Partner-Transaction-ID
The Partner-Transaction-ID is a required API request header element that is not consumed by Expedia.
The Partner-Transaction-ID will be required in all XAP API request headers and will be mirrored back to the partner in the corresponding API response header.
The Partner-Transaction-ID may be any alphanumeric string of the partner's choosing.
Note: No special characters may be used in the string, letters and numbers only.
The only exception is the hyphen character (-), which may be used to separate concatenated values.
The purpose of the Partner-Transaction-ID is the ability to quickly identify specific requests and responses in order to make partner transactions easier for both Expedia and partners to track and troubleshoot.
There are several approaches to utilizing the Partner-Transaction-ID that partners may take:
Minimum Approach – Partner Name
The most minimal approach is to enter a single, standardized value into all API requests. All the responses you get from Expedia will have the exact same value in the Partner-Transaction-ID element in the response header.
For example, if you have a company named Best Travel you could simply put your company name into the header of each request:
Partner-Transaction-ID:BestTravelThis would satisfy the requirement, but we strongly recommend that you do more.
Optional Item – Placement Reference
If you have multiple placements for API-driven data on your site, you may want to include a reference to that in your query so that it will be easy for you to differentiate one set of API results from another in terms that map directly to your site.
For example, if you have a query that delivers data to your homepage and a similar query that supplies data to your check out page you could include a placement reference in the Partner-Transaction-Id:
Partner-Transaction-ID:BestTravel-checkoutPageThis would make it easier to tell the results of one API-driven placement from another.
Better Approach – Partner Name + Customer ID
Having your company name will help Expedia find your transactions but it won't do much for you since all transactions you send and receive will have the identical Partner-Transaction-ID. If you were to add a customer identifier to each string this would be much more valuable, since you could then pull all transactions associated to a particular customer's booking.
Partner-Transaction-ID:BestTravel-12345Where '12345' is the Best Travel Customer ID number.
Best Approach – Partner Name + Customer ID + Unique Transaction ID
Finally, if you add a unique identifier to each transaction now you can have the best of all worlds.
Partner-Transaction-ID:BestTravel-12345-azywl5n6l205xNow both you and Expedia can quickly search for:
- All transactions for your company
Partner-Transaction-ID == "BestTravel-*"- All transactions for one of your customers
Partner-Transaction-ID == "BestTravel-123456789-*"- One specific request you made with the corresponding response from Expedia
Partner-Transaction-ID == "BestTravel-*-azywl5n6l205x"While it may be tempting to do the most simple thing you will be very happy that you spent the time to configure this parameter when you need to troubleshoot a customer issue.