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I've no real thought on this yet, but am aware it's the tip of an iceberg.

We're starting to see more Amadeus software questions - and the codes within.

I'm not familiar with Amadeus - but is this more a software package help problem, or a travel one? I mean, if it was MS Word, it would be software, but there must be a line somewhere. Are we now here to support Amadeus?

Just thinking out loud, before it grows too fast.

Thoughts, ideally from those who know more about what Amadeus is?

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  • I had a private client who wanted a dashboard for Amadeus on his mobile/tablet. I didn't take the contract, but looked into their API pretty seriously. From that constrained viewpoint, it's off topic because it's about publishing and data services. And the questions about Amadeus header abbreviations are too focused, too narrow, too volatile etc etc Paranoia driven.
    – Gayot Fow
    Commented Mar 23, 2015 at 7:34
  • Incidentally, it seems many of these questions are from the same user, who is apparently using this site to help him while training himself to use Amadeus.
    – Relaxed
    Commented Mar 23, 2015 at 11:08

4 Answers 4

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IMO:

  • "What does this code mean on my itinerary, etc.": on-topic. It helps people who get a "raw" copy of reservations on understanding them.
  • "What is the command to do this or that in Amadeus, How to setup Amadeus, etc.": off-topic. This is more technical.
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  • "What does this code means on my itinerary, etc.": on-topic. <= why
    – user4188
    Commented Mar 23, 2015 at 13:41
  • @chx edited the answer to explain
    – Nean Der Thal
    Commented Mar 24, 2015 at 22:44
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I do not have a really strong opinion but multiple times when seeing these questions, I wanted to close them as off-topic, and then I saw that we had a lot of questions on the topic, so I didn't close but wondered.

These Amadeus/Sabre/... acronyms/commands have an actual meaning in terms of travelling. Usually, it is not the traveller's duty to know them, though, only the travel agent. I think that it can easily be on-topic for most cases:

  • It describes part or all of your itinerary
  • It describes your fare, and gives important information on your ticket conditions
  • We have a lot of other questions on deciphering tickets, or even anything, so that makes sense to keep these on-topic for the sake of curiosity (tagged with or , for example)

That's for the ticket part, once it is issued.

For the booking, it might help you in very specific cases (e.g. to check your booking is correct, the same way you'd make sure the travel agent spells your name right), but normally it is the travel agent's job. On that point, I have a funny anecdote of a friend working at Amadeus and booking a ticket in China with a travel agent, they ended up communicating more through the Amadeus "language" than in English. That does not make it on-topic, because these booking commands require deep knowledge (there are literally dictionaries of commands).

So my opinion is basically the same as @MeNoTalk. And I would tend, in case of doubt, to keep the question open. We have a lot of more random curiosity questions, and there are apparently people able to satisfy the curiosity of others on that topic.

5

I do know a little bit about Amadeus but I don't have any strong opinion on this. The thing is that, software or not, understanding these codes requires extensive knowledge of the airline and travel industries. From that perspective, it's quite different from support for a generic software package and it seems to me that expertise and interest is likely to be higher on this site than anywhere else.

Or to say the same thing differently: Amadeus questions are about software and data services in the same sense than other air travel questions are about using e-commerce websites, customer service or contract law. On one level it's true, but that does not mean it's not also about travel.

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I would think that anything you need to know about the conditions of your reservations is spelled out in human readable text in the reservation email. So there can be no real reasons to try to decipher your Amadeus record -- provided you can even get it which is not a given. So the answer is: off topic, you won't learn anything significant.

Imagine that something goes sideways and you end up in a court of law. Your side presents the reservation email claiming something in plain English and the airline presents "TST RLR MSC RLP RP HZ SU". They will be laughed out of court.

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  • Not everything will be in the human-readable part of the text, especially not if things are going wrong. Also, ticket text might say "changes as per fare rules" while the ticket details could explain those, so that would seem to me to be an area of valid questioning
    – Gagravarr
    Commented Mar 24, 2015 at 16:36

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