Glossary.
The words of the trade, and the words we use.
66 terms from travel distribution, operations and finance, plus the handful TripOS adds. Each one in two sentences, with what it means on TripOS where that differs.
A
Agent (AI)
A component of the AI workforce that drafts a specific kind of work from the record: a summary, a quote, a reply, a reconciliation. On TripOS there are fourteen.
AI workforce
The fourteen agents on TripOS: AI Sales, AI Lead Qualification, AI Follow-up, AI Quotation, AI Itinerary, AI Marketing, AI Lead Generation, AI Operations, AI Automation, AI Finance, AI Customer Success, AI Customer Assistant, AI Management and AI Analytics.
Allotment
A block of rooms or seats a supplier holds for you under a contract, usually per night or per departure, until a release date.
Approval
The step where a named person reviews a draft and sends it, edits it or rejects it. Nothing customer-facing leaves TripOS without one.
B
B2B portal
A login for trade partners (agents, sub-agents, corporates) to see their own rate card, availability and bookings instead of emailing for them.
Bed bank
A wholesaler that contracts hotel rooms in bulk and sells them to agents and OTAs through an API, usually at net rates with a markup added by the seller.
Blackout dates
Dates on which a contracted rate or allotment does not apply, typically festivals, peak weeks and events.
Booking
A confirmed sale of a service, with travellers, dates, supplier confirmations, payments and documents attached.
Brand record
The small record that holds a business's name, theme, layout, two colours, products and style options, and from which every surface on TripOS re-skins.
BSP
Billing and Settlement Plan, IATA's system through which accredited agents report and settle airline ticket sales.
C
Chargeback
A card payment reversed by the cardholder's bank after a dispute. The merchant must answer with evidence or lose the amount.
Commission
The percentage a supplier pays the seller for a booking, as opposed to a markup the seller adds to a net rate.
Connected supply
The older name for TripOS Supply: live partner inventory switched on next to your own contracts.
Consolidator
A wholesaler of airline tickets that lets non-IATA agents issue tickets through its accreditation, for a fee or a share of commission.
Contracted rate
A price you negotiated directly with a supplier, with its season, room type, allotment, release date and cancellation rule.
D
DMC
Destination management company: a business that provides ground services in a destination (hotels, transfers, guides, excursions) to tour operators and agents from elsewhere.
Draft
What an agent produces: a quote with priced lines, a reply, a follow-up, a reconciliation. A draft is never sent on its own.
Dynamic packaging
Assembling a trip from live components (flight, hotel, transfer, activity) at the time of search, priced together, rather than selling a fixed package.
E
Escorted tour
A group tour led by a guide or tour manager for the whole trip, sold as a fixed departure with a set itinerary.
F
FIT
Free independent traveller: a trip tailored for one party rather than a group departure, usually priced from components.
G
GDS
Global distribution system (Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport): the networks through which airlines, hotels and car companies distribute inventory to agents.
GIT
Group inclusive tour: a trip sold to a group at a group rate, usually with minimum numbers and a tour leader.
GSTIN
Goods and Services Tax Identification Number, the fifteen-character registration every GST-registered business in India has.
H
Hosted departure
A fixed-date group trip a travel creator fills from their audience and travels with, sold and operated by a licensed operator of record with the creator earning a margin per seat.
I
IATA
International Air Transport Association; IATA accreditation lets an agency issue airline tickets and settle through BSP.
Inbox
The one place where email, WhatsApp, SMS, the website form and the app conversations arrive, each becoming or joining a record with an owner.
Invoice
The tax document for a sale. In India it must carry both GSTINs where applicable, the SAC code and the tax split; in the Gulf and EU, the VAT details.
Itinerary
The day-by-day plan of a trip: where the traveller is, what is booked, who to call. Usually the document the customer values most.
L
Layout
One of twenty-one reference-faithful storefront designs on TripOS, up to three per theme, each an opinion about how that kind of business sells.
M
Manifest
The list of travellers on a departure with their details, documents and special requests, used by operations, guides and suppliers.
Markup vs margin
Markup is the amount added to cost; margin is that amount as a share of the selling price. A 25% markup is a 20% margin.
MICE
Meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions: corporate group travel with venues, events and logistics, usually run by a DMC or a specialist operator.
