Carrier Accreditation
In addition to Distribusion's general accreditation process, some carriers require a separate review of the integration and UI before going live. This is a rule for Trenitalia, while for SNCF it depends on what sort of contract you have with them. This process exists to to ensure that their specific brand, sales and operational guidelines are met.
Review Process
Each carrier has its own method and criteria for reviewing an integration. This process is managed by your Partnership Manager, who will coordinate with the carrier on your behalf. The review may include, but is not limited to, an assessment of:
- Brand Representation: How the carrier's logo, name, and other brand elements are displayed.
- Fare and Service Information: The accuracy and clarity of fare rules, amenities, and other service details.
- Booking Flow: The user experience from search to booking confirmation, ensuring it aligns with the carrier's standards.
- Post-Booking Support: How post-booking scenarios like cancellations and amendments are handled.
To understand the specific requirements for the carriers you wish to integrate, please contact your Partnership Manager. They will provide you with the detailed guidelines and facilitate the accreditation process with each carrier.
Trenitalia
Trenitalia reviews every API integration that intends to sell their tickets. This process ensures that retailers meet their standards for either international or domestic sales, or both. They require:
- The legal registration certificate of the retailer company.
- Access to the retailer’s test environment to review booking flows and features.
- An understanding of what % of their content will be sold via the retailer platform. If this will be less than 100% coverage, they will request the rationale for this decision.
Accreditation & Launch Process
- Demo Access: Trenitalia will access to your staging environment in order to review the UI flows end-to-end, ensuring compliance with all items marked as required in the Distribusion accreditation.
- Feedback: They will likely have questions about the flow, or suggestions for improvements. Communication around this will be coordinated by your Partnerships Manager.
- Test Scenarios: Once satisfied with the UI flows, Trenitalia will provide a list of booking scenarios which must be carried out in the live environment with their live content.
- Final Setup: The outcomes of these scenarios will be reviewed to ensure all bookings are received correctly. Once confirmed, you will be approved to sell Trenitalia content via your integration.
International Sales
For retailers selling tickets to non-Italian nationals outside of Italy and on a non-Italian language website, Trenitalia has the following key requirements:
- Basic Requirements: Everything marked as required for the Distribusion accreditation, plus the items flagged as required by Trenitalia.
- Amendments: The ability for passengers to amend their trips can be implemented via your API, or managed within the Distribusion Agent Portal. Besides that, it must also be clearly displayed to passengers either in front end or ticket delivery email how they can cancel or amend their ticket.
- Localisation: Your website must not be natively available in Italian language.
Domestic Sales
For retailers selling tickets to Italian nationals, within Italy, or on an Italian-language website, additional requirements will apply. This is part of the second phase of the Distribusion and Trenitalia partnership. While the final requirements are pending confirmation, they will include all the requirements for international sales, plus the following features:
- Seat Selection: Implementation of a seat map for seat selection during the booking process according to our Seat Selection flow.
- Loyalty Cards: The ability for customers to use their CartaFRECCIA and X-Go loyalty cards to earn points or receive discounts according to our Discount Cards flow.
- Invoicing: The functionality for customers to request an invoice for their booking, which is a legal requirement in Italy. For this, additional passenger data is required at the time of reservation confirmation.
- Fares per Segment: Implementation of the Fares per segment solution to allow users to select and book different fare classes for each individual segment of a trip.
For detailed technical specifications and guidance on how to implement these features, please contact your Partnership Manager.
Indonesia Railways (PT Kereta Api Indonesia)
To sell tickets for Indonesia Rail (PT KAI), retailers must follow a specific accreditation and launch process to ensure compliance with Indonesian regulations and carrier standards.
Accreditation & Launch Process
The process involves coordinating between your team, Distribusion, and PT KAI to secure unique credentials for your retail channel:
- Credential Request: Distribusion requests unique credentials per retail channel from the carrier.
- UAT in Development: You must complete a User Acceptance Testing (UAT) phase in development mode.
- Video Documentation: You are required to submit a video recording (or screenshots) of the user flow in production, specifically showing search results and the checkout page following their criteria checklist.
- Final Setup: Once the video is reviewed and approved, final production credentials will be configured.
Mandatory UI & Search Requirements
Indonesian law and PT KAI require specific information to be displayed during the search and booking flow:
- Train Identification: You must clearly display both the Train Name (e.g., Parahyangan) and the Train Number (e.g., 131) in the search results.
- Convenience Fee: A fixed fee of IDR 7,500 (or equivalent) must be displayed as a separate line item during checkout.
- Note: This fee is already included in the
total_pricereturned by the API; you must subtract it from the total to show the base ticket price separately.
- Service Fees: Any additional OTA service fees must be listed separately from both the ticket price and the convenience fee.
Booking & Passenger Constraints
- Passenger Limits: A maximum of 4 adults is allowed per booking.
- Infant Policy: Each adult may bring one infant (under 3 years old). Infants travel free but must be booked to receive a boarding ticket.
- Identification
- Local Passengers: Must provide a 16-digit National ID (KTP).
- International Passengers: Must provide a Passport number (alphanumeric).
- Sales Ban: Booking cannot be made for trips departing within 1 hour of the search time.
SNCF
More information shortly. Contact your Partnership Manager for more details.
On this page
- Carrier Accreditation