Carrier Approval

While most carriers are automatically available via Distribusion under the general agreement, some will only allow their content to be accessed by retailers who have been approved by the carrier directly. This approval process is different from direct contracting as it does not involve signing a separate commercial agreement. Instead, the carrier needs some key information about your platform, sales channel(s) and business type in order to understand how your platform plans to market and sell their tickets.

How the Approval Process Works

The approval process can involve several steps, and our goal is to make it as smooth as possible. Here’s what you can expect:

1. Initiation of Approval Request: The process is initiated by your Partnership Manager at Distribusion, who will submit the approval request to the carrier on your behalf.
2. Carrier-Specific Requirements: Each carrier has its own set of requirements for approval. To facilitate this, our team may request additional information or specific documents from you regarding your business model, sales channels, or marketing plans. This is particularly common for major bus and rail carriers such as Itabus, National Express, iryo and WESTbahn, and providing these details promptly will help expedite the process.
3. Communication and Timelines: Your Partnership Manager will keep you updated on the progress of your approval request. Please note that timelines can vary significantly depending on the carrier's internal processes and specific requirements. We are continuously improving our systems to provide more clarity on expected timelines and to track requests more efficiently.

Once a carrier grants its approval, our team will then whitelist that carrier's content for your API credentials. At this point, you will be able to access and sell their inventory through the Distribusion API.