Revnet’s Sept. 1 shutdown fuels concern: “Bookings will become unnecessarily complicated,” says advisor

Challenges are on the horizon for travel advisors and tour operators as Softvoyage prepares to sunset its popular booking platform by summer’s end. 

A notice distributed to the industry on July 15 confirmed that Revnet — a long-standing application that enables travel advisors to access and book travel packages, flights and hotels from multiple tour operators — will officially be decommissioned on Sept. 1, 2026, clearing the way for Tripbook, which has been in place for some time now (but has evolved significantly with new functionality in recent years). 

The news has been a long time coming. Word that Softvoyage was planning on retiring its user-friendly platform, which provides live inventory and pricing, including options for different durations and passenger combinations, first emerged last year.

Revnet provide travel advisors with access to inventory that can’t be booked in Sirev, a broader Softvoyage platform.

The bluescreen system, for example, supports bookings that include packages with connectors or multiple room categories, such as one room for adults and another for children. 

It also allows agents to see when commission is posted, which Sirev doesn’t offer.

Last year, in response to industry backlash, Softvoyage made the call to retain some features of Revnet – its "Reservation," "Add Payment," and "Cancellation" functionalities, for one – until the end of 2025.

But now, Revnet appears to be reaching the end of the road for good.

“Something many of us rely on”

Travel advisor Frances Gertsch of P.E.I-based Stewart Travel Group has long been a vocal advocate for keeping Revnet alive. 

“For years, I've relied on Revnet to work around the long-standing limitations of Sirev,” Gertsch told PAX.

She highlighted several of the platform's key advantages, including the ability to add connecting flights from regional airports to Canada's major hubs – a particularly valuable feature for advisors in Northern, Central and Atlantic Canada – search for alternative flight times and fare options, book multiple rooms with different occupancies and room categories, and access inventory unavailable through Sirev due to technical limitations.

“These capabilities benefit every tour operator,” said Gertsch. “The ability to book multiple rooms with different occupancies and room types online, rather than phoning in, is something many of us rely on every day.”

The impact, said Gertsch, will be “especially significant” for travel advisors who sell Air Canada Vacations (ACV).

ACV outlines the challenges

ACV is well aware of these concerns.

In a notice posted Thursday (July 23) to the tour operator’s “Inner Circle” Facebook group for travel advisors, the team said it has reviewed the situation to identify potential challenges agents may encounter during the transition to Sirev/TripBook.

While two of seven key areas appear to have confirmed solutions, several operational challenges remain unresolved and could affect how advisors shop, book and manage client reservations once the transition is complete.

Among the concerns are limited departure availability for certain tour products, the inability to book multiple room occupancies within a single reservation, no direct search function for Premium Economy or Business Class from the initial search screen, fewer flight options, and added complexity when booking from certain connector markets and cities.

“While these changes may affect some day-to-day workflows, our Contact Centre remains available to assist with booking scenarios and options that may no longer be readily available through self-service channels,” the tour operator wrote.

The team is concerned, however, that the loss of certain Revnet functionalities during peak booking periods could drive more advisors to contact support, resulting in longer wait times.

“While this is not the outcome we had hoped for, we felt it was important to communicate these changes well in advance so advisors can prepare accordingly,” ACV said.

The tour operator is encouraging travel advisors to review the changes, share their feedback with both the organization and their Softvoyage representative, and reach out to their ACV key account manager with any questions or concerns.

The team is also asking agencies to report how the transition may affect their day-to-day operations, saying advisor feedback will help strengthen its ongoing advocacy efforts as it continues to press for improvements and practical solutions.

At the same time, ACV acknowledged that Softvoyage has responded to industry feedback by introducing some enhancements.

Among them are a new booking retrieval widget and dedicated button in Sirev, allowing advisors to access current and historical bookings in place of Revnet's former Option #10, as well as expanded post-payment support for Air Canada Gift Cards and eligible B2B cheque payments.

“We remain hopeful that work will continue on the remaining areas to deliver more automated and efficient solutions for advisors,” ACV said. 

“Advisors will spend more time on hold”

Still, travel advisors like Gertsch can't shake the feeling that booking travel could become more complicated in the months and years ahead.

