Sharing business travel booking context with properties

We're creating new options to make serving business travelers easier:

• Partner and Client Identification allows the sharing of information with properties to assist with corporate travelers' experiences.
• Virtual Credit Card Instructions helps properties with guidance on the use of virtual credit cards for property collect bookings.

We also offer a way to identify properties that honor Expedia collect rates, which can assist business travelers in choosing where they stay.

Partner and Client Identification

By including partner and client identifying information in the booking request, you can give properties enhanced visibility on the source of a corporate booking, like a particular travel management company or the corporate client employing the traveler. This enables the property to provide a more tailored business travel experience for corporate guests, particularly those travelers who stay frequently at certain properties and expect to receive continuity in treatment.

With this API, you can add the optional supplier_transparency and consent_to_share parameters in the Booking request. You can choose to pass both partner and client name, or provide just one or the other.

Note: consent_to_share is mandatory for Rapid API to pass the data to suppliers. Without it, Rapid API cannot share the information, even if the supplier_transparency value has been passed.

Example

{
    ...
    "supplier_transparency": {
         "point_of_sale_display_to_share": "PLS Partner Name",
         "company_name_to_share": "Corporate Client Name",
         "consent_to_share": true
    }
}

Virtual Credit Card Instructions

Corporate travel companies often use a mix of traveler credit cards, corporate credit cards, and virtual credit cards to pay for business travel. However, some properties lack clear guidelines on how to handle virtual credit cards for property collect bookings, which can lead to negative experiences for business travelers. To better handle bookings where virtual cards should be used, there are now additional parameters available in the Booking request you can use to provide clear guidance to the property.

• The payments_type identifier within the payments object notifies the supplier that a virtual credit card is being used when you provide the value of virtual_card.
• The additional_handling object provides additional payment handling instructions such as authorized expenses, incidentals, authorizing company, validity dates, card contact, etc.

Example

{
    ...
    "payments": [
        {
            "type": "virtual_card",
            "number": "4111111111111111",
            "security_code": "123",
            "expiration_month": "08",
            "expiration_year": "2025",
            "billing_contact": {
                "given_name": "John",
                "family_name": "Smith",
                "address": {
                    "line_1": "555 1st St",
                    "line_2": "10th Floor",
                    "line_3": "Unit 12",
                    "city": "Seattle",
                    "state_province_code": "WA",
                    "postal_code": "98121",
                    "country_code": "US"
                }
            },
            "additional_handling": {
                "authorized_expenses": "total_plus_incidentals",
                "specified_incidental_expenses": [
                    "breakfast",
                    "internet"
                ],
                "total_charges_allowed": {
                    "value": "875.00",
                    "currency": "USD"
                },
                "is_cvc_required": true,
                "authorizing_company": "Conferma",
                "card_contact": {
                    "email": "chucktesta@mydomain.com",
                    "phone": {
                        "country_code": "1",
                        "area_code": "555",
                        "number": "5555555"
                    }
                },
                "payment_allowable_period_start": "2024-01-01",
                "payment_allowable_period_end": "2025-08-01"
            }
        }
    ]
}

Updated Expedia collect properties

For information on how to identify updated Expedia Collect properties, please see guidance on our Booking receipts page.

Interested in enabling Rapid API Booking Receipts? Reach out to your account manager.