Basic Payment Concepts

This page provides information about general payment-related concepts used when working with trips.

Delayed Invoice

Delayed invoicing allows a traveler to pay for an air booking later. If this feature is enabled, the Travel Management Company (TMC) will book the air itinerary on the traveler's behalf and handle all payment transactions with the supplier. The traveler's organization will receive a consolidated invoice for all air bookings on either a weekly or monthly basis (depending on their contract with the TMC and Spotnana) so they can settle the total bill.

Lowest Logical Fare

Lowest Logical Fare (LLF) is a feature that helps organizations set spending limits for corporate travel. It is used to determine the most cost-effective flight option a traveler could choose, considering factors like travel time and number of connections. This allows organizations to control travel expenses while still offering their employees some flexibility. In our APIs, the LLF data is recorded for each booking and can be accessed using the Get trip details API response in the pnrs > data > llfPnrInfo field.

Total Fare (of a PNR)

The total fare for a PNR (a booking) includes the total cost of the inventory booked as well as any applicable taxes, airline markup charges (for the air booking), and service fee(s) charged by suppliers. You can find the total fare details for a PNR using the Get trip details API in the totalFare field.

Service Fee

The service fee is generally charged by the Travel Management Company (TMC) per trip. When a traveler makes their first booking (air, hotel, rail or car) for a trip, the service fee will be charged for that specific pnrId only. You can review the details of the service fee charged using the Get trip details API (in pnrs > data > serviceFees field) or the Get PNR API (in the serviceFees field) response. The service fee is charged either to the traveler or the organization (based on the pre-configured travel policy)

In a trip, a PNR is considered as the first booking based on the date and time of its creation. This information can be found in the Get trip details API response at pnrs > data > sourceInfo > bookingDateTime.

Form of Payment (FOP)

Form of payment (FOP) represents the payment method used to pay for a booking. Travelers can pay using different forms of payment such as credit cards, airline credits, points, delayed invoice, and cash. You can find the details of the FOP in the Get trip details API response at paymentInfo > fop.

If a booking is made using two different credit cards, then paymentInfo will contain an array of two fop objects which will contain both the payment information and the fare breakdown.

Cost of Goods Sold (COGS)

The Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) refers to the total price charged by the supplier for the inventory booked. This may include the inventory cost, service fee charged by the supplier, taxes, and airline markup fee (only for air booking). You can find the details regarding the COGS in the pnrs > data > costOfGoodsSold field of the Get trip details API response.

Cost to Customer

The Cost to Customer is the final fare a traveler has to pay for a booking. This includes COGS charged by the supplier and the TMC service fee (if applicable). The pnrs > data > costToCustomer field in the Get trip details API holds all the details regarding cost to customer.

Passthrough payment

A passthrough payment refers to a scenario where the supplier directly charges the traveler’s card or the company card. In this scenario, instead of processing the payment via the Travel Management Company (TMC), the supplier receives the funds directly from the traveler's card. This is done when the TMC doesn’t charge any additional service fee for the booking.

Unused credits

When a traveler cancels a non-refundable air ticket, the airline may sometimes offer ticket credit as compensation. On the Spotnana platform, the unused ticket credits can be redeemed for an air booking made on the same US airline where the credit was earned.

The Get unused credits for a traveler endpoint provides the list of active unused credits earned by the traveler, along with details such as the PNR ID, Trip ID, airline information, credit amount, expiry date, and the source through which the credit was earned (e.g., NDC). In the API response, the unusedCreditInfo.redeemVia field will indicate if the credits should be redeemed by the traveler via the Online Booking Tool (OBT) or by the travel agent.

Notes:

• Expired credits will not be displayed in the Get unused credits for a traveler endpoint response.
• If a credit has been partially redeemed, the unusedCreditInfo.totalFare field in the response will display the remaining available credit amount and the unusedCreditInfo.usedDate will contain the date of partial redemption.
• In most cases, there will be a change penalty associated with an unused or cancelled ticket. Hence, the credit amount may not be the same as the actual booking fare.