N
NDC
New Distribution Capability, IATA's standard that lets airlines sell richer content (seats, bags, bundles) directly to agents outside the traditional GDS.
Net rate
The price a supplier charges the seller, before the seller adds its markup. Customer-facing documents must never show it.
O
OTA
Online travel agency: a business that sells travel through its own website and app, usually with search-first inventory and instant booking.
P
Package
A fixed combination of services sold at one price, such as flights, hotel and transfers for a set number of nights.
Payment processor
The company that moves card, UPI or bank payments and settles them to you, charging a fee per transaction.
PNR
Passenger name record: the booking reference a GDS or airline creates, holding the passengers, flights and ticketing status.
Preference rule
The Inventory setting that decides which source is used when your contract and TripOS Supply both have the same service: contracted first (default), supply first, or cheapest.
Q
Quote
A priced proposal for a trip, line by line, that a customer accepts or questions. On TripOS it is a link, not a PDF.
R
Rack rate
A hotel's published, undiscounted price, from which contracted and net rates are negotiated.
Record
The single place where one trip lives on TripOS: the enquiry, the conversation, the quote, the booking, the payments, the documents and the service notes.
Release date
The date by which unsold allotment must be given back to the supplier, after which it is no longer yours to sell.
Rooming list
The list of who shares which room on a group booking, sent to the hotel before arrival.
Routing
The rules that decide who owns a new enquiry: by channel, product, destination or language, with a fallback and an escalation time.
S
Scope
The boundaries you set for an agent: which products, customers and channels it works on, what it may answer alone, what it drafts and when it must hand over.
Season
A date range within a contract that carries its own rate, often with minimum stays and blackout dates.
Series departure
A departure that repeats on a schedule (every Saturday, every month) with the same itinerary and allotments.
Settlement
The transfer of collected payments from the processor to your bank, and of supplier costs from you to suppliers, reconciled against bookings.
Storefront
The website and customer app a business runs on TripOS, rendered from its brand record in one of twenty-one layouts.
Sub-agent
A smaller agent that sells a wholesaler's or DMC's product under its own name, at a net rate with its own markup, often on credit terms.
Supplier payout
Paying hotels, guides, transfer companies and DMCs what the booking owes them, often across borders and currencies.
T
TCS
Tax collected at source: in India, a percentage collected on overseas tour packages and certain remittances and deposited against the traveller's PAN.
Theme
The kind of travel business on TripOS: online travel agency, AI travel concierge, tour operator, DMC and groups, travel agency, private jet charter. Each has three layouts.
Ticketing
Issuing an airline ticket against a booked PNR, either through your own IATA accreditation or a consolidator.
TMC
Travel management company: an agency that manages business travel for companies under policy, with approvals, reporting and consolidated invoicing.
Tour operator
A business that designs, prices and operates trips, usually as departures with its own suppliers, and sells them directly or through agents.
Travel agent
A business or person that sells travel to customers on behalf of suppliers or operators, earning commission or a service fee.
Travel creator
A business type on TripOS for people whose audience arrives through reels, videos and blogs: three layouts of its own (Offmap, Noor in Blue, Offscript), channels connected by handle, AI answering comments and DMs, and inventory from TripOS Supply plus hosted departures.
TripOS Marketplace
An Enterprise feature, by invitation: list your own contracts for other TripOS businesses to sell at a commission you set, or sell theirs.
TripOS Supply
The inventory TripOS provides: flights (Amadeus, Sabre, airline NDC), hotels (TBO, Hotelbeds, RateHawk) and activities (Viator) at net rates, sold under your brand at your markup. Cars, cruises, jets, chauffeurs and yachts stay on your own contracts until a partner feed is live.
V
Voucher
The document a traveller presents to a supplier as proof of a booking: hotel, transfer, tour or activity.
W
Wholesaler
A business that contracts travel product in bulk and sells it to agents at net rates rather than to travellers directly.
Workspace
One business's instance of TripOS: its brands, records, inventory, team, settings and region.
Y
Yield
The revenue earned per unit of inventory sold, the number operators manage by adjusting prices as departure approaches.
Z
Zero-retention
A processing term under which a model provider keeps neither the prompt nor the output after responding, and trains on neither.