Partial Cancellations

This page describes how a retailer uses the Distribusion Retailer API (rAPI) to cancel part of a booking — either specific passengers, or an entire bound (outbound or inbound) on a return trip.

When to use partial cancellations. Whenever the customer wants to cancel some of the passengers, or one direction of a return trip, while keeping the rest of the booking active. For a full cancellation, use the standard flow with no extra parameters.

Affected endpoints

Parameters

Both GET /cancellations/conditions and POST /cancellations/create accept the following optional parameters. If neither is provided, the request is treated as a full cancellation.

Where do these IDs come from?

Both IDs are returned by GET /bookings and GET /reservations.

Connection IDs are under data.relationships.outbound_connection and data.relationships.inbound_connection:

{
  "outbound_connection": {
    "data": {
      "id": "ZBUS-ZZSTN001-ZZSTN002-2025-10-02T13:35-2025-10-02T13:45"
    }
  },
  "inbound_connection": {
    "data": {
      "id": "ZBUS-ZZSTN002-ZZSTN001-2025-10-07T06:50-2025-10-07T06:55"
    }
  }
}

Passenger IDs are in the included array, on objects with type: "passengers":

{
  "id": "ZCAR-ZZSTN003-ZZSTN004-2025-11-10T07:15-2025-11-10T08:50-0-PNOS-TESSWANN-ANA-2",
  "type": "passengers",
  "attributes": {
    "first_name": "Ana",
    "last_name": "Tesswann",
    "type": "PNOS"
  }
}

All examples below use the demo environment (api.demo.distribusion.com). Authentication via the Api-Key header is required on every request — omitted from the snippets for brevity. Carrier and station codes (ZBUS, ZCAR, ZZSTN001…) are placeholders.

Cancellation per bound (return bookings)

Use connection_id to cancel all passengers on a single direction of a return trip. The other bound remains active.

Step 1 — Check conditions

https://api.demo.distribusion.com/retailers/v4/cancellations/conditions?booking=EsEOGnFVTdwytNacNljztg
&reason=customer_request
&connection_id=ZBUS-ZZSTN001-ZZSTN002-2025-10-02T13:35-2025-10-02T13:45

Use the returned fee and refund to confirm the financial impact with the customer before proceeding.

Step 2 — Create cancellations

https://api.demo.distribusion.com/retailers/v4/cancellations/create

{
  "booking": "EsEOGnFVTdwytNacNljztg",
  "reason": "customer_request",
  "connection_id": "ZBUS-ZZSTN001-ZZSTN002-2025-10-02T13:35-2025-10-02T13:45"
}

Response

{
  "data": {
    "id": "EsEOGnFVTdwytNacNljztg",
    "type": "cancellations",
    "attributes": {
      "state": "confirmed",
      "fully_cancelled": false,
      "created_as_partial": true,
      "total_price": 1168,
      "total_refund": 584,
      "latest_refund": 584,
      "latest_monetary_refund": 584
    }
  }
}

fully_cancelled: false means the inbound is still active. To cancel the inbound as well, repeat the call with the inbound connection_id — when the last active element is cancelled, fully_cancelled will flip to true.

Cancellation per passenger

Use passenger_ids[] to cancel one or more specific passengers. The remaining passengers stay on the booking.

Cancel a single passenger

https://api.demo.distribusion.com/retailers/v4/cancellations/conditions?booking=ABC123
  &reason=customer_request
  &passenger_ids[]=NFCI-BRXGRNBU-BRPERRDP-2025-11-26T07:15-2025-11-26T08:50-0-PNOS-TESSWANN-ANA-2

https://api.demo.distribusion.com/retailers/v4/cancellations/create

{
  "booking": "ABC123",
  "reason": "customer_request",
  "passenger_ids": [
    "ZCAR-ZZSTN003-ZZSTN004-2025-11-26T07:15-2025-11-26T08:50-0-PNOS-TESSWANN-ANA-2"
  ]
}

Cancel multiple passengers

https://api.demo.distribusion.com/retailers/v4/cancellations/create

{
  "booking": "ABC123",
  "reason": "customer_request",
  "passenger_ids": [
    "ZCAR-ZZSTN003-ZZSTN004-2025-11-26T07:15-2025-11-26T08:50-0-PNOS-DOE-JOHN-1",
    "ZCAR-ZZSTN003-ZZSTN004-2025-11-26T07:15-2025-11-26T08:50-0-PNOS-PIRES-LEO-3"
  ]
}

Response fields

Both full and partial cancellations now return the following attributes on POST /cancellations/create:

Booking state after cancellation

After a partial cancellation, GET /bookings and GET /reservations still return the full booking structure. Cancelled elements are flagged with status: "cancelled" on the corresponding segment_passengers object:

{
  "id": "ZCAR-ZZSTN003-ZZSTN004-2025-11-26T07:15-2025-11-26T08:50-0-PNOS-DISTRIBUSION-TESTMANN-LEO-1-0",
  "type": "segment_passengers",
  "attributes": {
    "seat_number": "29",
    "status": "canceled"
  }
}

Use this attribute to render the correct state on your Manage Booking surfaces.