1. INTRODUCTION

Vietnam Airlines issues this Policy with the objective of preventing abuses in booking and ticketing, ensuring fair competition, protecting compliant agents, and maintaining the accuracy of the airline’s inventory. Pursuant to this Policy, Vietnam Airlines reserves the right to recover or adjust any cases where agents are found to have violated Vietnam Airlines’ booking and ticketing policies.

This Policy applies to all travel agents, including both IATA/ARC-accredited and non-accredited agencies.

This Policy applies to all bookings made through the Vietnam Airlines inventory and covers electronic tickets (ETs) and EMDs for all types of transactions, including sales, refunds, exchanges, avoids and other related topics.

In addition to the penalties for the violation practices mentioned below and/or delay ADM payments, Vietnam Airlines reserves the right, at its sole discretion and without prior notice, to immediately restrict or suspend booking activities or permanently revoke system access or terminate the agency’s contract in cases of repeated or severe violations. The level of enforcement shall be determined based on the severity of the impact or loss caused.

This Policy complies with IATA Resolution 850m and other relevant IATAs’ resolutions. All clauses in this Policy are the standard ADMs policy. In case VN and agent have other bilateral agreement on issuing ADM policy, the bilateral agreement will prevail.

Vietnam Airlines reserves the right to update this policy without any prior notice.

2. APPLICATION

2.1. Ticketing and ADM Policy

2.1.1. All fares, fare rules and booking rules are subject to audit. Included, but not limited to this audit control is the correct application of:

- Fares and fares conditions

- Taxes and fuel surcharges

- Minimum/maximum stay, advance purchase rules, seasonality and flight applications

- Commissions and discounts (if applicable)

- Stopovers and transfers

- Refund error such as unauthorized correction of fare, fuel surcharge, tax, fee/charge, commission refund amount.

- Rebooking fees and recalculation of re-issue/rerouting 

- Plate violations

2.1.2. Credit card acceptance violations

Card sales violations: No card issued in the name of the agent or any Person permitted to act on behalf of the agent shall be used in connection with the sale of Vietnam Airlines' Traffic Documents to any customer of the agent. Agent will be responsible for any ADM issued by VN in regard to the agent’s violations of this rule.

2.1.3. Other Reasons

- No report ticket 

- Multiple uses of one coupon

- Ticketing rule violations. 

- Travel violations: Validation on flown coupon vs. ticketed coupon (e.g. comparison between Reservation Booking Designator (RBD) on both coupons, flight number/flight date mismatch, ticketed vs. flown routing, collection). 

- Non-compliance to any other published or communicated requirements with regards to usage of VN traffic document.

2.2. GDS Booking and ADM Policy

2.2.1. Definitions of Violations:

Duplicate/Redundant Booking: Two or more segments for the same passenger, on the same or similar route, on the same or similar dates, created by the same agent across one or more GDSs.

Inactive Booking: Segments in GDS’s PNR with status code HL, HN, HX, NO, PN, SC, UC, UN, etc.

Passive Booking: Non-active segments entered into the GDS for purposes other than   issuing tickets for active segments originally created in the airline’s reservation system.

Speculative/Fictitious Booking: Any segment created without a genuine and confirmed travel request, or by using false, invalid, or non-existent passenger information. This includes, but is not limited to:

- Creating segments using test names, initials, celebrity names, random characters, or other fictitious passenger details.

- Creating multiple or impossible or illogical itineraries that cannot be physically flown or completed in anticipation of a possible sale without definite passenger intent.

- Attaching or associating used, invalid, or non-matching ticket numbers to a PNR.

- Repeatedly creating and cancelling the same booking (churning) for the same passenger or group of passengers more than five (5) times.

- Issuing and voiding tickets on the same day for the same passenger or group of passengers more than three (3) times.

- Holding or retaining 20 seats or more per flight number per flight date from the inventory, whether created through a single or multiple PNR(s), without completing the booking transaction (EOT) within 15 minutes.

