Qantas NDC Shopping Policy
Qantas understands that shopping volumes can vary significantly across agencies. However, when these volumes become excessive, they can negatively affect system performance and response times within the Qantas Distribution Platform (QDP). This policy outlines our approach to managing NDC shopping traffic to ensure requests are purposeful, efficient, and sustainable. Qantas requires all agency partners to work collaboratively with Qantas and their technology partners to prevent non bona-fide shopping requests and remain compliant.
Managing Excessive NDC Shopping via the Qantas Distribution Platform (QDP)
Understanding Excessive Shopping
Excessive shopping activity may arise from various sources, including:
- Robotic Shopping: Automated processes used to populate offer caches.
- Meta Search Activity: Marketing-driven queries via meta-search engines that result in high-frequency requests.
- Content Aggregators: Multiple queries from systems seeking alternative fare or routing options.
- Invalid Requests: Shopping for origin-destination pairs (O&Ds) not serviced by Qantas.
- Duplicate Requests: Multiple submissions for the same customer across different platforms or pseudo city codes (PCCs).
Qantas Look-to-Book (L2B) Policy
To support fair usage and system integrity, Qantas monitors each agency's Look-to-Book (L2B) ratio — the number of shopping requests compared to completed ticket bookings.
- Maximum Acceptable L2B Ratio: 2500:1
- Most agencies are expected to maintain a ratio well below this threshold.
Agency Guidelines for Reducing Excessive Shopping
Qantas recommends the following best practices:
- Use Best Price Qualifiers: Ensure shopping requests target only best-price offers, reducing unnecessary higher-fare brand responses.
- Leverage Calendar Shopping: Use calendar-based requests to find lowest fares on adjacent dates instead of sending multiple individual queries.
- Validate O&Ds: Use Qantas Routelist data via your technology partner to avoid requests for unsupported routes.
- Optimise Meta Shopping: Configure targeted meta-search rules to limit redundant or low-conversion traffic.
- Avoid Unnecessary Robotics: Refrain from robotic queries not tied to bona fide customer interest.
- Implement Smart Caching: Use intelligent caching to reuse recent valid shopping requests and reduce volume.
Qantas actions to manage excessive shopping
If excessive or non-bona fide NDC requests are detected, Qantas may implement one or more of the following measures:
- Offer Limitation: Responses will be limited to the best available fare in the economy cabin per flight. Agencies needing offers in higher cabins must use appropriate cabin qualifiers.
- Request Throttling: Qantas may cap the number of NDC requests processed within set time intervals (e.g., every 5 minutes). Excess requests will trigger error responses until the window resets.
- Access Restriction: Persistent excessive activity may lead to suspension or restriction of the agency's access to Qantas NDC data via the QDP.
- Apply the provisions set out in Clause 14 of the Qantas Standard Agency Terms and Conditions