Delta Confirmation Number Decoder Ring
 

We are asking our employees to enter Confirmation numbers when they submit flight receipts/expenses. Any way to decipher any of the confirmation number to make it more meaningful for reporting
Example Airline, fare, etc. etc.

Your Trip Confirmation #: HBX4T8

example what does the above mean ?

Delta Confirmation numbers start with FGHJ, but other than that they don't mean anything other than to bring up a record for the airline. And they are recycled pretty quickly. The Locator won't be accessible on Delta.com or by phone reps usually just a few days after the trip is done.

There is no meaning. It is a random string of numbers and letters used to identify a record.

You may be looking for detail like fare construction but this would be much more annoying for a user to input.

Welcome to FlyerTalk@Jason2018!

As far as I know, the Trip Confirmation Number (PNR) is just a randon six-character identifier that is supposed to be unique in the reservations system; there's nothing that can be gleaned or extrapolated from it as far as airline (this can be determined by the first three digits of the ticket number), or fare (this is a separate data element). I believe Concur has robust reporting that can be used to solve your issues.

This falls under the "today I learned" category. Can't believe I never noticed that before.

thanks - do you happen to have the decoder ring for all the airlines and which alphabets/numbers they correspond to ?

Sadly I don't fly other airline often enough to pick up on their trends.

How I learned it originally is I called DL and I couldn't find my confirmation number, and the rep said all DL records start with F G H and J. And I checked my old flights and sure enough everyone was like that.

So you could just try to call everyone and play dumb and find out!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_name_record

This sounds like a waste of time for both the employees and whoever is looking for something. As mentioned, there is no industry standard and is it the individual airline that generates their own records. And once you fly, the record locator is gone fairly quickly.

Well I attach BPs anyway to my expense reports so employer sees them anyway - or at least my boss and audit does

That is exactly what was happening at my previous company and why all expense reports had to have BPs. Actually they were buying expensive last minute refundable tickets then driving. Forgotten how they were caught out before being fired.

Decoder ring?

BESUR2
DRNKUR
OVALTN

:D

Most airlines confirmation numbers (or record locator) are sequential, not random. Starting with a letter but including both numbers and letters. But do not include the letter I or O since they could be easily confused with 1 and zero. 10 digits and 24 letters allows for a very large number of unique 6-character confirmation numbers before they would need to be reused.

HXEL28
HXEL29
HXEL2A
HXEL2B
...
HXEL2H
HXEL2J
...
HXEM1B
HXEM1C

When airlines and GDS systems send messages to each other, they always identify the airline that owns the booking:

HDQAA A23456 The booking with confirmation number A23456 is owned by American Airlines and was stored by the AA headquarters location.
MUC1A A12345 The booking with confirmation number A12345 is owned by Amadeus and was stored by the Munich computer center.

as stated the confirmation number is just a random collection of letters that mean absolutely nothing.

I just checked a VS miles redemption for a forthcoming DL flight and the VS confirmation starts with a D and in the DL system a G

BA / AA flights I have done in the last year have started with K,P,M,Q,R,G,V and N !



If you want staff to enter something to ease reporting then why not the airport pairs so

ATLJFK
SEASFO etc

Or the client / project code.