tcook052

'93 was a long time ago and before the advent of the internet changing how tickets are bought & sold so would expect the rules regarding obtaining IATA appointment to be much different because of the audit & security concerns. BTW I started as a TA here in Canada two years later and have worked full-time since.

Marsh11

Yes, I know this is an ancient thread, but I'll jump in here.

I currently have access to the "Sabre Red Workstation" (individual subscription, ~$45/month) but registered without a host agency.

I mostly want to do bookings for myself, friends, family, etc., and like the OP, I'm frustrated by the consumer-level tools and just want to do it myself. I'm not interested in making money, earning commissions, or even doing this as a business. But I do want to be able to queue PNRs to be ticketed by an ARC-accredited agency.

Is my best bet simply to sign up with someone like Nexion for one of their low[er]-cost plans? Do I have to give up my current PCC and become a sub-account of theirs, or can I keep my current Sabre subscription and just gain the ability to queue to them for ticketing? That's all I'm really looking for at this point. Consider me a "prosumer" (a term that seems to be popular in the photography world) -- I'm not doing this as a career or as a professional, but I want to move up from consumer-grade tools to professional-grade tools.

I'm going to be low-volume for sure, so unlikely to earn any travel agent credentials (don't really care). Will a host agency even want to bother with me at that volume, or as long as I pay me fees to them, will they be happy to ticket my PNRs and be done with it? Seems like some host agencies just provide back-end services and others really want some kind of sales commitment from home-based agents and expect a level of business development that's not really right for someone like me.

Thanks

TravelerMSY

You could queue them to any sabre agency for ticketing. Unlikely they're going to just give you ticketing privileges without a good relationship as there's liability involved.

Other way is to sign up as an agent with a host agency like Nexion or Incentive Connection in PHX.

Even ICT didn't let you drive tickets. You would queue them for ticketing and an employee there would review and print. My experience with them was 20 years ago though

I'd happily take a share in a Flyertalk agency for a Sabre login, but y'all have to pay all the debit memos for my shady fares

pricesquire

All of this talk is about airfare booking. What about hotels?

TravelerMSY

Sure. Hotel and rental cars can be booked in the GDS as well.

jackal

And hotels come with a much better commission than airline tickets (0%, except for some international tickets) and rental cars (5%, give or take). I've seen hotels give 10% and in some cases even 20%+ commission. (It's no wonder hotels sometimes require you to book directly on their websites to collect points!)

jason53

There's tons of options here... the other thing you can do is register with IATA or CLIA independently and sign up to a travel consolidator. They will take a cut of the commission but you will gain access to all GDS's and other hotel/car inventory.

Anyone who currently subscribes to a GDS please PM me I would like to know more

MadTraveler

I have been searching online, but there is always a place online which you havent checked. Could anyone share with they experience where they have registered as a home based travel agent. I have already established small connection in my country as a travel agent, but because of studies i left the travel agency, so i wanted to continue creating reservations and checking flight by myself.

TravelerMSY

Try Nexion for starters.

janter

Is there any way to access Sabre individually for 45$ from Europe? I see that it only allows Canada/US

MOC991

Intention
I'm reviving this thread quite intentionally to consolidate and discuss this constructively. I've never understood why people are so against "resurrecting a thread" when the info is entirely relevant. It makes more sense than starting a new thread with the exact same information. I wanted to ask a few questions for further clarification. I, too, am capable of using Google, and this is the most relevant recent thread on FT. Perhaps the mods should consolidate the rest to avoid the confusion and silence the critics:

Related Threads
This first thread, especially the second page, is definitely right up here with this one in useful info, but the last reply was older.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...-nexion-2.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...e-tickets.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...ds-access.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...otel-data.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...ds-system.html

Also, I found this thread on an external forum somewhat useful with a link directly to the most relevant post:
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/fina...240/#m17591240

Background
So now, I've saved everyone about 30 minutes of Googling leaving me with my remaining questions, but first, I'll provide some background. I've always been the one researching and booking my own complex and much cheaper travel while also helping friends and family like I'm sure many others do on here. I don't really care about making money this way, but I would want to at least cover the costs of these services, which I think I could do based on the people I help now. Another major factor would be being able to book interline tickets which leads me to my questions.

Questions

1. Is it fairly easy to book interline tickets through these systems? I realize there is a bit of a language to using the GDS, but I'm in software development so that part isn't scary. Also, I realize the airlines will have to have an interline agreement. It would save me and others I'd book travel for money by being able to book itineraries we otherwise wouldn't be able to do without the risk of separate tickets.
   
2. It sounds like Nexion and ICTravel are the only games in town for host travel agents and being able to ticket. Sabre allows you to view but not ticket from what I have ascertained. Anyone have any further details on pros/cons of those two, and if there any other alternatives?
   
3. I'd also like to know information about the necessity of IATA/ARC/CLIA# and how one would obtain those. Is that something these host travel agencies assist with, is it necessary, and how is it done?

