Ultradirect transaction sets - XML

The purpose of this document is to provide detailed descriptions of all the transactions and functionality available in UltraDirect. This includes:

Detailed message formats – i.e. a description of all fields (XML elements and attributes) used in the request and response messages. This is particular useful to developers because it supplements the XML message definitions provided in the UltraDirect HotelML XML Schema Definition (XSD) files.

Examples of each request and response message showing the most commonly used functionality

Typical process/transaction flows

A brief summary of the UltraDirect transactions is provided below:

Standard Multi-Availability	Returns the availability status, minimum & maximum rates for a set of properties identified by their property codes
Enhanced Shopping	Returns detailed information for each available room and rate for a set of properties identified by their property codes
Single Property Availability	Returns detailed information for each available room and rate for a one property identified by its property code.
Rate Rules	Returns very detailed information for a specific property, room type and rate. This is typically used to review the rate and policy information prior to booking the room.
Pre-Book	Re-check price and availability for a specific room type and rateplan immediately prior to making a booking
Booking Request	Makes a new hotel reservation
Modify Booking	Makes changes to an existing (confirmed) hotel reservation
Cancel Booking	Cancels an existing (confirmed) hotel reservation
Session Control	Used to commit or roll-back a new booking, modification or cancellation transaction. Only required when the distributor chooses to participate in session control.
Brand Information	Returns basic details of a hotel brand/chain identified by the brand code.

The definition of the above transactions are grouped together in the following sections of this document:

Rate and availability transactions – this section provides details of all transactions uses to obtain information about available rates and room types for one or more properties. It is unlikely that a single distributor will use all these transactions. Instead, they will normally use a subset of the transactions, which will vary depending on their specific business requirements. Therefore, the first part of this section outlines several usage scenarios relating to typical business requirements.

Booking transactions – this describes the transactions for creating, modifying and cancelling reservations. It also describes how the usage of these messages varies depending on whether the distributor chooses to use the session control functionality (also known as ‘transaction control’ or ‘two-phased commit’).

Reference data transactions – this describes the transactions that are used to retrieve reference data. Currently this is only brand information.

References

Name Notes
Hotel Content Database (HCD) XML Content Retrieval Interface Specification	Describes the OpenTravel XML web service for retrieving hoteldescriptive content from the RateGain HCD.
XML UltraDirect v1.1 Specification	Provides an overview of UltraDirect, including technical information such as connection options (e.g. HTTP 1.1 with SSL) and errors/warnings etc
XML UltraDirect Error Codes	Lists the error and warning codes
XML UltraDirect v1.1 Codes	List codes used by UltraDirect for countries, currencies, credit card types etc
UltraDirect HotelML XML Schema Definition Files	XML Schema Definition (XSD) files for the UltraDirect HotelML transactions.