How to sell flights without an IATA code: 5 routes for travel advisors

Yes, you can sell flights without an IATA code. You just can't issue the ticket yourself. In the US, ticketing requires ARC accreditation, and elsewhere it runs through IATA's BSP. Without either, someone accredited issues the ticket for you: a host agency, an air consolidator or a booking platform. You earn through a commission split, a markup or your own service fee.

You need accreditation to ticket. You don't need it to sell. Here is what you can and can't do without it, the five main routes, what each costs, and who owes the refund when a flight changes.

What can you do without an IATA code?

Quite a lot. You can quote fares, build itineraries, take the booking and charge a fee for your work. What you can't do is issue the ticket under your own agency.

In the US, ARC accreditation lets agencies issue air tickets on more than 200 airlines. Outside the US, IATA accreditation authorizes agents to sell international and domestic tickets for multiple airlines. Payment settles through the Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP), IATA's system for moving money between agents and airlines. For a full breakdown of IATAN, ARC and IATA, see IATA codes explained.

Getting ARC isn't small. It means a $2,300 application fee and a bond, letter of credit or cash deposit of at least $20,000, plus an ARC Specialist who passes ARC's exam. That is why most advisors starting a travel agency begin with one of the routes below.

Route 1: book under a host agency's number

A host agency is an accredited agency that lets independent advisors book under its numbers. Because hosted agents use their host's accreditation number, they don't need their own. With many hosts, you get access to several accreditations at once.

How you get paid. The host collects commission from suppliers and pays you a split. Ask each host how it handles air: who tickets, and what it charges per ticket.

The catch. Suppliers see the host, not you. In HostAgencyReviews' words, because everyone shares one number, you're technically seen as one agency. See how host agencies work for splits and fees.

Route 2: book through an air consolidator

An air consolidator is a wholesaler for airline tickets, in the words of Centrav, a US consolidator. You make the booking. The consolidator issues the ticket.

How you get paid. Consolidator fares are often low enough that you can build in a markup and still offer the client a discount. When no consolidator fare beats the published fare, you sell the published fare and add a service fee.

What they handle. Centrav says a good consolidator takes on issuing tickets and monitoring schedule changes.

The catch. You usually still need some credential to open an account. Centrav checks that an agent has the correct credentials (IATA, CLIA, TRUE number, etc.) at registration. An ARC VTC number (route 3) is one way to have a credential of your own.

Route 3: get an ARC VTC number

ARC's Verified Travel Consultant (VTC) program is for agencies that aren't ready to ticket through ARC but want the other benefits of participation. You get your own ARC number for supplier recognition, and the application fee is $195.

VTC is the non-ticketing alternative to ARC. So it doesn't replace routes 1, 2 or 5 for air. It gives you an identity of your own while someone else tickets. When you're ready, ARC lets you apply to become a full ARC-accredited agency.

VTC recognizes you. ARC lets you ticket.

Route 4: go direct to the airline through NDC

New Distribution Capability (NDC) is IATA's data exchange format for airline offers and orders. It gives travel sellers richer airline content. It does not remove the accreditation requirement.

Access to NDC content through a global distribution system (GDS) is tied to an agency number. Travelport, for example, requires a valid IATA or TIDS number. Emirates enables only accredited BSP and ARC agents, and United's access criteria list a valid IATA number.

What this means for agencies: NDC is a better pipe for accredited agencies. Without your own number, you reach NDC content through a host, consolidator or platform that has one.

Route 5: use a booking platform that issues the ticket for you

Some platforms hold the accreditation and airline connections themselves. You search, book and charge your client, and the platform issues the ticket. It works like the consolidator route, with search, booking and payment in one tool.

Before you sign up, ask three questions:

1. Who is the merchant of record? That is the business named on your client's card statement. It decides who owes the refund (more below).
2. Who watches schedule changes? Someone has to see the change and contact the traveler.
3. How do you earn? Through a markup, a service fee or a commission share.

Which route fits you?

Should you charge a service fee instead of relying on commission?

