Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Reservation – check-in – or booking display for reserved space
Reexamination Certificate
1999-03-05
2002-03-19
Trammell, James P. (Department: 2161)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Reservation, check-in, or booking display for reserved space
C705S080000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06360205
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to commercial information processing, and in particular, to an apparatus and method for obtaining and utilizing commercial information from communication networks.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Systems of various configurations are known for obtaining reservation information related to airline flights, lodging, transportation, and the like. Examples of ways to obtain this information include retail travel agencies, travel agency web sites and airline web sites. However, the current methods for obtaining reservation information have many disadvantages.
Conventional travel agencies obtain reservation information from computer terminals which interface to a central reservation system (CRS). By entering cryptic strings into a command line on the computer terminal, an agent can determine the available reservations and book a reservation for a customer. The CRS serves as a clearing house for reservations from many reservation providers. Examples of CRS services include Apollo™ and Sabre™.
Reservations providers maintain systems which communicate with the CRS. For example, an airline has a system which tracks the available seats and the seats that have been reserved. When additional seats become available, the airline system is updated first whereafter the CRS is updated so that travel agencies can reserve these seats for their customers using the updated information in the CRS. Conversely, the CRS notifies the airlines when reservations are made by customers so that they are not also made available to others. In this way, the airlines can effectively market reservations for their seats.
Operation of the travel agencies and CRS services are costly. Customers, in effect, pay the travel agencies for their services because the quoted price of the reservation is inflated by an 8-10% commission. The commission is paid to travel agencies from the profits of the reservation providers. Additionally, reservation providers pay the CRS for providing their service. A fee is paid to the CRS for including a provider's reservations in the system and for each leg of flight booked with that reservation provider. As can be appreciated the cost of the CRS to the airline is paid by the customer in the form or higher prices. So indirectly, compensation is paid to the travel agencies and the CRS by the customer.
The CRS stores reservation information from many, but not all, reservation providers. For example, most airlines provide reservation information to the CRS, but some low cost and smaller airlines do not, in order to reduce costs. Additionally, some reservation providers who participate in the CRS also market some reservations outside the CRS. These reservations may be distressed inventory and be subject to additional restrictions. Since these reservations do not have the additional cost of the CRS and travel agencies, they are typically sold at discounted rates. The reservations not available to the CRS are collectively referred to “web-only” fares. Accordingly, there is a need to provide customers and travel agents web-only reservation information which is not available from the CRS.
The travel agency method for booking a reservation with a CRS is inefficient. For a customer to make a reservation, it must be first communicated from the customer to the travel agency, next from the travel agency to the CRS and finally from the CRS to the reservation provider. Conversely, the accepted reservation must be passed first from the reservation provider to the CRS, next from CRS to the travel agency and finally from the travel agency to the customer. The information chain in which the reservation travels is inefficient and slow. Additionally, the CRS service and travel agency computers must be purchased and maintained for the system to operate properly.
The systems of reservation providers maintain the most current status of their reservations. As those skilled in the art can appreciate, it would be more efficient to only maintain the reservation in a single location. However, the reservation information is replicated in at least the multiple CRS services. To provide reservation information to the CRS, the reservation providers must create specialized software which interfaces their systems with the CRS services. It is desirable for reservation providers to only maintain reservation information on only one system in which all marketing methods may interface to determine the current status of reservations.
With the advent of global computer networks (e.g., the Internet), some travel agencies have replaced the travel agents with web sites. The web sites allow the customer to make queries to the CRS without knowing any of the complex commands previously required. By eliminating the complex interface to the CRS, customers are able to obtain reservations without the assistance of a travel agent. These sites communicate with the CRS which communicates with the reservation providers, in the conventional manner, to book a reservation.
Reservation providers, such as airlines, have also taken advantage of the Internet to market their reservations. A customer can directly book a flight with a reservation provider and avoid the travel agencies and possibly the CRS. The direct booking systems of the reservation providers may or may not be interfaced to the CRS services. Preferably, the reservation providers do not book direct sales through a CRS such that the associated fees are avoided. Further, reservation providers prefer direct sales because reservations are typically not discounted even though the travel agent commission and any CRS fees may be avoided. These savings bolster the profit of the reservation providers.
Customers are typically at a price disadvantage when booking a reservation directly from a reservation provider. With direct sales, it is difficult to determine the cheapest fare because it is difficult to aggregate the fares. To compare prices, the customer must visit many reservation providers and correlate the results themselves in order to determine the best price. This process of comparing prices is time consuming because the web sites for each reservation provider presents their content in an inconsistent way. The CRS is useful in this circumstance because it allows sorting results from many reservation providers based upon predetermined criteria, such as price. Additionally, utilizing a travel agency to book reservations is typically no more costly to the customer than booking directly from the reservation provider. Accordingly, customers see little advantage to using the web sites of reservation providers (or other direct marketing methods) to book reservations from the CRS. However, it is noted once again, web-only fares are not available through the CRS.
As mentioned above, fares not available through CRS services are provided to customers directly. These web-only fares are available by accessing a reservation provider's web site and are not generally included as part of the CRS. For example, each of the major airlines have recently begun offering web-only fares on their web sites. Additionally, consolidators and other providers of discounted reservations have web sites that offer web-only fares. These web-only fares are typically distressed inventory with additional restrictions. Obtaining these fares is inconvenient to the customer since she has to visit a number of these sites in succession to compare prices (or other criteria) before booking. Comparisons made in this way are time and labor intensive.
Others have recognized the need to compare products or services on the Internet. However, these systems do not address the unique particularities of obtaining and booking reservation information and similar services.
In summary, it appears desirable to develop a system which: (1) decreases the transaction costs and eliminates steps associated with booking a reservation, (2) provides reservation information not available to the CRS, (3) reduces the burden on reservation providers associated with marketing their reservations, and (4)
Heithoff Russel W.
Iyengar Maya L.
Reid Aaron J.
Toffa Antoine K.
Elisca Pierre E
Sheridan & Ross P.C.
Trammell James P.
Trip.com, Inc.
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