Expedia Group Rapid API by Expedia Group

# Fix list: Expedia Group Rapid API

From Anchor Terminal's listing at https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/expedia-rapid, the October 2026 research run, assessed 1 October 2026. Grade E, 42.8 out of 100.

This is everything the published grade says the listing lacks, the biggest possible gain to the total first. It comes from the reason given for each score, the checklist each category was scored against (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist), the provenance checks, the deductions, what we couldn't check and what the review panel asked for. A fix counts at the next check, once it's public.

For a coding agent working on Expedia Group Rapid API: work through the items below in the product, its docs and its public pages. Each category gives the reason for its score, with the points each checklist item earned, and the checklist itself, so the gap is the items that earned less than their points. Change the product, not the wording, and keep a note of what you changed and where it's published.

## 1. Reliability, 25 out of 100, up to 15 more on the total

Why it scored 25: No public status page for Rapid found, per the 30 September check (0). No incident history to read (5). The docs give no rate-limit numbers; Expedia says it watches for anomalous traffic and acts automatically (0). The OpenAPI document defines a 429 response carrying Rate-Limit-Minute, Rate-Limit-Day, their -Remaining and -Reset headers and a Rate-Limit-Reduction-Status header, but we found no backoff guidance (10 of 15). No SLA published; any SLA sits in the partner contract (0). Rapid v3 is generally available (10).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-reliability):

Hosted APIs, MCP servers, models and platforms.

- 20, a public status page with component history (Statuspage, Instatus, BetterStack or the vendor's own).
- 0 to 30, the incident record for the last 90 days on that page. 30 for a clean record or trivial incidents only, 20 for minor incidents only, 10 for one major outage (an hour or more of a core API down, or errors across the board), 0 for several. 5 when there's no history we could read, and the note says so.
- 15, rate limits documented with numbers.
- 15, documented 429 or overload handling (Retry-After, backoff guidance), and idempotency keys or safe-retry guidance where writes are involved.
- 10, an SLA published for any paid tier.
- 10, the surface agents use is generally available, not beta or preview.

Local packages, SDKs, frameworks and stdio MCP servers.

- 20, installs from an official package with supported runtimes stated.
- 25, a public CI and test suite, passing on the default branch.
- 0 to 25, open crash or regression issues relative to activity (25 for few and handled, 0 for many, old and unanswered).
- 15, semver discipline and breaking changes called out in a changelog.
- 15, version 1.0 or later, or declared stable.

Protocols are read from their reference implementations, the public facilitators or servers, spec stability and test vectors.

## 2. Payments & pricing, 10 out of 100, up to 11.3 more on the total

Why it scored 10: No x402, MPP or L402 (0). No published prices; the commercial model is in the partner contract (0). Test access is free and we found no card requirement, but it comes only after a partner application, so we give half (10 of 20). A person applies and passes a site review (0).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-payments):

The published rubric, also on the [x402 page](https://www.anchorterminal.com/x402/).

- 40, a machine payment protocol (x402, MPP or L402) on the tool's own endpoints. 10 to 30 when it covers only some endpoints or only goes through a third party, and the note says which.
- 20, per-call or per-unit pricing published without a login. 10 for public plan-only pricing, 0 for "contact sales" or prices behind a login.
- 20, a free tier or trial that doesn't need a card.
- 20, autonomous onboarding, meaning an agent can get access without a person signing up in a browser (keyless use, x402, a programmatic key API).

Payment platforms and agent wallets rarely charge for their own API over a machine protocol, so the first line has steps for them, and the highest one that applies counts. 40 when x402, MPP or L402 runs on all their own endpoints, 30 when it runs on part of their own API, 25 when their merchants can accept one, 20 for running a facilitator, 15 for paying as a buyer, and 0 when the only protocol is their own. Merchant acceptance sits above a facilitator because the platform's own customers can charge agents through it, while a facilitator settles for sellers who wire up the protocol themselves. The counter-argument (a facilitator does more for the protocol as a whole) has a point. Each note says which step applied.

Open-source software you run yourself is scored on its hosted or paid option if it has one. A free, self-hosted package with nothing to buy gets 20, 20 and 20 for the last three lines, and 0 to 40 for the first only if it ships a payment protocol.