For US flights, plan on it. American and Continental announced in March 2002 that they would no longer pay a base commission on tickets issued by travel agents in the US and Canada. Delta had made a similar move a week earlier. Agencies answered with ticketing fees. MIT's contracted agencies, for example, moved to $43–$50 per airline ticket.

ARC's own materials list service fees alongside cash sales as things an accredited agency can issue. Without ARC, you collect the fee through your own payment processor.

Three rules keep a fee clean under US DOT rules:

1. Show the total price. Any advertised fare must be the entire price the customer pays, including your fee. Taxes can be listed separately, but not prominently, and never in the same or larger size as the total.
2. Disclose it per passenger, at purchase. If you want to keep your fee when a refund is due, it must be per passenger, and its existence, amount and non-refundability must be clearly and prominently disclosed when the client buys.
3. Earn it. DOT lets you keep the fee only to the extent the service is more than processing payment for a flight the consumer found. Planning and research count. Running a card for a flight the client picked doesn't.

Also, never suggest you are the airline. DOT treats that as an unfair or deceptive practice.

Do you need Seller of Travel registration to sell flights?

In some states, yes, even without an IATA code. California requires all sellers of travel to register with the Attorney General and to show the registration number in their advertising. Florida requires each seller of travel to register every year, and independent agents pay a $50 annual registration fee. IATAN also asks for Seller of Travel registration from agencies operating in Florida, Hawaii or Washington State.

Your host may already cover part of this. Check your state's rules before you take payment for air. This is a summary, not legal advice.

Who is liable when a flight changes or is cancelled?

Whoever is the merchant of record. DOT defines that as the business processing the payment, as shown on the consumer's card statement.

Under the 2024 refund rule, a traveler is owed a full refund when a flight is cancelled or significantly changed and they decline the alternative. A significant change includes leaving 3 or more hours earlier, or arriving 3 or more hours later, on a domestic trip (6 hours internationally), a different airport, more connections, or a downgrade.

If you are the merchant of record, the refund is yours to make. A ticket agent must refund within 7 business days of hearing from the airline for credit card purchases. For cash, check, debit card and other payments, the limit is 20 calendar days from when the refund becomes due. It goes back in the original form of payment. The airline must tell you without delay whether the traveler qualifies, and transfer the funds if it holds them.

Status in 2026. The refund rule is in force. DOT has paused enforcement only for flights that are merely renumbered with no significant change, until July 7, 2027, while it reconsiders what counts as a cancellation. The separate 2024 ancillary-fee disclosure rule was vacated by the Fifth Circuit, and DOT restored the 2011 standards on July 2, 2026.

What this means for agencies: If your host, consolidator or platform takes the payment, it handles the refund, but your client will still call you. Put who handles changes and refunds in your client terms.

How Tripdash handles flights

Tripdash Bookings lets you book it all with no IATA code required: flights, hotels, activities, rides and restaurants in one search, without building supplier contracts. See how Tripdash Bookings works.

Sources

1. ARC. Become an ARC-accredited travel agency, 2020 (includes the VTC program).
2. IATA. Travel agent accreditation.
3. IATA. New Distribution Capability (NDC), 2026.
4. IATA/IATAN. IATAN Accreditation Requirements, December 2025.
5. US DOT. 14 CFR Part 260, Refunds for airline fare and ancillary service fees, as amended August 12, 2024.
6. US DOT. 14 CFR 399.80, Unfair and deceptive practices of ticket agents, as amended July 2, 2026.
7. US DOT. 14 CFR 399.84, Price advertising and opt-out provisions.
8. US DOT, Federal Register. Airline Refunds and Other Consumer Protections, July 7, 2026.
9. US DOT, Federal Register. Increasing Flexibility on Disclosure of Airline Ancillary Fees, July 2, 2026.
10. Travelport. Airline registration requirements for NDC content, 2026.
11. California Attorney General. Seller of Travel Program.
12. Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes § 559.928, Registration, 2025.
13. Centrav. What is an airline consolidator?, January 9, 2019.
14. Aviation Week. AA, CO follow Delta in cutting commissions, March 19, 2002.
15. MIT News. Travel agencies to charge fees for airline tickets, April 3, 2002.
16. HostAgencyReviews. Travel agency accreditation options, updated August 16, 2024.