Quick Start for Travel API Consumers

Welcome to the quick start guide for travel industry API consumers. This concise guide is designed to give you a streamlined overview of Pliant's API capabilities, allowing you to leverage our products effectively and quickly. Remember, you don't have to implement every feature. Even utilizing just a couple of endpoints can significantly enhance your processes.

Step 1: Define your Setup

Contact your Pliant representative to set up a demo organization in our sandbox. Inform us if you need:

• Specialized travel purchasing cards.
• A single, technical cardholder to issue cards.
  • You can still provide dynamic cardholder names per card you issue.
• Custom fields at the card level for tailored usage, which get copied onto every transaction made with that card.

Step 2: Select Organization and Cardholder

Before issuing a card, you need to know:

1. Which organization the cardholder belongs to
2. Which cardholder should receive the card

Use these endpoints to retrieve the relevant data:

• GET /organizations
• GET /cardholders

If you always use the same organization and cardholder, you can hardcode those values or fetch them once from the API or web app.

Step 3: Start Issuing Cards

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Available Card Configurations

Every card issuance request requires a valid cardConfig.
Use GET /cards/available-cards to choose the right configuration.

Use one of the following endpoints to issue cards instantly:

• POST /cards/{cardholderId}/instant
• POST /cards/{cardholderId}/instant-pci (if you require PCI data directly)

Before calling, you can retrieve available card configurations via:

• GET /cards/available-cards

When issuing a card, in just one API call, you can:

• Set fixed validity dates or relative periods (e.g., 3 months)
• Limit the number of transactions per card
• Define spend limits and renewal frequencies
• Assign custom names (e.g., for a traveler) in the cardholder properties
• Use card controls to limit merchants, categories, dates, or times
• Set custom fields for tagging transactions with internal IDs

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Card Controls

You can apply card controls when issuing a card to enforce:

• Allow lists (e.g., only hotels and airlines)
• Block lists (e.g., prevent cash withdrawals or specific merchants)

If you're using our travel card product, reasonable allow lists are pre-configured by default.

Step 4: Access Sensitive Card Data

After issuing a card, you may need access to its sensitive data (e.g., PAN and CVV). Depending on your PCI-DSS compliance:

• If PCI-compliant: use GET /card-details/{cardId}
• If not PCI-compliant: integrate our secure web widget

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Combining Card Issuing & PAN/CVV Retrieval

Use the Instant PCI endpoint to issue a card and get sensitive card data in a single call.

Step 5: Reconciliation & Administration

For reconciliation, we provide multiple options:

• Callbacks for near real-time transaction data
• Monthly statements
• Custom CSV exports tailored to your reporting needs

We recommend using the transaction callbacks for real-time updates:

• TRANSACTION_AUTHORIZED: Sent when a transaction is authorized
• TRANSACTION_CONFIRMED: Sent when a transaction is confirmed

In addition, our comprehensive web app can handle various administrative tasks, allowing you to focus on automating card issuance and reconciliation processes.