Welcome to the world of travel.
As you're getting started on the Locomote Corporate Travel Platform, there are some common terms and/or abbreviations that are handy for you to know.
Here's an overview of Locomote basics to get you through those cold nights.
ACH |
Airline Content Hub - Travelport's various direct connections with carriers, usually low-cost or hybrid carriers that are offering low-cost or "web" fare content and is not made available in the GDS. (eg. Jetstar flights, as Jetstar is an Australian low cost carrier.) |
Administrator |
The Administrator is one or more person(s) assigned the highest permissions within the company. Their responsibilities include managing the team's profiles, managing workflows, modules and assigning roles to the appropriate people. |
ATPI |
The ATPI Group is one of the world's leading and long established global travel management and events businesses. |
Cancellation penalty |
A fee to charged to customers that cancel flights after booking reservations. Fees typically vary based on the agency or carrier. |
CB/PIN/ID |
A corporate membership number, used by a vendor to charge the corporate back (chargeback) |
CBT |
Corporate Booking Tool - Allows travellers and their travel arrangers to search, evaluate, and book hotels, flights and car rentals. We use Travelport's Universal API to access and book all of this flight, hotel and car content across multiple platforms that aggregate content from the majority of air, hotel and car vendors (GDS and non-GDS). |
CC |
Credit card - a form of payment, often required when a deposit is required |
CD |
Corporate Discount number - a CD is the number of the agreement between a vendor and a corporate. It is used by a vendor to provide discounted rates to the corporate. |
CIBTVisas |
https://cibtvisas.com.au/ is a CIBT company and provides the service used to support the "International visas" module within the Locomote platform. CIBT Visa is the largest issuer of VISAs in the world. |
Class |
Travel class is the quality of accommodation or public transport. The accommodation could be a seat or a cabin. The higher the class, generally the more expensive the cost will be. |
Client File |
Also known as BAR (Business Account Record), the Client File stores customer information in the Galileo system, that can be transferred into the booking file. |
Conditions |
A set of terms or rules, outlining what the seller/vendor is willing to provide/not provide, upon the financial agreement in the purchase or sale of goods/services by a customer. |
Cost Authoriser |
The role appointed by the company administrator, to a person or group of persons, who have the ability to approve or deny travel when the travel workflow involves the cost/financial approval. Generally this will be appointed to the Finance/Accounting department of a company to ensure the company can afford to send their employees on a business trip. |
Cost Centre |
A module in Locomote's platform, a cost centre is a department within a business to which costs can be allocated. Within the platform these can be configured to include budgets within each cost centre, where employees can be allocated to specific cost centres to audit the travel costs incurred. |
CRS |
Computer/central reservation systems eg. GDS
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Dashboard |
The main front page of the Locomote platform, when logged in. The Dashboard contains the logged-in user's current booked trips, upcoming and past trips. Depending on the role of the user logged in, a different Dashboard will appear as the main/home page of the platform. |
DFAT |
Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade - The Locomote platform uses the DFAT service as the default Country Risk List (refer to Risk Authoriser) |
ETA |
Estimated time of arrival |
ETD |
Estimated time of depature |
Fare Rules |
Refer to Conditions; Fare rules supply the requirements or penalties associated with a specific fare quote. These can include:
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FF |
Frequent Flyer or Frequent Flyer Program is a loyalty program offered by a supplier. The program is designed to encourage customers to sign-up for the program and earn points in exchange for rewards, offered by the supplier. |
FOP |
Form of Payment - The way in which the customer intends to pay for the goods/service eg. Credit card, cash, cheque, invoice or on a business account. |
GDS |
Global Distribution Systems - An international computer reservation system that aggregates and accesses many databases of suppliers, airlines, hotels, cars etc. in different countries, such as Galileo. |
HomePort |
The port from which a traveller originates eg. Melbourne = Melbourne Tullamarine Airport |
IATA |
International Air Transport Association - the trade association of the world's airlines. IATA plays an important role in the creation of essential training and validation materials for airlines and travel agencies, for the safe-keeping, processing and management of revenue distribution, dangerous goods transport training, and air safety for both the industry and passengers. |
Layover |
The period of time spent between connecting flights. |
LCC |
Low cost carrier - A low-cost carrier is a supplier (eg. airline) without most of the traditional services provided in the fare, resulting in lower fares and fewer comforts. Typically add-ons will be extra eg. Food, priority boarding, seat allocating, and baggage. |
OBT |
Online Booking Tool - What Locomote is known as |
Offline |
When we use the term "Offline booking" in regards to booking a trip, it refers to the fact that the trip is not technically booked. Rather, it is a 'request' that will be reviewed by a TMC consultant and/or authoriser(s) before being placed as a booking. ie. If you have a workflow called "Get a Consultant to Make a Booking" this will be an offline workflow. |
Online |
