CRS Booking and Ticketing Policy

This Booking and Ticketing Policy sets forth procedures to be followed by all Travel Service Providers, (hereafter referred to as the Travel Agent) or anyone authorized to act on behalf of the Travel Agent, who book and/or ticket air transportation on Air Canada, and on Air Canada Codeshare flights.

It is the Travel Agent’s responsibility to ensure that all its employees, in all its locations, comply with this policy. Ticketing agencies will be held responsible for all bookings and tickets, in violation of this policy, booked by their employees in all locations, their sub-agents, and their independent agents working through the ticketing agency.

Back-To-Back and Throwaway Ticketing stated in our Conditions of Carriage Domestic and International Tariff, Air Canada prohibits the practice of back-to-back and throwaway ticketing, which are defined as follows:

• Back-to-Back ticketing: a combination of two or more round-trip fares for the purpose of circumventing applicable tariff rules, such as advance purchase and minimum stay.
• Throwaway ticketing: round-trip fares used for one-way travel, or the purchase of a ticket from a point other than the customer’s actual originating city, or to a point beyond the customer’s actual destination to undercut the applicable fare.

It can result in:

1. the passenger being stopped by the airline and being required to pay the additional fare and/or
2. the issuing Travel Agency be debited by Air Canada for the applicable fare difference and/or
3. the Travel Agency loosing their agency appointment.

Cancelling Reservations and Ticketing Time Limit

All CRS bookings must be ticketed as per tariff rules. If a ticket number is not entered within the ticketing time limit, the booking will be auto cancelled and the segment status code will change to HX, agents are required to cancel the HX segment in CRS to avoid debit memo. All confirmed and waitlist space must be cancelled prior to refunding or voiding a ticket.

When bookings are not required, they must be immediately cancelled in your CRS and prior to departure.

A debit memo of $15.00 CAD1/USD per segment per person for non- compliance of ticketing time limit rule will be issued.

Churning

Multiple bookings and cancellations for the purpose of extending ticket time limits are not permitted.

Claiming PNR

Group PNRs must only be claimed once and immediately prior to ticketing.

Credit Card Sales – IATA Resolution 890, section 3.4

Card Sales Rule for IATA agencies since March 1, 2018 (not applicable POS USA)

The Agent may not accept any other card or payment method that uses the Member/Airline’ card acceptance merchant agreement, including any card issued in the name of the Agent or any Person permitted to act on behalf of the Agent, unless specifically authorised by such Member/Airline.

A debit memo will be raised in the amount of $150.00 CAD¹/USD per ticket for non- compliance with IATA Resolution 890.

Dual Automation

If your agency uses more than one CRS, you must book and ticket within the same CRS.

Duplicate Segments and Bookings

Air Canada requires that only one reservation exists per passenger, per itinerary.

You may not duplicate segments by moving segments between CRS. You may not create active or passive duplicate bookings including any combination of bookings for a passenger(s) which logically cannot be flown.

Air Canada will not be liable for duplicate segment fees incurred by the movement of segments between CRS or associated with the PNRs involved in travel agency CRS conversions.

Duplicate segments or PNR will be auto cancelled, and the segment status code will change to HX. Agents are required to cancel the HX segment in CRS to avoid debit memo of $15.00 CAD¹/USD per segment per person for non- compliance of duplicate booking rule.

Air Canada reserves the right to issue debit memo when the agency does not cancel ticketed duplicate space, which is not refunded prior to departure. Violations may include multiple tickets that were issued for the same passenger booked in the CRS, booked in the CRS and online, or multiple online bookings and multiple tickets in the same PNR.

Duplicate Ticket Refund Policy

Fictitious Bookings

Fictitious or speculative bookings, including testing, blocking or holding a reservation due to an expected demand or the customer’s indecision are not permitted under any circumstances.

You may not use the Air Canada airline designator with fictitious flight numbers to store flight information for a carrier not listed in the CRS.

Air Canada reserves the right to issue debit memo for $15.00 CAD1/USD per segment, per person for any fictitious bookings.

Inactive Segments

Segment status changes due to schedule change, flight firming, flight cancellation or other circumstances queued to your CRS must be actioned within 14 days of the notification, or 48 hours prior to flight departure, whichever is earlier. This includes updating or cancelling ticketed or un-ticketed segments with status codes UN, NO, HX, WK, WL, WN or TK. You must also action or cancel segments with status codes UC, US, or DS.

Inventory Circumvention

Air Canada manages and distributes its inventory on an origin and destination (O&D) basis, using point of commencement (POC) logic, which is the country in which customers’ journeys begin.

This means that inventory on a particular segment for one O&D may not be available for another O&D, even if both O&Ds include the same segment in the itinerary. Furthermore, inventory for that same O&D may not be available for customers with a different POC.