System Abuse/Manipulation: Any intentional action or misuse of the reservation system aimed at obtaining an undue advantage, such as securing lower fares, gaining access to closed or restricted booking classes, or circumventing applicable fare, inventory, or ticketing rules; including but not limited to:

- Married segment abuse: Unlinking or altering married segments, rebooking, or splitting PNRs to bypass inventory control logic in order to access availability or fares that would otherwise be closed or restricted.

- Point of origin manipulation: Creating false origins or destinations (including ticketing via third point, origin shifting, or local availability abuse) to obtain more favorable fares.

- Tampering with class availability or selling closed booking classes through manual manipulation or system workarounds.

- Any other practice that distorts inventory data, bypasses fare construction rules or compromises system integrity.

2.2.2. Applicable Penalties and Violation Determination

Vietnam Airlines reserves the right to determine both the occurrence and severity of violations based on its own system records, inventory impact, and loss incurred.

2.2.2.1. Duplicate/Redundant Bookings: All duplicate and/or redundant segments will be subject to the cancellation of reservations without prior notice. Vietnam Airlines reserves the right to determine and cancel any affected segments at its sole discretion.

2.2.2.2. Inactive Booking: Agents must monitor queues regularly and remove all inactive segments at least 25 hours prior to the scheduled departure time. Failure to comply will be subject to the issuance of an Agency Debit Memo (ADM) with a penalty of USD 15 per passenger per segment.

2.2.2.3. Passive Bookings: All passive segments will be subject to the issuance of an Agency Debit Memo (ADM) with a penalty of USD 15 per passenger per segment.

2.2.2.4. Speculative/Fictitious Booking: All speculative and/or fictitious segments will be subject to the issuance of an Agency Debit Memo (ADM) with a penalty of USD 40 per passenger per segment.

2.2.2.5. System Abuse Violations: Segment(s) created through system abuse or manipulation, whether ticketed or not, shall be subject to an ADM penalty equal to the fare difference between the ticketed or potential ticketed fare and the correct applicable fare, or a fixed penalty as specified below, whichever is higher.

- For Economy Fare Classes: USD 500 per passenger per segment/fare component.

- Business/Premium Economy Fare Classes: USD 800 per passenger per segment/fare component.

The penalty shall be applied to both the booking and ticketing agents involved if they are different.

2.2.3. Exchange rate:

The penalty amount shall be converted to each BSP's settlement currency using BSR (Bank Selling Rate) on the first day of the month in which the ADM is issued.

2.3. Minimum ADM Value

The minimum ADM value is USD 10 or equivalent, except in the case of taxes. In the case of persistent practice of under collection (multiple occurrences of underpayments of less than USD 10 or equivalent) by the same agent, VN reserves the right to recover those underpayments. More than one ADM in relation to the same original ticket can be raised if different, unrelated charges apply. Grouping of multiple tickets on one ADM may be allowed under the conditions that the audit reasons are the same for all grouped tickets and all tickets were issued by the same agent.

2.4. ADM Administrative fee

VN will not levy administration fee to cover the cost of ADM issuance by VN.

2.5. ADM processing

- Agency Debit Memos will be raised and settled via the BSPLink/ASD/ARC Memo Manager if sent within nine months after final travel date/refund date. Where the final travel date cannot be established for any reasons, the expiry date of the document shall be used. Beyond that date, payment settlement will be handled directly between the airline and the agency.

- Agents have the right to raise disputes via BSPLink/ ASD/ARC Memo Manager within 15 days of receipt of ADM. If no dispute is raised within this time-frame, the dispute will not be accepted by VN. Upon receipt of dispute, VN will reply within 60 days stating acceptance or denial of the dispute with a clear explanation. 

2.6. ACM Issuance 

In the case unjustified ADMs have been issued by VN or when an ADM requires corrections in favor of the agent, an ACM can be issued to that agent covering the amount due.

2.7. In specific circumstances, VN may issue an ADM as a penalty in case of a serious agent violation of the VN’s booking and ticketing policies based on the penalty level which the agent has previously been directly informed of or was widely published.

3. CONTACT INFORMATION

For further inquiries related to Booking and Ticketing ADM/ACM Policy, please contact your local Vietnam Airlines' office.