When we use the term "Online booking" in regards to booking a trip, it refers to the fact that a direct booking (also known as a PNR) will be placed in the GDS/CRS. Much like an offline booking, it can still be reviewed by an Authoriser, prior to being confirmed but this will be dependant on the workflow process that is configured within your company. ie. If you have a workflow called "Get a Consultant to Make a Booking" this will be an offline workflow. |
OTA |
Online Travel Agency |
PAX |
Abbreviation for Passenger (eg. 2 PAX = 2 passengers) |
PCC |
Pseudo City Code - In the aviation industry, a pseudo city code is an alpha-numeric identifier for a corporate user of a computer reservation system (CRS) or global distribution system (GDS); generally the code can be 3-4 characters long. Eg. MEL = Melbourne Tullamarine Airport |
PNR |
Passenger Name Record - is a booking reference, the basic form of a computerised travel record. The record (in the database of a CRS) contains the itinerary for a passenger, or a group of passengers travelling together. PNRs can be used for airlines, hotels, car rentals, airport transfers and rail trips. |
Plate/Plating (carriers) |
A carrier that is a ticket has been issued on behalf of. When a ticket is issued for an interline itinerary (i.e. multiple carriers who have agreed to combine their fares), one of the airlines in that itinerary will be selected by the ticketing agent as the issuing airline, commonly referred to as the "plating carrier". Eg. Qantas (QF) will the plating carrier of a Jetstar (JQ) flight. |
RES |
Reservation System - The system that holds the PNR until 3 days prior departure. 72 hours prior departure, it then goes to the DCS (Departure Control System), that holds extra info such as baggage belts, check in status or gate numbers. |
Rerouting |
The process to change the original path of travel. |
Risk Authoriser |
The role appointed by the company administrator, to a person or group of persons, who have the ability to approve or deny travel when the travel workflow involves the risk approval. The risk is defined as the travel risk for the traveller. Eg. If the trip request is to a country or region listed on the DFAT's country 'do not/avoid travel' list, then depending on the nature of the trip, the Risk Authoriser can deny a trip request. |
SmartPoint |
Travelport's front-end software that TMC's can utilise in conjunction with the Locomote platform. |
SSR |
Special Service Request - A request sent to the supplier to communicate a traveller's preferences and/or special service needs. This can be for a hotel, airline or car rental supplier. Eg. SSRs include information such as meal preference, seating preference or special assistance required the traveller(s). |
T&E |
Travel and expense spend |
Ticketing |
The process of creating and managing a booking by a customer, issuing a document or electronic record to a customer by a supplier. This record confirms that an individual is entitled to a seat on a flight, a room or a rental car. The ticket can consist of customer details, the supplier, a reference/ticket number, time and date, destination, form of payment, restrictions, fare amount (incl. taxes) and baggage allowance. |
TMC |
Travel Management Company - a company, usually filled with flight agents who looks after every aspect of a traveller's booking. |
TMP |
Travel Management Platform - Locomote's online booking tool; TMP is designed to handle end to end travel requirements by tying the travel process together as an end to end travel solution, hosting our Corporate Booking Tool and other plug-in apps to support trip approvals, tracking of visas, vaccinations, etc. The TMP is where a travellers' profile information (personal details, loyalty programs etc) is stored and transferred into Travelport's Universal API (uAPI). |
Traveller |
The Traveller role is designated to a low or base level user. Depending on the company configuration, a traveller can organise their own travel or they can have their travel arranged on their behalf (refer to Travel Arranger.) They are the end-user of the Locomote platform. |
Travel Arranger |
The role appointed by the company administrator, to a person or group of persons, who have the responsibility to arrange travel on behalf of travellers. The Travel Arranger often works closely with the TMC or agency, to ensure the travel arrangements for the traveller are correct. The Travel Arranger has a higher level of access and can also manage their assigned traveller's profiles. |
Travel Authoriser |
The role appointed by the company administrator, to a person or group of persons, who have the ability to approve or deny travel when the travel workflow involves the risk approval. The risk is defined as the travel risk for the traveller. |
Travelport |
Travelport is a privately owned travel commerce marketplace organisation, providing leading distribution, technology, payment solutions for the global travel and tourism industry, with a presence in over 170 countries. Travelport provide the Universal API (uAPI) service layer for organisations like Locomote to access and interact with all of their GDS systems. |
uAPI |
Universal API (Application Programming Interface) - This is the interface we choose to use to interact with Travelport GDS's to obtain information on and book fares and rates. |
uP |
uPolicy or Universal Policy - This is the part of the GDS that stores a traveller's preferences for booking policy, and influence the timeframes and rates for fares they are allowed to book. |
uR |
uRecord or Universal Record - one record in the GDS that can hold many PNRs (hotel flights etc). Known as a "Super PNR." |
Workflow |
The process a user must follow when booking a trip, from start to finish. The sequence of steps can be configured by the Company Administrator where specific targets or gates can be managed by other personnel eg. Travel Authoriser, Risk Authoriser and Cost Authoriser. The 'gates' that can be setup could be required fields eg. Reason for Travel in order for the company to properly audit and manage the travel process for their employees. |
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