Slightly tangential, but in fact all flight reservations through a travel agency are initially made without payment. The entire process is quite complex, due to compatibility with processes and systems that were built in the 70s... The flow is to create the booking (and hence receive a record locator or PNR), and then to attach a form of payment. If the payment matches the cost, it is then possible to request ticketing, at which point a ticket number will be generated, which is the "real" confirmation