Travelfusion Cancel For Any Reason (tfCFAR) is a service which gives passengers a choice to pay a small fee at booking time, to get back a large part of their flight cost, if they later decide to cancel their flight. The service fee and refund amount percentages may vary, but would normally be in the region of 15-20% and 80% respectively. Once the flight is booked, passengers can later declare the cancellation via a webpage hosted by Travelfusion. They authenticate themselves, and access their booking record, see what fraction of the flight cost can be returned, and then initiate the refund procedure. Cancellation can only be done up to 24 hours prior to departure.

The command and syntax of the requests and responses are almost identical to that of the normal booking flow. tfCFAR can be purchased by providing a special CustomSupplierParameter (CSP) named CancelForAnyReason found in ProcessDetails response. The following actions need to be taken at each stage of the booking flow.

Step 1: View flights with tfCFAR add-on at Search stage

When viewing the flights at Search stage through CheckRouting command, each leg of flight contains a remark about tfCFAR service cost and refund amount. It is enclosed within the SupplierInfo element, and contains Info element with two comma separated decimal monetary value and currency. When parsing Info element, the first value represents tfCFAR surcharge amount and currency and the second denotes its refund amount and its currency. The following is an example of how SupplierInfo element looks.

<SupplierInfoList>

<SupplierInfo>

<DisplayName>tfCFAR Service</DisplayName>

<InfoType>remark</InfoType>

<Info>9.59 GBP, 76.77 GBP</Info>

</SupplierInfo>

</SupplierInfoList>

Step 2: Select flights with tfCFAR add-on at Details stage

ProcessDetails response contains an optional CancelForAnyReason CSP of type boolean, with text "Add Cancel For Any Reason Protection". Two options are available with this CSP: y means purchasing tfCFAR, n means ignoring it. The response also contains SupplierInfo element which summarizes the final price of tfCFAR and refund amount, depending on if one-way or round-trip flight is chosen in previous stage.

<RequiredParameter>

<Name>CancelForAnyReason</Name>

<Type>boolean</Type>

<DisplayText> Add Cancel For Any Reason Protection: y (Pay 7.78 GBP now and get back 62.30 GBP if you cancel later), n (No)</DisplayText>

<PerPassenger>false</PerPassenger>

<IsOptional>true</IsOptional>

</RequiredParameter>

CancelForAnyReason CSP should be displayed as an option to a traveler to purchase tfCFAR service. Parse the DisplayText: All the text before ':' must be displayed to the user, along with radio buttons yes and no. The values of buttons should correspond to the comma-separated items after ':'. Each comma-separated item consists of a pair of values - the text before the '(' is the value that must be submitted as the CSP value, the text inside the '(' ')' is the value to display to the user. When read from left to right, the text inside the '(' ')' contains two price information, each containing a decimal monetary value and a currency, separated by a single space. The first price information represents tfCFAR service surcharge and the next one denotes tfCFAR refund amount. The relevant terms and conditions for tfCFAR are displayed under terms section, enclosed with SupplierInfo element:

<SupplierInfo>

<DisplayName>tfCFAR Terms and Conditions</DisplayName>

<InfoType>url</InfoType>

<Info>https://www.travelfusion.com/cancelForAnyReason</Info>

</SupplierInfo>

Step 3: Purchase tfCFAR add-on at Terms stage

ProcessTerms request should contain a CSP enclosed within the BookingProfile. The value of CancelForAnyReason CSP must be set to y.

<BookingProfile>

<CustomSupplierParameterList>

<CustomSupplierParameter>

<Name>CancelForAnyReason</Name>

<Value>y</Value>

</CustomSupplierParameter>

</CustomSupplierParameterList>

.

.

.

</BookingProfile>

Step 4: Booking flow proceeds as usual, without any additional parameters

Once the flight is successfully booked (i.e. PNR is received from the flight supplier), Travelfusion sends email to the traveller confirming the purchase tfCFAR service. Email contains a short summary of booking, and a link to tfCFAR cancelation page and relevant Terms and Conditions. Email is sent to the address which was used during Terms stage. The refund procedure can be initiated by travellers through visiting the tfCFAR's cancellation webpage at https://www.travelfusion.com/cancelForAnyReason.

Step 5: Refund procedure

The following sub-steps explain how tfCFAR refund procedure works:

5.1. A passenger clicks on a link (https://www.travelfusion.com/cancelForAnyReason), mentioned in the confirmation email, to initiate a refund procedure. They will be presented with a plain, whitelabeled web page which contains input boxes for PNR and passenger's first and last names. These are used to authenticate the passenger. All of these are needed to make sure that the cancelation requests are genuine and come from the person who made the bookings. Also, the traveller needs to tick the box to agree to Terms and Conditions. Then, the passenger clicks on "Show Booking Info" button on the same page to proceed.

5.2. Once authenticated, the portal returns leading passenger's booking record, if that booking is protected with tfCFAR. Otherwise, a message is displayed mentioning that the booking is not protected by tfCFAR. Booking record contains a route information (including origin and destination), the date flight was booked, number of passengers and their details, total amount of money paid for the flight, and the amount of money they can receive from Travelfusion, if they decide not to fly. Passengers can review the booking and declare their decision by clicking "Cancel" button.

5.3. Once "Cancel" button is clicked, a passenger is shown a confirmation page mentioning the amount they'll receive. At the same time, Travelfusion's finance team is notified with request for a refund. They will carry out necessary procedures to process the refund. Where TFpay was used to purchase, TF will add the money to the TFPay account and notify the agent that the traveller needs to be refunded.

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

This FAQ section will list common questions asked by agents, once the service is rolled out. Please, come back to this section regularly to check questions and answers.

Q: How to access the Terms and Conditions of tfCFAR service?

A: It's available at this link.

Q: Will ancillaries be covered by this

A: Initially, only the base flight cost is covered. Later versions will cover ancillaries too, subject to demand.