Air Canada prohibits all selling and booking practices intended to circumvent our inventory, to obtain lower booking classes which may not be offered for customers’ actual O&D based on their respective POC. These practices harm the financial health of our business and the efficiency of our operations.

This includes the following booking practices, but not limited to:

Point of Commencement (POC) and Out of Sequence (OOS)

The country in which customers begin their journey (POC) determines the availability, regardless of the point of sale.

Sell requests that result in misleading POC determination and OOS bookings to obtain a lower fare are prohibited.

• POC is circumvented when the first sell request/booking originates a country other than the one on the PNR. For example, if the intended travel is from YYZ to LHR  the first sell request must be YYZ LHR. A sell request DTW LHR via YYZ illustrates POC manipulation. • POC can also include an OOS booking, when the inbound is booked before the outbound journey. For example, if the intended travel is from YVR to HKG return  a first sell request from HKG to YVR illustrates both POC and OOS manipulation. • OOS manipulation is when the order of sell request is not in order of the intended travel O&D, in other words, when the inbound is requested before the outbound journey. For example, if intended travel is from YYZ to PUJ, the first sell request must be from YYZ to PUJ, not from PUJ to YYZ.

Hidden Cities (HC)

Inclusion of unwanted segments in sell request to evaluate an extended trip O&D as compared to the PNR intended itinerary. This practice does not reflect the intended traveller’s O&D.

Married Segments

Breaking or avoiding the marriage of segments by using segment availability instead of O&D availability.

Prevent Inventory Circumvention

Bookings and sell requests must always be made:

• From availability display of the intended O&D. A full O&D availability is mandatory, whether the reservation includes AC only, or AC with interline or codeshare flights.
• In chronological order of each O&D

Booking a connecting O&D through separate local O&D (availability per segment) is also considered inventory circumvention.

Consequences of Inventory Circumvention

To prohibit agents to engage in the circumvention of Air Canada’s inventory controls, Air Canada reserves the right to take the following measures, which includes:

• Debit Memo of a minimum of $1,000.00 CAD1/USD1 per ticket, or the value of the loss revenue; and
• Inhibiting the agency from booking Air Canada

We appreciate your cooperation in upholding these standards and communicating this policy to your staff, sub-agents and independent agents ticketing through your agency.

Air Canada reserves the right to amend or update this policy as needed.

Inventory Inhibit

Air Canada reserves the right to inhibit access to inventory and/or booking capability for any travel agency that has:

• Overdue (more than 30 days) debit memos for booking infractions;
• Fraudulent bookings and ticketing activities;
• Booking practices that result in the circumvention of Air Canada inventory;
• Ten or more no show passengers or a 25% No-Show factor in any given month.

No Show

Air Canada reserves the right to issue debit memos regardless of point of sale, when:

• Passengers’ no-show a flight booked in your CRS without valid ticket number. Bookings must be cancelled at least 60 minutes prior to departure or latest 3 hours after flight departure, or passengers will be considered as No-Show.
• You voided a ticket and did not cancel the associated flights. Debit Memo or Invoice Penalties will be assessed per passenger/per PNR for non-ticketed bookings that result in no show(s) in the amount of:

Consult No Show policy

Passive Segments

Passive segments are not permitted. On an exceptional basis, Air Canada will allow passive segments for infants (INF) on group PNRs (10 or more passengers) booked by Air Canada, or will provide an authorization for travel within 14 days when a GDS helpdesk has been unable to resolve an initial claim. Group PNRs must only be claimed once and immediately prior to ticketing.

Air Canada reserves the right to issue debit memos or invoices with a penalty of $15.00 CAD¹/USD per passive segments.

Plating

If AC plate (014) is used to ticket other airlines’ space without at least one AC segment in the ticket, a minimum of $100.00 CAD¹/USD per ticket will be assessed.

Redistribution

Effective May 1, 2016, with respect to Air Canada fares and seat availability (collectively "AC Content"), you shall not, without prior to written consent of Air Canada, distribute AC Content to, display AC Content on, advertise AC Content with, or share AC Content in any other manner with, any (i) CRS, (ii) travel agency, whether on-line or “brick and mortar”, or (iii) metasearch website or mobile application.

Air Canada reserves the right to take necessary measures to prohibit agents engaging in practices that violate Air Canada’s Redistribution policy. These measures may include, but are not limited to, issuance of debit memos of up to $1,000.00 CAD¹/USD per ticket, temporary suspension of any existing incentive programme and/or inhibit from booking Air Canada inventory

Test or Training PNRs

Test or training PNRs must only be built in “Training mode” and must not affect Air Canada’s seat inventory. Please contact your CRS provider for test or training instructions.

Ticketing from Sub-Agents bookings

Travel agents who issue tickets on behalf of sub-agents must use the original live CRS booking.

¹ Debit memo currency outside North America will be converted from Canadian dollars to local currency using the applicable daily rate.