Conclusion
I'd greatly appreciate further insight into this, and I'm sure it'd be helpful for others to consolidate all this info in one spot. I'd appreciate keeping the negativity and cynicism out of any replies. Yes, I'm aware that TAs are a dying breed and business, and these host travel agencies are just self-interested businesses.(like most profitable businesses)

Unfortunately, there are unique situations where it'd be easier for me to directly deal with these systems(even if they are archaic), and I could help others in the process. For various reasons, airline and OTA websites don't cut it all the time in these situations. OTAs are just billboards at the end of day since advertising is their real business, and airlines want you to book with them for the highest fare so they get all the profit meaning they are designed with conflicting motives to our own.

My expectations are suitably low for income and discounts, and I'm just looking for info on doing this in a reasonable manner as a side hobby and for many of the reasons mentioned previously. I'm all too familiar with the sales field and the promise of earnings having come from a family involved in real estate and being licensed in it. Hopefully, that addresses that stuff, and we can just get to actually discussing this info in a cooperative manner.

TL;DR Read and answer my questions section constructively

jackal

If you go with a host agency like Nexion or ICTravel, an IATA number is not necessary. You'll be booking your tickets through those host agencies and using their IATA credentials. (That means they're on the hook for any debit memos that you may cause them to receive, so they often make it a practice to review tickets in your queue before submitting them for ticketing to make sure everything is kosher.)

You only need an IATA number if you intend to operate on your own without running through a host agency. The requirements to get an IATA number are more onerous than you think--among other things, you need letters of recommendation from two or more suppliers vouching for your business, which can of course be hard to get if you don't have any relationships with any suppliers.

It's a bit easier to get an ARC number, and while some of the documentation I've read seems to indicate that an ARC number should be enough to sell and ticket your own tickets, when I actually tried to do something in Sabre, it seemed it wouldn't let me do anything since I didn't have an IATA number.

AFAIK CLIA is useless for anything air travel related, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

TravelerMSY

I was an ICT independent agent in the early 1990s. On SystemOne over dialup. Pre-internet if you can believe it.

I'd suggest looking for a local agency that's on the GDS you prefer and seeing if you can queue your reservations to them for ticketing. Maybe with a SABRE developer account you could build pnr's yourself then queue to a local agency for ticketing. And maybe after you gain their trust- they will allow you to drive your own tickets without their intervention.

You're not ever going to get those privileges with a ICT. They just have too many agents and the liability for fraud or mistakes is too great.

The requirements for a bond and to have legit commercial space historically has been the deal breaker for home agents with getting their own ARC and ticket printer. And I don't think it's loosened up much even in the era of e-tickets.

I have GDS training so I prefer that style of booking. But I'm not sure any of this is worth the trouble unless you're in it to sell travel to others full-time. Just not worth the hassle, especially since anything *interesting* I'd book as a Flyertalker needing the GDS would be something at high risk of getting a debit memo.

bocastephen

This is not exactly true. We are a branch of a very large host agency, and we issue our own tickets every day, many hundreds of tickets per year. They are not queued to the host to issue. We *can* queue to the host to verify our commission settings, but that's not mandatory.

We receive debit memos, and they are forwarded to us - we have a dispute process to follow, or we just authorize payment from our commissions account plus a processing fee.

There is no "high risk" of a debit memo provided you follow the fare rules and ticketing instructions and the easiest way to do that is build the itinerary in ITA or Google Flights or similar first, then if it fares out, rebuild everything in the GDS - however the GDS will always validate the fare anyway, so you can't really do something accidentally to generate a debit memo, it has to be deliberate and the only obvious ways to do that are:

1. churning PNR segments to hold space - a big no-no
2. forcing validation on the wrong carrier against fare rules
3. incorrect commissions
4. re-issuing/exchanging a changed ticket without an add-collect where necessary, or doing it incorrectly
5. over-riding the GDS auto-price by building a manual fare mask, which if you do to create a fraudulent fare, can get you more than just a debit memo

GDS access is not for someone who doesn't know what they are doing - but if you know what you're doing and regularly fly on more expensive tickets that earn commission, the "rebate" of commission against your GDS fees could be a good value. For someone issuing a regular number of business class tickets on certain airlines with good commission programs, you could earn a rebate of 20% less the host's cut. For someone who is looking to score the odd deal they can't match on Orbitz or issue their own cheap vacation tickets, GDS access would be a total waste of time and money.

oliver2002

Yes, you can build PNRs with multiple tickets. Sometimes the complex ticketing will not work by just sending it to a bot queue, so the ticketing office will have to manually do the ticketing which they usually refuse to do for small fry and try to smell a rat.

Also airlines try to be smart, so often refuse to check luggage thru. Example: I ticketed a AY domestic feeder into a LH international flight and AY (also LH on the return) refused to check the luggage to the final destination. Same with QR and AI. Since airlines are building up ways to charge extra for everything the interlining partner is careful not to run foul off those restrictions...