The Travelport API for new customers is TripServices: REST and JSON APIs for flights, hotels and payments. You can try it for free with trial credentials, and no payment is needed. Going live needs a contract, credentials from Travelport, and a certification review booked at least 15 days ahead. The older SOAP Universal API is no longer sold.

That last point is the one most guides miss. Many pages that rank for this topic still explain the Universal API in detail, but Travelport’s own support site now says it is “no longer being offered for sale except under extreme circumstances.” This guide covers the API you can actually buy in 2026. Every step comes from Travelport’s developer pages, checked in September 2026.

The Big Change: Universal API Is No Longer Sold

Travelport has two API families. Only one of them is open to new customers.

Universal API TripServices
Style SOAP / XML REST / JSON
Status for new customers Not sold, except in extreme circumstances The product Travelport points you to
Architecture One gateway; the action is defined inside the request body Separate, lighter endpoints per API
NDC Can surface NDC content, but not the full NDC workflow Built to support NDC booking
Trial Existing 30-day trial pages kept for current customers Free trial credentials, no payment

If you are starting now, build on TripServices. The Universal API still matters in one case: you inherit an older platform that already runs on it. Then its documentation stays available to you as an existing customer.

Travelport itself grew out of three older systems: Galileo, Apollo and Worldspan. For the basics of how a GDS works, see what a GDS is.

What TripServices Covers

TripServices has three APIs. Here is what each one does, according to Travelport’s developer site:

API What it covers
Flights Search, price, book, ticket, cancel and exchange. Content from 400+ airlines, including NDC and low-cost carriers
Stays Search, book, modify and cancel hotel stays, with properties in 180 countries
Pay Credit card authorisation, address validation and reversals, with 3D Secure support

Two details shape how you build. First, Flights mixes three kinds of content: classic GDS fares, NDC offers and low-cost carriers. AltexSoft notes that Travelport services GDS bookings itself, but NDC carriers handle ticketing and servicing for their own offers. So cancels, voids and exchanges follow different procedures for each.

Second, NDC can need extra set-up. Some airlines want your PCC registered with them before their NDC content switches on. Others do not. Check each carrier you plan to sell.

Is the Travelport API Free?

Testing is free. Live use is not.

Stage What you get Cost
Trial TripServices trial credentials to test realistic flight shopping workflows Free, no payment required
Pre-production Credentials provisioned by Travelport for building against your contract Part of your contract
Production Live credentials, issued at the end of certification Part of your contract

Pricing comes in a commercial proposal built for your business. AltexSoft reported in February 2026 that Travelport charged a recurring annual API access fee of $5,000. That fee covered standard support and certification for your first product. Certifying more software carried a separate one-time charge, and some services added monthly fees.

Treat that number with care. The Travelport page AltexSoft cited for it returned “not found” when we checked in September 2026. Use it to plan a budget, then confirm the real figure in your own proposal. For how all three networks price access, see our guide to GDS API cost.

What Travelport Asks for Before It Signs

After you send the sales inquiry form, a Travelport representative discusses your use case and pricing. According to AltexSoft, the talks focus on one question: can your business handle settlement and risk? Expect to provide:

  • Accreditation, if you will issue tickets: IATA worldwide, or ARC in the US.
  • Or a partner that holds it. A non-accredited agency can work under a host agency or an airline consolidator, and must give that partner’s full details.
  • Company documents: incorporation papers and a tax ID.
  • Your business model: B2B, B2C or corporate, with expected booking volumes and your look-to-book ratio.
  • Bank references or guarantees, especially in higher-risk and emerging markets.

The look-to-book ratio is worth preparing before the first call. It is the number of searches you make for each booking. A platform that searches a lot and books little puts more load on a GDS, so Travelport will ask.

How to Get Travelport API Access, Step by Step

Put together from Travelport’s getting-started and certification pages:

  1. Request trial credentials through MyTravelport and test the Flights workflows.
  2. Send the sales inquiry form to become a customer.
  3. Agree the commercial proposal and sign the contract.
  4. Get provisioned. Travelport issues your pre-production and production credentials. You manage them in the credentials access manager.
  5. Build and authenticate. TripServices uses OAuth 2.0. You exchange your credentials for a token and send it with every request. A new token is needed every 24 hours.
  6. Request certification through MyTravelport, at least 15 days before you want to go live.
  7. Receive production credentials at the end of certification.

One line from Travelport’s certification page shapes the whole plan: “Access to the production environment is based on contracted APIs.” If you want to add Stays later, that is a contract change as well as a build.

