Table of Contents

Cabin Hold (Inventory Hold)

Place one or more cabins on hold using the CruiseCabinHoldRQ/RS message pair. This takes the cabin(s) out of the cruise line's available inventory for a short period of time, typically fifteen minutes.

The CruiseCabinUnholdRQ/RS message pair is used to release the specific cabin(s) currently on hold.

Hold Request Example

<OTA_CruiseCabinHoldRQ xmlns="http://www.opentravel.org/OTA/2003/05" CorrelationID="cc9f4b15-62f5-40b3-aa7e-0db0089ffe44" Version="1.0">
  <POS>
  [..]
  </POS>
  <GuestCounts>
    <GuestCount Quantity="2" Code="10"/>
  </GuestCounts>
  <SelectedSailing VoyageID="CS21711JUNKTN">
    <SelectedCategory PricedCategoryCode="A">
      <SelectedCabin CabinNumber="1008"/>
    </SelectedCategory>
  </SelectedSailing>
</OTA_CruiseCabinHoldRQ>

Hold Response Example

Response will contain the time when the cabin will be released (unless released earlier with an OTA_CruiseCabinUnholdRQ):

<vx:OTA_CruiseCabinHoldRS xmlns:ns3="http://www.versonix.com/ota" 
  xmlns:ns4="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" 
  xmlns:vx="http://www.opentravel.org/OTA/2003/05" 
  CorrelationID="cc9f4b15-62f5-40b3-aa7e-0db0089ffe44" 
  TargetName="SW_OTA_TEST@ORADEV" 
  TimeStamp="2021-08-27T14:10:53.062" 
  Version="1.999">
  <vx:Success/>
  <vx:SelectedSailing Duration="P0D" End="2023-01-30" ShipCode="CS2" ShipName="Cruise CS2" Start="2023-01-30" VoyageID="CS21711JUNKTN">
    <vx:SelectedCabin CabinNumber="1008" GuestRefNumbers="1 2" 
            ReleaseDateTime="2021-08-27T14:15:52.727" Status="36"/>
    <vx:CruiseProfiles ProfileTypeIdentifier="Mandatory">
      <vx:CruiseProfile/>
    </vx:CruiseProfiles>
    <vx:Information Name="PKGTYPECOMMENT">
      <vx:Text Formatted="false">Long Cruise</vx:Text>
    </vx:Information>
  </vx:SelectedSailing>
</vx:OTA_CruiseCabinHoldRS>
Note

Releasing a cabin hold will happen automatically after a timeout controlled by the cruise line, unless OTA_CruiseCabinUnholdRQ message is sent.

Inventory Hold using Stateful Mode

Alternatively, a cabin can be held using temporary storage and stateful SwOTA mode. This is a more powerful mechanism that, unlike the OTA_CruiseCabinHoldRQ/RS described above, allows also:

  1. To hold other inventory in addition to the cabin (e.g. shorex, transfers, hotels etc.)
  2. Allows to modify held cabin (change cabin number, add/remove additional inventory like shorex to the hold)
  3. If several users could be working as the same agent/agency/client (POS element) at the same time, the above cabin hold can be picked up and used by a user different from the one who locked/held it. Using stateful mode would not allow for this to happen.

Stateful Mode Resources

  • See details about the stateful mode in the SwOTA Stateful Mode article
  • An example of how to hold a cabin using stateful mode can be found in the Seaware OTA test samples