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GDS Car Rental Search

How the car rental search form works, and why it currently returns no vehicles.

ConsultantConsultant AdminSuper AdminLast reviewed 03 Aug 2026

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The car rental search screen collects pickup and drop-off details and sends them to the car search endpoint. No car rental provider is connected to that endpoint today, so the search always comes back with zero vehicles. This article describes the screen as it actually behaves so you know what to expect and what to tell a client.

Important: Car rental search is not live. The server route has no supplier integration — it checks for Sabre credentials, finds none, and returns an empty result list. You will see the toast Found 0 vehicles and the results area stays on its "Search for Car Rentals" empty state. Book car hire outside TravelFlow and, if you need it on paperwork, add it as a manual line item on a quotation.

Opening the Car Rental Search

The car form is reached through the multi-service booking page, not from the nav. Choosing Bookings > GDS Search always opens the flight form.

  1. From the consultant dashboard, click GDS Booking (or New GDS Booking in Quick Actions) to open GDS Multi-Service Booking.
  2. In Step 1: Select Services to Book, click the Car Rental tile.
  3. Fill in Initials and Surname in the client information block. Step 3 stays hidden until both are present.
  4. In Step 3: Search & Add Services, select the Car Rental tab and click Search Car Rental. This opens the search page with a blue Building Multi-Service Itinerary banner and a Return to Basket button.

The Search Form

  • GDS Providers — toggle buttons for RateHawk, Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport. All four start selected. Clearing them all blocks the search with Please select at least one GDS provider.
  • Pickup Location (Airport/City) — a plain text box, for example JNB Airport or Cape Town CBD. There is no autocomplete here; only the hotel destination field has one.
  • Dropoff Location (Airport/City) — also plain text. Leave it empty for a same-location return: the request reuses the pickup location. There is no "same as pickup" toggle.
  • Pickup Date, Pickup Time, Dropoff Date and Dropoff Time. Both times default to 10:00.
  • Car Type — Any, Economy, SUV or Luxury. This selection is not sent to the search endpoint, so changing it has no effect on the request.

Pickup location, pickup date and drop-off date are required; leaving any of them blank shows Please fill in all required fields. There is no driver age field — the request sends no driver age.

What a Result Card Would Show

If a supplier is connected in future, results render as a plain list of cards — no grouping by category and no result filters. Each card shows the vehicle model, category and supplier, then transmission, passenger count, luggage count and mileage. On the right it shows the total, the per-day price and the markup added, with an Add to Basket button (or Book Now when you did not come from the basket). Cards are not clickable, and the result shape carries no insurance, excess, or extras such as GPS or child seats.

The price shown is (supplier per-day rate + markup) x number of days, where days is the difference between pickup and drop-off dates, minimum one. No one-way fee, young-driver surcharge or other supplier fee is calculated anywhere in this path.

Tip: Hotels are the only service that returns live results and the only service that can be sent to the booking queue. If a client needs a car alongside a hotel, quote the hotel through GDS and capture the car as a manual service line on the quotation.