allows them to customize the branding such as headers, footers and style sheets to reflect their agency’s unique identity and provide a seamless online experience for their customers shopping online.

So many of today’s airfares come with specific rules attached to them that choosing the right fare can be confusing.  Some fare rules are important for Consumers to be aware of such as the ability to change their itinerary, class of service or receive a refund on their ticket.  While other fare rules may only make sense to the Travel Agent such as published verses private fares, fare basis codes, combinability, and other GDS information.

The flexibility to choose which information your airline booking engine displays to specific types of users of the application can prove to be an important and valuable tool.  Whether you choose to display the information directly from the GDS or customize the display to contain only the information you want to display can be left up to you.

Look for an airline booking the engine that allows you to set up and control what rules are shown to the user. Many of today’s applications allow you to set up different rules for published verses private fares for example.

The business management tools that an airline booking engine includes is an important factor to consider and something which can vary greatly from system to system.  Most applications include the ability to adjust a product’s selling price, but the level of flexibility defining business rules is where systems can vary tremendously. Most have the ability to adjust selling fares by the airline, but some go much further and allow for Rules to be defined by itinerary, class of service, travel or booking dates and much more.

The ability to easily run reports to track your business and help you make adjustments along the way is also an important consideration when evaluating any air booking engine.   Who are your top customers?  What are the top destinations your customers are interested in? Are your customers finding what they are looking for on your website?  Many applications include reporting tools that track your bookings, but some can even provide search statistics that can let you know quickly and easily what your customers are looking for when they come to your website.

This can be valuable information for a business owner to consider when reviewing their overall product offering as well as negotiating preferential rates with Suppliers.

Choosing an airline booking engine with the right combination of options for your business can be a critical decision.   Finding a technology the partner that will help you reach today’s mobile consumer with the content they are looking for can be just as important.