Ticket time limits

There are couple of time limits on a booking that need to be acknowledged for successful ticket issuance. 

Travel agencies benefit from these by receiving reliable information about ticketing time limits at booking time and can provide accurate information to the customer. 

Price guarantee time limit 

Price guarantee time limit, also called as TST (transitional stored ticket) validity, is the time until the selected fare is valid. After expiry, booking needs to be repriced.

Price guarantee validity 

In most market areas the price guarantee time limit is valid until the end of the booking creation day. In practice this means that if not ticketed on the same day, the booking needs to be repriced. If the customer wants to wait with the ticketing, please inform them that the fare and/or taxes may change. 

Example:

  • Your market states the TST is valid until the end of the same day. 
  • You have made a reservation on Monday and priced with a fare requiring ticketing latest on Thursday (ticketing time limit is 72 hours). 
  • If you do the ticketing on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, you need to reprice. 

Price guarantee time limit is independent of ticketing time limit (TTL).

Ticketing time limit 

Ticketing time limit (TTL), also called as payment time limit (PTL), is the time until the ticket can be issues. After expiry, flight segments are cancelled. 

Some fares, such as Tour Operator fares, may have different ticketing deadlines with fare guarantee which can be checked from the fare rules.

Notes for NDC bookings 

Both price guarantee and ticketing time limit are generated automatically after booking creation and are visible in booking view. 

In case price guarantee (TST) expires, NDC bookings are automatically repriced, and new price guarantee time limit generated when booking is retrieved (opened). 

An order change notification (OCN) is sent and displayed on the platform where booking was originally created whenever either of these time limits have reached. 

Notes for Edifact bookings 

OPW and OPC elements (for Amadeus agents) and SSR ADTK (for non-Amadeus agents) will be processed immediately after EOT/booking creation and queued to booking office for attention. 

For Amadeus agents, there are two elements in the procedure: 
OPW – warning for time limit to remind about the approaching ticketing time limit (used only when the fare booked carries a flexible time limit) 
OPC – cancellation time limit or last day to issue ticket. If no ticket issued before the given date and time, unticketed segments will be cancelled 

For all other GDS users, the time limit will be shown as SSR ADTK element. 

In case ticket is not issued before the time limit expiry, segments are cancelled and PNR is queued to booking office for attention.