Originally posted by greg99 (abbreviated):
As I recall, at least on UA's Apollo for travel agents, there are 4 things that must be in the record - Name, Passenger telephone contact number, Name of the agent who made the reservation and the date that the reservation is expected to be ticketed. Everything else, which can be a lot if your corporate travel agency has a profile established for your company and a profile for you, the individual traveler, is optional.
Correct. There are certainly differences in a PNR generated by the airline directly, than a record generated by a (corporate) travel agency. I believe all of the US Domestic CRS/GDS systems work on a similar premise. For aMaDEUS, which I am somewhat familiar with, the agent uses automated macros and pre-stored profile information to build much of the PNR. Associated automation products can be used to check the record for compliance with corporate travel policy rules and regulations.
The macros can also be used to insert "default" text blocks to be printed on the invoice, such as reminders to reconfirm intl. reservations, the toll-free telephone number for an after-hours "hotline" service, and a general thank you message. Finally, there are cryptic entries in the record that are meaningful to the "back office" accounting system that the corporate agencies use to produce travel information and compliance reports (which the corporations use, among other purposes, when negotiating preferred vendor relationships and discounts).