Partner Portal Onboarding — SOP

Who this is for: Sales & Marketing, Sales Managers, Accounts, Booking Admins. What it covers: taking a B2B travel agency from first contact to booking live on the AddisFly Partner Portal — and how their access is reviewed and ended.

Golden rule: a partner never goes live half-configured. The system now blocks it — this SOP tells you how to complete it properly.

The stages at a glance

Stage 0 — Qualify (before anything is created)

Do not create a Partner Account until you have:

• [ ] Trade licence number
• [ ] IATA number (if they are IATA-accredited — not all partners are)
• [ ] Signed partnership agreement
• [ ] Agreed credit terms (limit, payment terms, credit period)
• [ ] A named contact person + email — this becomes their portal login

Giving portal access means giving a company the ability to hold live airline inventory against your PCC. Treat it like opening a credit account, because that is what it is.

Stage 1 — Prepare the account (Sales & Marketing)

1. Go to Partner Account → New.
2. Fill in:
   • Partner Name — the agency's legal name
   • Contact Person / Contact Email / Contact Phone — the email is their login, so get it right
   • Trade Licence Number, IATA Number
   • Partnership Start Date (and End Date if the agreement is term-limited)
3. Leave Status = Pending Approval. Do not set it Active yourself.
4. Save, then tell the Sales Manager it is ready for approval.

The Customer record is created and linked automatically — you do not need to make one.

Stage 2 — Approve (Sales Manager, with Accounts)

The Sales Manager reviews the account and sets:

• Portal Access Level — see the table below. Default and recommended: Booking + Cancel.
• PCC — the partner's own Travelport PCC, i.e. the PCC they book under in their own GDS. It is required before the account can go Active. If they do not have one, enter the agency default (593Y). > What the PCC does and does not do: it routes GDS requests on the uAPI path so their segments can count under their own plate with the airlines. It does not drive reporting in our system — AddisFly issues every ticket under 593Y, and a booking is attributed to a partner by the Partner Account link on the Booking, not by this field.
• Credit Limit, Payment Terms, Credit Period — set with Accounts.
• Auto-suspend on zero credit — leave enabled.

Credit approval: credit limits above 500,000 ETB require the owner's sign-off before the account goes Active. At or below 500,000, a Sales Manager + Accounts may approve.

Portal access levels

AddisFly issues the tickets. Partners at Booking + Cancel create a hold; our ticketing team issues it. This is deliberate — do not raise a partner to Self-Service without the owner's approval.

Credit & payment — how it really works

Booking never blocks on credit. Clients book unlimited. A booking is only a hold — no ticket, no money. Our agents decide credit at the moment of issuing, and if a client hasn't paid, the agent voids the hold before midnight. So a credit number never stops a client from booking; it is a guide for the agent at issuance.

Set the client's model with two fields on the Partner Account:

The three client types:

The limit is a guardrail for your agents, not a wall for the client. If a hold is over the guideline, the agent sees a note and decides whether to issue. Only a Self-Service (Funded) partner self-issuing is hard-stopped — they cannot spend more than their topped-up wallet, because at that moment they are spending, not us.

Stage 3 — Go live (Sales Manager)

1. Work through the onboarding checklist auto-created with the account (Trade licence → IATA → Agreement → PCC → Credit → Portal user → Activate). Steps marked required for activation must be done first. > Checklists are auto-created for new accounts. Older partner accounts may not have one — in that case use the Go-live checklist at the end of this page.
2. Click Actions → Approve (top-right). One step: it activates the partner AND emails their portal login to the Login Email. Only approvers (Access Approver / System Manager) see this button.
   • If anything is missing, the system stops you and lists exactly what: PCC, Customer, Portal Access Level, Credit Limit, Login Email. Complete them and save again.
   • Activating the partner automatically creates their portal login and emails the reset link — you usually do not need to click anything else.
3. Create / Send Portal Login button — use this only to re-send the reset email or if the login needs recreating. It creates a portal-only (Website User) login and never touches a staff/desk user. (If you're a Sales User it will tell you this is a Sales Manager step — that's expected.)
4. Supervised first booking — get the partner on a call or screen-share and have them do one real booking end-to-end:
   • Search → select → passenger details → Confirm → a PNR appears
   • Then cancel that booking together
   • This is their training and your verification, on real fares, at no cost (a cancelled hold costs nothing).

Partner is now live.

Stage 4 — Operate

• The partner adds their own staff. Their admin user uses Agents in the portal to invite colleagues and set each one's role. You do not create these logins.
• Credit runs itself — they get alerts as they approach their limit, and the account auto-suspends at zero credit.
• Their bookings appear in our Pending Ticketing queue for our team to issue.

Partners who book in their own GDS (queue / "Partner Ticket")

Many agencies — especially those with their own PCC — do not book in our portal. They book in their own GDS and send us the PNR to plate. Handle it like this:

1. The partner books in their own system and sends you the record locator (PNR) plus the fare they expect.
2. In the GDS Terminal, click Partner Ticket and fill the dialog:
   • PNR — their record locator
   • Bill to Partner — pick their Partner Account (this is what bills their account and makes the booking attribute to them)
   • Partner-stated fare — what they quoted
3. The system captures it as a Booking in Pending Ticketing billed to that partner, then auto-retrieves the PNR.
4. Verify the fare in the GDS (*FF) before plating. The partner-stated fare is only a claim — the GDS is the truth.
5. Issue it (terminal TKP, or the booking's Issue Ticket button). We plate on 593Y.

This does not auto-issue — an agent always verifies the fare first. If the partner has no Partner Account selected, the booking falls back to Walk-in and will not bill them — always set Bill to Partner.

Stage 5 — Review & offboard

• Quarterly: review active partners. Disable logins for anyone dormant or no longer trading with us.
• When a partnership ends: set the Partnership End Date, set Status to Inactive/Suspended, disable the portal logins, and settle any outstanding wallet balance with Accounts.

Access must never simply be left running after a relationship ends.

Who is allowed to do what

Maker–checker: Sales & Marketing prepares the account; a Sales Manager approves it and grants access. HR does not grant partner access.

Troubleshooting

Go-live checklist (print this)

• [ ] Trade licence + IATA number recorded
• [ ] Signed agreement on file
• [ ] Customer linked (automatic)
• [ ] PCC set
• [ ] Portal Access Level set (Booking + Cancel unless approved otherwise)
• [ ] Credit limit, payment terms, credit period set (owner sign-off if above threshold)
• [ ] Partnership start date (and end date if applicable)
• [ ] Login email correct
• [ ] Status = Active
• [ ] Portal login created + reset email received
• [ ] Supervised first booking completed and cancelled