How long does a 'held' fare take to expire?
 

When you're using an online booking site and you select a ticket, this often creates a hold at the airline for that fare. If you then close your browser, the hold normally remains while the airline is waiting for the agent to actually book the ticket. Eventually this times out and the fare is released back to availability.

I hope that understanding is relatively right!

You'll normally encounter this (in a negative way) when you are booking a ticket, there is only an availability of 1 for example in the fare bucket, and your browser crashes or you have problems with agent and the booking fails. Until the hold is released, you can't attempt to book that fare again.

How long is this hold generally for? Is it airline dependant? GDS dependant or Travel Agent dependant - or a combination of all?

aa tells you when the hold will expire [or at least it did 3 mo's ago]....

however, if your fare sells out, i believe you might not get it.....

lots of discussion on aa.com re problems on this.....good luck....

ps....i would call and ask if its important....

also, it is easy to overlook advance purchase requirements, where they aren't met except today.....

That would be for a fare that is actually "booked" as a held fare.

The OP is talking about something more along the lines of a "soft" hold where the seat is taken out of inventory but not actually confirmed anywhere. Until the transaction of the purchase actually terminates - including the soft hold time - the seat and fare are still held.

My guess is that it depends on the site you are booking through and how their engine processes the web interaction.

I've had this time be a little as a couple of minutes, while I frantically searched for the correct cc to use. Too long? Fare/seat gone!

Indeed. I thought the answer would be similar to "how long is a piece of string" - but still interested in various experiences.