# Post-booking ancillary checkout Sell seats, bags, and extras after the booking is made. DepartCart adds a post-booking cart to your existing flow and writes each purchase back to the reservation. Most travel sellers stop earning the moment the booking confirms. The flight is ticketed, the confirmation email goes out, and every extra the traveller buys after that point is bought somewhere else. Usually on the airline's own site, using the reference number you gave them. Post-booking ancillary checkout means selling seats, bags, and other extras after the booking is confirmed rather than during it. It works because the traveller has already committed to the trip, so the decision is no longer competing with the price of the fare. DepartCart adds that checkout to a flow you already own. [Diagram: An agency sells the flight and earns only a thin fare margin, then the traveller buys the seat and the bag on the airline's own website, so the ancillary revenue leaves the agency entirely. The cause is that the agency has no post-booking cart of its own.] The gap that opens the moment a booking confirms. ## Why the window after booking converts better At the point of booking, every extra is competing with the fare itself. The traveller is comparing prices across four tabs, and a seat fee is a reason to switch. That pressure disappears once the booking is made. The trip is now real, the money is already spent, and the question changes from "is this the cheapest option" to "how do I want this trip to go". That is a different buyer, in a better mood, with a decision that is no longer price-anchored against a competitor. **Insight:** The traveller who has just booked a fourteen hour flight is the same person who would not pay for a seat during checkout. Nothing about them changed except that the trip stopped being hypothetical. ## What DepartCart puts in the cart today Four products are live, sold, and written back to the reservation. | Product | Priced from | Written back to the booking | | --- | --- | --- | | Seat selection | The airline's map for that itinerary | Yes | | Extra bags | The fare's filed baggage content | Yes | | Refund protection | A percentage of the booking | Yes | | Priority support | Your own tiers | Yes | Seat selection is the anchor product, and the reason it works is accuracy. A seat map that shows the wrong cabin layout costs you the sale and earns you a support ticket. DepartCart draws from researched cabin layouts rather than from a generic seat grid. - **63** Airlines with researched layouts - **474** Cabin layouts - **49** Aircraft types - **114,182** Mapped seats ## The catalogue is wider than seats and bags A post-booking cart is not a seat-selling tool that happens to carry other things. It is a merchandising surface, and the same offer-and-fulfil shape holds for anything a traveller might want between booking and departure. Lounge access is a natural second item, because a long connection is exactly when it is worth buying. Connectivity is a destination product rather than a flight product, which is why the post-booking window suits it better than the booking flow does. Ground transport is where the catalogue stops being air only, and it is the clearest bridge to rail, cruise, and tour itineraries. [Diagram: Four ancillaries are sold and fulfilled through the cart today, and the wider catalogue shows the shape of what the same cart is built to carry. The outlined items are categories the platform is built for, not products on sale.] What a post-booking cart holds. Solid items are shipped today. **Aside:** The catalogue page goes through each of these in more detail, including which sit in the cart today and which the platform is built to carry. ## Three ways in, depending on how much control you want [Diagram: A tag manager drop-in launches fastest and gives you the least control over the experience, a hosted page sits in the middle on both counts, and the API gives you the most control for the most build effort. All three reach the same cart.] Effort against control. Most partners start on the left. 1. **Tag manager** The lowest-effort route. The cart is introduced through your existing tag manager, so it needs no release from your engineering team and can be turned off as quickly as it was turned on. Good for proving the revenue before committing a roadmap slot. 2. **Hosted page** The traveller moves to a page we host and style to your brand. You get more control of the experience than a tag manager gives you, without owning the front end. 3. **API** You build the presentation and call the platform for offers and fulfilment. Complete control, and the right choice when the post-booking experience is part of your product rather than an addition to it. Most partners start with the tag manager route and move deeper once the revenue is proven. That order is deliberate: it puts the commercial question first and the engineering question second. ## See it against one of your own bookings The fastest way to judge a post-booking cart is to watch it load a real itinerary. [Talk to us](mailto:hello@departcart.com) ## Frequently asked questions ### Do we have to replatform to use a post-booking cart? No. The cart is added to the page a traveller already lands on after booking, and it can be introduced through your tag manager, as a hosted page, or through the API, depending on how much control you want. ### Which bookings can it work with? Bookings held in Sabre, with ancillaries sourced through both ATPCO filed content and NDC. Seat maps and bag offers come from the airline for that specific itinerary rather than from a generic table. ### What happens after a traveller pays? The purchase is written back to the reservation automatically, so no agent has to touch it and the traveller sees the extra reflected in their booking. ### How long does an integration usually take? It depends entirely on which route you take. A tag manager rollout is measured in days because it needs no release from your engineering team. A full API integration is a project, and it buys you complete control of the presentation.