The Credentials You Will Hold

TripServices uses five credentials, according to AltexSoft:

Credential What it does
Username and password Your account login
Client ID and client secret Used for OAuth 2.0 authentication
Travelport Access Group Controls which content, data and features your application can reach. It is tied to your PCC

A PCC (pseudo city code) is the core identifier for your company, or for one office of it, inside Travelport. It sets your location, your access rights, which airlines you may sell, and which fares and ticketing rules apply. An agency with offices in two countries will usually have a PCC for each.

The Access Group is the one to understand early. It decides what your code can see. If a search returns less than you expected, check the Access Group before you debug the request.

What Travelport Checks at Certification

Certification is a review of your real requests and responses. Travelport’s checklist is specific:

Area What you must show
Flights Adult, child and infant travellers (with ages for the child and infant) on a round trip with a connecting flight
Fares If you target a private, net or account-code fare, the same fare type used through the whole workflow
Stays Several guests, including a child, across several rooms
Every request Correct values for each field, full endpoint URLs with version, compression turned on, and the right version headers
Tokens A written note of when and how often you refresh the token

That last row can fail you on its own. Travelport recommends a token refresh about once every 23 hours. Refreshing more often than that is a stated reason to decline certification, unless you explain why you need it.

The Flight Booking Flow: the Workbench

Travelport’s Flights API does not book in one call. According to AltexSoft, it uses a workbench: a working session that holds a booking while you build it step by step.

  1. Search for flights.
  2. Price the chosen offer. Some low-cost and NDC carriers need this as a separate call.
  3. Create a workbench for this booking.
  4. Add the offer to the workbench.
  5. Add traveller details.
  6. Commit the workbench to create the reservation.
  7. Ticket in a later workbench session, with payment details.

Some NDC carriers allow “Instant Pay”, which books and tickets in the same session. Seats, bags and other extras can go in before or after the commit.

The workbench keeps every part of a trip in one place, which helps with group bookings and repricing. But it is a different model from a simple search, price and book chain. Plan your data model around it from the start. Our guide to the airline ticketing API covers the ticketing stage in more depth.

Travelport vs Sabre: How Getting Access Differs

Many teams weigh two GDS networks before they pick one, so it helps to see how the access path differs. This comparison uses each company’s own developer pages, plus AltexSoft where noted.

Travelport Sabre
Free testing TripServices trial credentials, no payment A free Developer Hub account and the Try it Out sandbox
Modern API TripServices: REST and JSON only REST and JSON for new products, with a large SOAP catalogue still in use
Older API Universal API, closed to new customers SOAP APIs, still offered
Authentication OAuth 2.0; a new token every 24 hours OAuth tokens as a Bearer header; OAuth v3 in production
Certification At least 15 days’ notice; a fixed list of test scenarios Typically 4–8 weeks, according to AltexSoft
Published price $5,000 a year in access fees, reported by AltexSoft in February 2026 None on its developer pages

Two rows matter most for a new build. First, Travelport has one modern path and has closed the old one, so the choice of API style is made for you. With Sabre, you still map each booking step to REST or SOAP. Second, Travelport states its certification checklist up front, which makes the last stage easier to plan. For the full Sabre path, read our Sabre API guide.

Direct Travelport, or Through an Aggregator?

A direct Travelport connection makes sense if you sell high flight volume, hold IATA or ARC accreditation, and have engineers who have built on a GDS before. You get full control of your content and your contract.

For most other teams, the usual alternative is an aggregator: one API that already holds the GDS connections.

Direct Travelport Through an aggregator
Contracts One with Travelport, then one per GDS you add One
Time to first booking Six to twelve months per GDS Days or weeks
Data model Travelport’s, including the workbench One normalized schema
Adding Amadeus or Sabre A new project each time Already included
GDS certification Yours to pass Not your queue

The six-to-twelve-month figure comes from Tripgic’s GDS page, for any direct GDS connection.

Tripgic is built for the second path. It connects to Travelport, Amadeus and Sabre through one REST API, under one commercial relationship. Responses come back as normalized JSON, with the same flight from several sources shown once. Sandbox credentials are free after a short KYC check. Pricing is a one-time activation, then the supplier’s net fare plus a flat fee per transaction — never a percentage. Which plans include full GDS access is on the pricing page.

Weighing more than one network? Read our Amadeus API guide and Amadeus vs Sabre vs Travelport.

Final Thoughts

The Travelport API has changed more than most guides show. TripServices is the product you can buy, the Universal API is closed to new customers, and the trial is free to start.

Before you contact sales, decide three things: which content you will sell (GDS, NDC, low-cost), which markets you will sell in, and your expected look-to-book ratio. Those answers shape your contract, your Access Group and your certification plan. If you need more than one GDS soon, compare a direct build with an aggregator before the first call.