Flight reservations: what lives on your booking and how to change it

PNR versus e-ticket number

Almost every confusing conversation about an airline booking comes from collapsing two different objects into one. The passenger name record is the reservation: it holds who is travelling, on what flights, with which seats, meals, assistance codes and contact details, and it is identified by a six-character record locator. The electronic ticket is a separate financial document, a 13-digit number beginning with the validating carrier's three-digit airline code, issued against that reservation when payment settles.

The practical consequences are worth internalising. A record locator alone does not prove you are ticketed — it is possible to hold a confirmed-looking reservation that will be cancelled automatically when its ticketing deadline passes. Anything involving money acts on the ticket number, not the locator, which is why a refund request needs the ticket number and a seat request does not. And when an airline reissues your ticket after a change, the ticket number changes, usually by incrementing a coupon suffix; the old number becomes an exchanged document.

You will also often hold two locators: ours and the airline's. Give the airline theirs at the airport; give us either. On interline itineraries there can be a further locator with the second carrier, which is why a seat you selected on the first airline's site sometimes does not appear on the second's.

Holds: where they genuinely exist and where they do not

Travellers frequently ask to hold a fare while they check with someone. The honest answer is that three different mechanisms get called a hold and only one of them protects the price.

The first is a genuine hold product filed by the carrier — an option to freeze a fare for 24 to 72 hours, sometimes free and sometimes for a modest non-refundable charge. Where it exists it is the real thing: the fare is protected. It is offered by a minority of carriers and typically only on their own fares.

The second is a ticket time limit on an unticketed reservation. The seats are held, the price is not. If the booking class empties before ticketing, the reservation reprices or the fare simply disappears, and on many fares the time limit is measured in hours, not days. This is what most people are actually being given when they are told a booking is held.

The third is the 24-hour DOT provision, which is not a hold at all but a post-purchase right of cancellation. Under the same rule a carrier may choose to offer a genuine 24-hour hold instead; most US carriers offer the cancellation form. It is covered below.

Low-cost carriers commonly offer none of the three beyond the statutory minimum. If holding matters to your trip, say so before we quote, because it may point at a different carrier.

The 24-hour risk-free window, precisely

US Department of Transportation rules require carriers selling tickets for travel to, from or within the United States to allow a reservation to be held at the quoted fare without payment for 24 hours, or to allow cancellation within 24 hours of purchase for a full refund to the original form of payment. The provision applies where the booking is made at least seven days before the scheduled departure. It is a floor, not a ceiling: some carriers extend it voluntarily.

Three things travellers get wrong about it. It runs from the time of purchase, not from midnight, so a Tuesday evening booking expires Wednesday evening. It applies to the ticket, not to ancillaries you bought alongside it — a paid seat or a bag may follow a different rule. And it delivers a refund to the original form of payment, not a travel credit; if you are offered a credit inside the window on a qualifying US booking, ask again. We honour the window without charging our own fee, and the deadline is printed on your confirmation.

Frequent flyer numbers, status and where the benefit actually lands

Adding a loyalty number after ticketing is straightforward and it should be done well before the airport. The number does two jobs: it credits the flying, and it tells the departure control system that a passenger holds status. The second job is the one that cannot be recovered retroactively. Elite baggage allowance, priority boarding, preferred seat access, lounge entry and upgrade eligibility are all applied at check-in from the record. Miss the number and you can usually claim the miles later; you cannot claim the free checked bag you already paid for.

On alliance itineraries you may credit to a partner programme rather than the operating carrier's own. That is a strategic choice — earning rates differ sharply by fare class and by programme — and it is worth deciding before travel rather than afterwards. Note also that deeply discounted booking classes, including many negotiated fares, accrue at a reduced rate or not at all. If accrual matters, tell the advisor at quoting stage so the fare choice reflects it.

Special service requests: the things you must ask for in advance

A special service request is a coded entry on the reservation transmitted to every operating carrier. The important ones are:

• Wheelchair and mobility assistance. Coded by how far the passenger can walk and whether they can manage steps. Under the US Air Carrier Access Act, carriers serving the United States must provide assistance; requesting in advance is what makes it dependable and gets the equipment to the right gate.
• Unaccompanied minors. Age bands, a per-direction fee, restrictions on connections and on the final departure of the day, and a named, documented adult required at both ends. Some carriers refuse the service on connecting or interline itineraries entirely.
• Pets. In-cabin carriage is capped per flight and often per cabin, with carrier limits on breed, container size and destination. Cargo carriage is a separate booking with temperature embargoes. Several countries have import rules that no airline can waive.
• Extra seat. Bookable for comfort or to carry a fragile instrument, entered as an additional passenger with a special code. Baggage allowance for the extra seat is not automatic.
• Meals and medical equipment. Dietary meal codes, oxygen concentrators and medical devices frequently need carrier approval and, for some equipment, documentation submitted in advance.

Requests are not all guaranteed. Some are confirmed on the spot, some sit as requested until the carrier acknowledges. We tell you which is which rather than letting you find out at the gate.

Passport data, APIS and why check-in blocks

For international travel, airlines must transmit passenger data to border authorities before departure. That is the Advance Passenger Information System: full name as shown in the document, date of birth, gender, nationality, document number, issuing country and expiry. Some countries also require a destination address or onward travel details. If any of it is missing or mistyped, online check-in commonly fails without a useful error message, and the fix at the airport costs you time you did not budget.

Two related checks are yours, not the airline's. Passport validity requirements vary — many destinations require validity for a period beyond your return date. Visa and entry authorisation requirements are your responsibility as the traveller, and an airline can deny boarding where documentation is insufficient. Ask us and we will tell you what we know, but verify with the relevant authority.

Group bookings and when to use one

From roughly ten passengers travelling together, airlines move you out of ordinary inventory and into a group contract. The shape is different: a quoted group fare, seats held against a deposit, a deadline for submitting names, a final ticketing deadline, and — unusually valuable — a permitted number of name substitutions up to a set date, which individual tickets do not allow.

Group fares are not automatically cheaper. On a busy route in high season the published fare can beat the group rate outright. We price both and show you the two numbers with their deadlines attached, so the choice is made on facts. If your group also needs vehicles at the other end, they can sit on the same file — see car rental, which has its own group thresholds, deposit rules and limits on how many vehicles one branch can release at once. When plans do move, flight changes and flight cancellations cover what it costs, and any charge of ours is published in the service fee schedule.