## 3. Security & auth, 39 out of 100, up to 10.7 more on the total

Why it scored 39: API key plus shared secret, signed per request with SHA-512 over key, secret and timestamp, issued and revoked in the Partner Portal. No scopes found (20). Keys stay in a restricted development mode until Expedia's site review approves launch, and test.ean.com never books or charges (8 of 20). Responses include guest reviews and property descriptions written by third parties, with no injection guidance (5 of 15). No per-call log or audit view documented in the public docs (3 of 15). developers.expediagroup.com/.well-known/security.txt returned 404 on 30 September. We didn't check Expedia Group's wider disclosure programme or certifications (3 of 20).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-security):

- 0 to 30, the credential model. 30 for OAuth 2.1 with scopes, or scoped and revocable keys with rotation. 20 for plain revocable API keys. 10 for one all-powerful key. 10 off when a secret can travel in a URL query string as a documented option.
- 0 to 20, read-only or least-privilege modes, and confirmation or approval for destructive actions.
- 0 to 15, prompt-injection posture where the tool returns untrusted content (documented mitigations or guidance). A tool that returns no untrusted content gets 10.
- 0 to 15, audit logs or per-call visibility for the operator.
- 0 to 20, a security programme. security.txt or a disclosure policy, a bug bounty, SOC 2 or ISO 27001, advisories handled in public.

Models are read for retention, whether API data trains models (and whether that's off by default), zero-retention options and certifications. Frameworks for telemetry defaults, approval hooks, guardrails and sandboxing.

## 4. Maintenance & community, 25 out of 100, up to 6.6 more on the total

Why it scored 25: The newest changelog entry is May 2026 (merchandising shop link), over 120 days ago (10). No changelog entries in the last 90 days (0). Public changelog with entries in August, September and December 2025 and January and May 2026; support runs through a Rapid consultant under contract (8 of 15). The Java SDK's spec was last refreshed on 3 December 2025 and no other official SDK exists (5 of 15). The SDK repository has CI workflows and Dependabot, but nothing merged since December 2025 (2 of 10). We departed from the 25-point responsiveness line because this is a closed service, as the checklist allows.

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-maintenance):

- 0 to 30, time since the last release, or the last published model or API change for a closed service. 30 within 30 days, 20 within 90, 10 within 180, 0 older.
- 20, at least three releases or dated changelog entries in the last 90 days.
- 0 to 25, responsiveness. Issues and pull requests answered on GitHub (the open issues and how recent the replies are). For closed services, a public changelog and a support or community channel that answers, 0 to 15.
- 15, presence in the official MCP registry under a verified namespace (MCP servers), or current official SDKs (APIs and models).
- 10, package health, current dependencies and CI.

Models are read for deprecation notice periods and model churn rather than release counts.

## 5. Transparency & trust, 42 out of 100, up to 5.1 more on the total

Made of editorial 28, provenance 55.

Why it scored 42: Closed service. The Rapid terms are in the partner agreement, which isn't public; the SDK and spec are Apache-2.0 (5 of 30). The group privacy statement names Expedia, Inc. as principal controller; Rapid's own data handling sits in the contract (15 of 30). No deprecation policy or dated deprecation notices in the changelog (0). The group privacy statement discloses transfers in general terms, with no Rapid subprocessor list (8 of 20).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-transparency):

- 0 to 30, source availability and licence clarity. 30 for open source under an OSI licence, 15 for closed with clear terms, 0 for unclear terms.
- 0 to 30, data handling and retention statements that agree with each other (privacy policy, DPA, retention periods, subprocessors).
- 0 to 20, a deprecation policy or notices with dates.
- 0 to 20, telemetry disclosed with an opt-out (local software), or subprocessors and data locations disclosed (hosted).

The other half of Transparency and trust is the provenance score, computed from checked facts (below). The category score is the mean of the two.

