How to Convert a PNR to a Branded PDF Itinerary

Turning a raw PNR into a document a client actually wants to receive involves two jobs that agents usually treat as separate: decoding the flight details, and building a presentable document around them. Done by hand, the second job is where mistakes happen. This guide walks through the full process, including the checks that stop a bad PNR becoming a bad client document, and what to keep out of the file you send.

Before You Paste: Is the PNR Ready?

A converter will happily format a booking that is not actually confirmed. Before you generate anything, look at the segment status codes. HK means the airline has confirmed the seat. HL (waitlisted), UN and UC (airline unable or no confirmation) and schedule-change codes all mean the booking is not in the state the client expects. Our reference on HK, HL and KK status codes explains each. If you also want a quick scan for duplicate segments, name mismatches or ticketing time limits, the PNR health check guide covers what to look for.

Also decide whether this document is a quote, a reservation summary or a ticketed confirmation. A held but unticketed PNR should say so, with the payment deadline, rather than looking final. Clients forward these documents to employers, hotels and visa offices, and a document that looks like a confirmed ticket when it is not causes real trouble.

Step 1: Paste the Raw PNR

Whatever GDS produced it, paste the raw PNR text into a converter that auto-detects the format. This extracts airline, flight number, route, dates and times without retyping. Here is a short illustrative Sabre-style example, an Umrah routing with an overnight outbound:

1 SV 105 Y 12SEP 6 LHRJED HK1 2145 0620 13SEP E
2 SV 043 Y 20SEP 7 MEDJED HK1 1810 1915 E
3 SV 106 Y 21SEP 1 JEDLHR HK1 0940 1435 E

Read this the way the client will. Segment 1 leaves London at 21:45 on 12 September and lands in Jeddah at 06:20 on the 13th, so the arrival date is different from the departure date and the itinerary has to show that. Segment 2 is a short domestic hop from Madinah. Segment 3 returns on the 21st. All times are local to the airport, which is why the flight time can look odd if you subtract them directly.

Step 2: Auto-Fill Into the Itinerary Builder

Once the flights are extracted, PNRGenius's Itinerary Builder populates the flight section from the same paste, so you are not copying converted output into a second tool. After it fills, do three checks:

• Count segments. The number of flights in the document should match the PNR, including any you expected to see on a return.
• Check each arrival date. Overnight flights are the most common source of client confusion, whether the document is built by hand or by tool.
• Check passenger names. They must match the passport, including middle names and suffixes, because the itinerary is often used for check-in and visa forms.

Step 3: Add the Rest of the Trip

Flights are rarely the whole story. Add what the client needs to actually travel, in the order they will encounter it:

• Hotel name, address, check-in and check-out dates, room type and the hotel's confirmation number
• Transfers and transport with pick-up times and a contact number that will be answered
• Visa or entry requirement notes, framed as "check with the relevant embassy or official government site" rather than as your advice
• Inclusions and exclusions in plain language
• The price, the deposit paid, the balance due and its due date
• Cancellation and change terms, summarised, with the full conditions attached or linked

Step 4: Apply Your Branding

Enter your agency name, logo, brand colour and contact details once so they carry through every page. Keep the identity quiet and consistent rather than decorative: logo and contact details in the header or footer, one accent colour for section headings, and generous white space. Our guide to branding client itineraries goes through the choices in more detail.

Step 5: Export and Actually Open the PDF

Download the file and read it as the client would, on a phone, not only on your desktop. Check that no table is cut off at a page break, that logo and colours rendered properly, and that names, dates and times match the GDS one last time. Give the file a sensible name such as Rahman_LHR-JED_12SEP_v1.pdf so it is findable in a client's downloads folder and so a later revision can be told apart.

What to Keep Out of a Client Itinerary

A PNR contains plenty of material that is meant for the agency. A client-ready document is not a transcript of it.

That last row deserves emphasis. If you convert a group or family PNR, make sure each document contains only the people who should see it. For multi-passenger bookings, our guide to batch and group conversion covers how to split them cleanly.

A Pre-Send Checklist

1. All segments confirmed (HK), and the document states if any are not
2. Dates, times and arrival-day changes match the GDS
3. Names match passports
4. Airline reference shown, labelled correctly
5. No fare internals, commission or internal remarks
6. Price, deposit and balance date correct
7. Your contact details present on every page
8. File named, dated and marked with a version

Awkward Bookings That Need a Human Eye

Most PNRs convert cleanly. A few patterns deserve a deliberate pass before the PDF leaves your desk.

• Codeshares. The ticketing airline and the operating airline differ. The client needs to know which airline to look for at the airport. Show "operated by" where the PNR carries it.
• Self-transfers and separate tickets. If two tickets are involved and the airline does not protect the connection, say so in plain words and show the minimum connection time you have allowed. Clients do not assume this unless told.
• Open-jaw and multi-city trips. A trip that arrives in one city and returns from another can read as an error if the layout implies a simple round trip. Label each leg with a heading ("Outbound to Jeddah", "Madinah to London") rather than a flat list.
• Surface sectors. A train or bus leg between airports will not appear as a flight segment. Add it manually, otherwise the client sees a gap and assumes something is missing.
• Tight connections. If a legal connection is under an hour, mention the check-in and transfer steps so the client is not surprised at transit.

A Short Illustration

Imagine an agent, Hamza, building a family Umrah itinerary for four travellers. The PNR looks fine, the flights convert, and the document is branded and ready. Before sending, he reads it against the GDS and spots two things: the outbound lands on the 13th while the hotel check-in he typed starts on the 12th, and the return transfer pick-up time sits only an hour before departure from Jeddah. Neither is a parsing problem; both are trip-design problems that no converter would catch. Fixing them takes five minutes. Missing them means an unhappy family at a hotel desk on arrival morning. The converter removes the transcription risk, but the checklist above is what protects the client.

Layout Principles That Keep the Document Readable

Put the most-needed information first: traveller names, dates, and the first flight. Use one row or card per segment with the same fields in the same order every time. Show times in 24-hour or 12-hour format consistently, matching what your clients use. Keep fonts large enough that a phone user does not have to zoom, and avoid pages that are mostly empty because a table was pushed to the next page. A visa office or HR department will also read the document, so avoid jokes or marketing copy in the body text.

When the Booking Changes After You Export

Airlines retime flights more often than clients expect. When that happens, update the PNR first, regenerate the affected sections, bump the version and date, and send it with a message that says in one line what changed. Do not leave the old PDF circulating unmarked. We cover this in sharing and updating client itineraries. If you keep the booking saved in My Bookings, the smart diff on re-conversion highlights what moved so you do not have to compare by eye.

Why Parsing and Building Work Best Together

A converter and a document tool used separately still leave one manual step in the middle: copying data from one to the other. That is exactly where an arrival date gets dropped. Putting the PNR parse directly into the builder removes the hand-off, leaving you only the review.