Time Limits

Scope of Article

Note the following Time Limits are out of scope of this document: Deposit Time Limit, Naming Time Limit, Bilateral Time Limit and Inventory Guarantee Time Limits.

Overview

Time limits are a mechanism for the Airline to advise the Seller of upcoming events of expiry, for example, the time when an Offer will expire, or when inventory will be removed if there has been no commitment to the Order.

Time Limits should follow standard datetime and duration formats.

Open

Time Limits within the Context of an Offer

Each of these time limits can be used in the context of any Offers within a message (e.g. Offer, A la Carte Offer, Repriced Offer etc)

Offer Expiry Time Limit

The length of time an offer will persist in an airline’s offer management system for use in subsequent transactions. Upon expiry, the expectation is that the offer is no longer retrievable, and the shopping process must begin again. Note the presence of an Offer Time Limit does not indicate either a guarantee of price or inventory against a given Offer item within the Offer.

Should the offer time limit expire, any other time limit also expires unless an Order has been created.

Advising an Offer Expiry

An Airline may advise on the Seller of an Offer Expiry Time Limit at the Offer Level

Price Guarantee Time Limit

The length of time the price of an offer item is guaranteed. In the absence of the price guarantee time limit, the price is not guaranteed. Upon expiry, the price may no longer be guaranteed and either a new shopping process should begin, or the offer should be repriced resulting in a new Offer.

Should the price guarantee time limit extend beyond Order creation, the remaining length of time persists into the corresponding Order Item. The airline can increase the remaining length of time beyond the original time limit should they wish to.

Note: Where a price guarantee time limit is applied, there is no guarantee that related inventory is guaranteed by the airline against a given offer item.

Advising of a Price Guarantee

An Airline may return a Price Guarantee Time Limit at the Offer Item Level.

Payment Time Limit (as a Duration or DateTime)

This field is used to indicate the duration of time after Order creation that payment commitment is required for an order item, or a static datetime in which payment commitment is required. If the duration field has a value of 0 then then instant payment at order create is required. If no value is returned, then no advice has been given.
For example:

• PaymentTimeLimitDuration: PT48H3M6S - shows the amount of time.

• PaymentTimeLimitDuration: PT0H0M0S - indicates instant payment is required.

• PaymentTimeLimitDateTime: 2018-01-01 – shows a static payment commitment date time

For version 19.1, the Ticketing Time Limit was removed from the schemas, as if an Airline wishes to communicate this information, it can be provided as a payment time limit.

The Payment Time Limit is contained within the Offer Item level, for example an Airline can return the following to indicate the duration of the payment time limit.

OR for indication of instant payment required:

OR to inform of a static payment time limit date time:

Time Limits within the Context of an Order

Payment Time Limit

The time limit by which a commitment to pay must be made for the given Order Item. Upon expiry it is expected that the Order item is removed from the Order. If no value is returned, then no advice has been given.
For example:

• PaymentTimeLimitDateTime: 2015-01-01T12:53:12Z - indicates the date time by which payment commitment is required.

For version 19.1, the Ticketing Time Limit was removed from the schemas, as if an Airline wishes to communicate this information, it can be provided as a payment time limit. Note that the Duration Option is not available within the within an Order, as the Duration is relative to Order creation, hence simply a datetime is used.

Requesting to place an Order on Hold

A Seller may request to create an Order with the absence of payment.

Advising the Seller of the Payment Time Limits

An Airline may return a Payment Time Limit element which is set at an Order Item level.

Granular Price Time Limits

If an Airline decides to guarantee a price to the Seller/Customer, the Airline may wish to guarantee a part of the total price.

As well, in such scenario, the price guarantee time limit should not exceed the payment time limit. Payment time limit can be longer than the price guarantee time limit. If the price guarantee is expired, a repricing is recommended before payment.

The Airline can either use the Price Guarantee Time Limit Date Time to specify that the price is guaranteed without specifying (within the message) what part (if not all) of the Price is guaranteed. Or, the airline can describe (and change) the guarantees depending on the pricing component (Amount, Fee or Tax).

The Amount, Fee and Tax time limits only need to be taken into account if the Price Guarantee Time Limit has been populated. If so, the Price Guarantee Time Limit shall be the maximum time limit for all Tax, Amount and Fee limits

The below table shows two scenarios for guaranteeing a price to the Seller:

1. Within the Price Guarantee Time Limit, the Airline guarantees the total price (base amount, surcharge and taxes) for a total of 30 minutes.

2. Within the Price Guarantee Time Limit, the Airline guarantees the Base fare and a Tax for 5 days, but only the other tax for 4 hours, and the surcharge for 30 minutes