Provenance checks not met in full (half of this category, computed from checked facts):

- Endpoint on the vendor's domain: api.ean.com is not on expediagroup.com (0 of 15)
- Terms of service: not found (0 of 10)
- Status page: not found (0 of 10)
- security.txt: not found (0 of 10)

## 6. Agent ergonomics, 69 out of 100, up to 5 more on the total

Why it scored 69: Content calls take `include` and filter parameters to cut the payload, and shop responses link straight to price check (18 of 25). Paging on content and region calls and filters on shop (18 of 20). Typed error responses and test headers to rehearse failures (18 of 20). Holdable rates and itinerary retrieval by `affiliate_reference_id`, but no idempotency key on booking that we found (10 of 20). Every call needs the signed `Authorization` header plus `Customer-Ip` and session headers, and Java is the only official SDK (5 of 15).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-ergonomics):

- 0 to 25, context cost. For MCP, the number and size of the tool definitions (25 for ten or fewer compact tools, 15 for 11 to 30, 5 for more than 30, plus up to 10 back for toolsets, dynamic loading or read-only subsets). For APIs, whether responses can be sized (field selection, limits, summaries).
- 20, pagination, filtering and output-size controls.
- 20, actionable, documented error responses, codes and messages an agent can recover from.
- 20, idempotency or safe retries, and for MCP the `readOnlyHint` and `destructiveHint` annotations.
- 15, sensible defaults, few required parameters, and official SDKs in at least two languages.

Models are read for tool use, structured output, prompt caching, context length, batch and SDKs. Frameworks for how much code and how many defaults a tool-calling agent with MCP needs.

## 7. Schema & documentation, 78 out of 100, up to 3.6 more on the total

Why it scored 78: An OpenAPI 3.0.1 document for Rapid v3 (26,180 lines, Apache-2.0) is public in Expedia Group's rapid-java-sdk repository. Its last update was 3 December 2025, so it predates the January and May 2026 changelog entries (20 of 25). No llms.txt or Markdown docs for agents, per the 30 September check (0). Each operation has a description, and the shop and price-check calls document a `Test` header that forces set responses (15 of 20). 59 enums, required fields and typed headers in the spec (13 of 15). Examples throughout the spec, error responses per status, and test headers to force `service_unavailable` and `unknown_internal_error` (15). Versioned v3 with a dated public changelog (15).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-schema):

APIs and MCP servers.

- 25, a machine-readable contract (a public OpenAPI file or similar; for MCP, typed JSON Schema inputs on every tool).
- 10, llms.txt or Markdown docs served for agents.
- 0 to 20, descriptions that say what a tool is for, when to use it and when not to, read from the tool definitions in the source or the API reference.
- 0 to 15, typed inputs with enums, constraints and required fields, and no free-form JSON blobs.
- 0 to 15, examples and documented error responses.
- 15, versioning and a public changelog.

Models are read from the API reference, the OpenAPI file, llms.txt, the structured-output and tool-use docs and the model cards. Frameworks from docs a model can follow, typed interfaces, examples and the API reference.

## What we couldn't check

What we couldn't read counted as absent. Publishing it on a page a plain HTTP fetch can read (not only in a browser) lets the next check count it.

- The listing said there was no OpenAPI download. The spec is public in the rapid-java-sdk repository, so we patched `openapi` and rewrote the weakness
- Whether the developer hub has a newer spec download than the December 2025 copy in the SDK repository
- unchecked: Expedia Group's vulnerability disclosure programme, bug bounty and certifications
- unchecked: whether Rapid has a partner-only status page
- Whether booking accepts an idempotency key; we found none in the spec

## Weaknesses

- Partner application and site review before production, no self-serve keys
- No published prices, rate-limit numbers, SLA or status page
- Signed `Authorization` header needs the shared secret and an accurate clock on every call
- Java is the only official SDK and its spec copy was last updated in December 2025
- No changelog entry since May 2026

## What costs an agent a turn today

The notes we give agents before they call it. Each one is a workaround an agent shouldn't need.

- Build the SHA-512 signature from key, secret and the current epoch seconds in that order, per request
- Send `Customer-Ip` and the session headers the docs ask for, since fraud checks use them
- Point everything at test.ean.com until the site review is through; the paths match api.ean.com
- Follow the `links` in each response rather than building URLs; price check and book links carry tokens
- Read the `Rate-Limit-Minute-Remaining` and `Rate-Limit-Day-Remaining` headers, since the docs publish no ceilings

## What the review panel asked for

- Self-serve test keys
- A stated review turnaround
- Publish an indicative rate card
- Publish rate-limit ceilings

## When it's done

Send what changed and where it's published as a dispute (https://www.anchorterminal.com/builders/#disputes, or `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/contact` with `"kind": "dispute"`). Disputes are answered in public, and the listing is checked again by the same checklist. Paying for an audit or a listing claim changes nothing here.