“Anything outside a very simple booking – such as multiple rooms, connector flights, alternate flight options, or destinations beyond Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica – will require a phone call to the Air Canada Vacations call centre, or an email to connectors@vacv.com, which means we'll be waiting for someone to call back with a quote,” said Gertsch.

Gertsch shared a screen shot with us to illustrate her point. Using Sirev, for ACV packages from Charlottetown, only Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica appear as options (even though other destinations could be available with connecting flights through hubs such as Toronto or Montreal).

Revnet also allows multiple-room bookings to remain on the same airline reservation.

But without it, “those rooms may be booked on separate airline records, increasing the risk that members of the same travel party could be separated during irregular operations,” said Gertsch.

“This change makes one of the industry's lowest-commission products significantly more labour-intensive to sell,” she said. “Advisors will spend more time on hold, clients will wait longer for quotes, and routine bookings will become unnecessarily complicated.”

Gertsch believes Softvoyage should ensure that Sirev provides advisors with the same functionality and access to all the tour operator inventory that exists today.

“We shouldn't be losing capabilities that have become essential to serving our clients efficiently,” she said. “Why remove a tool that helps advisors work better before there's an equivalent replacement?”

“Revnet has been my lifeline.”

PAX spoke to several travel advisors last year when Revnet’s retirement was first announced, and many voiced similar concerns about what the change could mean for their businesses.

Travel advisor Arlene Gibbons, who is based in Mount Pearl, Newfoundland, has worked in the travel industry since 1989 – “and using systems such as Revnet has been my lifeline,” she told PAX one year ago.

“It’s basically a DOS system, but once you learn it, it’s a great tool for everyday use,” she said.

In Gibbons’ case, the closest airport is St. John's International Airport, which means the majority of flights she books are connectors.

“Most often, when I use the Sirev web platform, the flights do not appear. Therefore, I go live to ‘blue screen Revnet’ to search and book. It’s 100 per cent live inventory, whereas Sirev is cache and you have to go to several screens for the true availability and pricing.”

She said she would “be lost without the Revnet system.”

Jill De Tonnancour, owner of Destiny Travel, is known as “the Revnet Queen” among her colleagues at The Travel Agent Next Door, where she has played a key role in training other advisors on how to use the platform.

She has been using Revnet since she started in the industry in 1995. 

“There are many things it can do that you can’t do in Sirev. You can add multiple rooms to a booking even if they have kids or different room categories. You can do your group payments in there quickly, and add remarks for hotels,” she told us previously. “I use it exclusively for booking all our major tour ops.”

She said that Sirev is often “not correct” and doesn’t have all the flight or room options.

“We will be wasting time calling in now for things that were simple in Revnet,” she said. “I am very disappointed to be losing it and this will add so much time to my day for quoting and booking.”

Tools are “evolving,” says Softvoyage

In its July 15 bulletin, Softvoyage said its booking tools are "evolving," highlighting that one key enhancement: that the "Option 10 Revnet" feature has now been fully integrated into Tripbook and activated for all tour operators.

The company is urging all travel agencies to centralize their operations onto a single, modern interface ahead of Revnet’s final decommissioning on Sept. 1.

Agencies can also now apply up to four credit cards when making a booking with supporting tour operators. (Revnet, however, allowed six credit cards).

“Because your daily life is evolving, we are committed to constantly advancing our technologies to always better support you,” the company said.

Langevin: Sirev will become "more efficient" 

In an email to PAX Friday morning (July 24), Dan Langevin, chief commercial officer at Softvoyage, called Revnet’s decommissioning “a difficult decision.”

“Due to the obsolete nature of this technology, maintaining high performance and meeting service level expectations has become increasingly challenging,” he wrote. “This maintenance limits our ability to focus on new developments.”

Langevin also noted that “very few bookings are currently made via Revnet.”

Furthermore, he said the most important functionalities have already been replaced and are available through Sirev and Tripbook.

“We will continue developing our web application to become more and more efficient in providing the trade with state -of-the-art tools,” he said.

Langevin’s message to the industry?

“We appreciate your patience and understanding as we upgrade our systems to serve you better,” he wrote. "Ultimately, Sirev will become more efficient, offering better and faster tools for the industry.”

Don't miss a single travel story: subscribe to PAX today!  Click here to follow PAX on Facebook.