Show TOC

 Selecting Best-Price Flight Connections (Travel Manager)

Use

Instead of using the standard flight availability query, you can also display and select the best-price flight connections for the whole trip. To do this, use the Best-Price Flight function. You can use the best-price query for single flights or when requesting several flights for a trip (this is where you see the advantage of the best-price query). The advantages of this query come from the fact that flight prices are influenced by a number of factors - there is no single fixed price per leg of flight. These factors include:

  • Outbound and return flights

  • Stopovers or round trips

  • Days chosen for the trip

  • Duration of stay

The best-price query determines the optimum price for the all the flights in a travel plan taking any special booking conditions for the individual flights into consideration.

Executing the best-price query removes the need to query the availability of each individual flight.

Prerequisites

You have activated the Best-Price Flight function in Customizing for Travel Planning and have determined which strategies are to be considered for the best-price flight query.

To make the settings, refer to Customizing for Travel Planning under:

  • Start of the navigation path Dialog and Planning Control Next navigation step Travel Planning Control Next navigation step Define Price and Availability Strategies End of the navigation path

  • Start of the navigation path Trip Rules and Profiles Next navigation step Travel Profiles Next navigation step Specify Settings for Lowest Fare Search (Fare-Driven Availability Query End of the navigation path

Procedure

You have chosen Plan Trip or Start of the navigation path Travel Manager Next navigation step Create Travel Plan End of the navigation path and are in the Travel Plan: <First Name Last Name>, Pers. No. < Personnel number > screen.

  1. Choose Flight (with Quickinfo Add Flight Request ). The Flight Request dialog box appears.

  2. Enter the data as required.

Note Note

Departure or Arrival Destination : Here, you can enter the name of a town or an IATA location code (three characters, for example FRA for Frankfurt ). The system only recognizes towns that are defined as, or associated to, IATA locations.

You can enter a time for both the outbound and return flight. If you do not enter a time, the system determines the best-priced flights for the day specified. If you enter a time: The system determines the cheapest flight for the time given, +/-2 hours.

End of the note.

  1. Choose Lowest Fares with Quickinfo Fare-Driven Availability Query or Best-Priced Flights with Quickinfo Find Best Priced Flight Connections, to display the flights with the best fares for your flight selection.

  2. To reserve a flight:

  1. Choose Reserve/Change . The Airfare and Flight Preferences screen appears.

  2. Make the settings required for your preferred flight selection.

  3. Choose Enter. - with Quickinfo Selection Process (Enter). The Flight Request dialog box appears.

  4. If you want to copy the flight, choose Copy with Quickinfo Copy to Travel Plan (F2) . Otherwise, modify the request as required, using the push buttons available.

Changing Flight Requests

To change a flight connection, cancel the requested connection (see the canceling section below) and create a new flight request as described in the section above.

Seat

You can also select a seat and reserve this.

Specifying Preferences

You can specify further preferences (for example smoking/nonsmoking, seating area and preferred meal), by choosing Preferences.

Additional flights

To select additional flights (such as connecting or return flights), choose Flight (with Quickinfo Add Flight Request) and repeat the procedure described above.

Booking

To book the selected flights, choose Book - with Quickinfo Book Travel Plan (CTRL+F11).

Note Note

If you want to book further travel services of the same or a different category, select these first and then book the whole trip at one time. The pushbutton Book - with Quickinfo Book Travel Plan (Ctrl + F11) - books all the requested travel services for one trip. The system creates one booking record (PNR) for the whole trip in which the reservation data is transferred to the reservation system.

According to the settings in Customizing for Travel Planning (see Define Queues for PNR Resubmission ) the booking is put directly into the processing loop of the appropriate travel agency.

End of the note.

Canceling

You can cancel a reserved flight.