Galileo membership (sign up)

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Permalink Reply by Alex Bainbridge on May 9, 2009 at 8:15

HI Konstantin

Its not just about selling - but about after booking service too. At that point I expect you should really be looking at partnering with an existing travel agent - rather than trying to do the whole thing yourself

For example when HostelHero created their app
http://www.tourcms.com/blog/2009/04/28/hostelhero-iphone-app-video/

They partnered with an existing company rather than making the direct technical relationships themselves

Only a thought.
Alex

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Permalink Reply by Konstantin Krupovich on May 12, 2009 at 19:49

Alex, I agree with you about service. I'm on my way trying to make contact with Edd - he seems to be The One Who I Need :) Hope he would be of help in making clear all these GDS/IATA stuff because it is really a challenge to understand requirements. For example, I've heard that Amadeus does not require an IATA accreditation of a travel agent intended to use their web services to ticket air bookings, while Edd stands for Galileo has such a requirement. On the other hand, I've an information, that IATA accreditation is really agile thing and could be revoked in SO many cases - and using of foreign IATA code is just one of such a case :)

About HostelHero - do you know these guys? It is seems to me they done all the stuff we need :) booking, and even making a payment with CC. Well, it's not an air booking, but - they store CC info on the device (likely to be) and it's a trick itself - wich processing to use to achieve this.

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Permalink Reply by Edd McArdle on May 9, 2009 at 8:59

Hi Konstantin

Alex makes a great point - if you can partner with a travel agency who already have a Galileo agreement then you can save yourself a lot of hassle!

To answer your questions:
1. Yes you can get access to Galileo Web Services without being a travel agency. But, you will have to sign two legal agreements (i) the Galileo Web Services agreement so you can develop against it and (ii) a standard travel agency agreement so you can access the GDS itself. In this way, Galileo identifies your company as a travel agency even if you're not.
2. (a) It is not possible to ticket an air booking without being an IATA member for bonding reasons - but there are many travel agencies that will partner with you to do this on your behalf. However, you can sell air tickets without being a member - the process you will need to follow is to sell the seat, create a Passenger Name Record, and then send them to a partner travel agency to ticket using a Queue. Essentially what I'm talking about here is collecting the money, a pretty fundamental part of the process, so even now that all airlines can give etickets the process has to exist.
(b) Something else to consider here is how to collect your commission - again, this is something you can agree with a partner agency but if you have IATA membership then it gets paid directly to you.
3. yes, you can get Flight Information etc from Galileo Web Services without IATA accreditation

I've sent you a direct message so perhaps I can help answer some more of your questions through email?

I hope this helps,

Edd

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Permalink Reply by Alex Bainbridge on May 9, 2009 at 19:43

Thanks Edd for your reply!

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Permalink Reply by Konstantin Krupovich on May 12, 2009 at 19:55

Hi, Edd. I've wrote you an e-mail, so, I wouldn't repeat it here. Look at my earlier reply to Alex - there is a short summary of my e-mail to you and some additional suggesstions.

And - does this topic interesting for public of SFBO? :)))

May be we could try to rise a FAQ on GDS/IATA stuff?

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