Travel management system providing customized travel plan

• US 20050033616A1
• Filed: 08/03/2004
• Published: 02/10/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 08/05/2003
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Ezrez Software, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Ezrez Software, Inc.
• Inventors: Williams, Harold, Vavul, Heidi, Fitch, Christine, Vavul, John
• Application Number:
  US10/909,337
• Publication Number:
  US 20050033616A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/5
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/02 Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events

Abstract

A travel manager system and methods are disclosed for conducting parallel searches of travel information sources, screening search results against contract filters and optimizing travel itineraries according to client preferences.

Claims

1. A reservation system, comprising:

a channel module adapted to receive a reservation request from a user;

an availability module adapted to query a plurality of availability databases and apply packaging rules to filter query results; and

an integration module adapted to integrate filtered query results from the availability module into itinerary options for the user,

wherein the plurality of availability databases comprise an internal database, a distribution system database, and a service provider database.

2. The reservation system of claim 1, wherein the distribution system database comprises at least one of a Global Distribution System (GDS) database and an Alternate Distribution System (ADS) database.

3. The reservation system of claim 1, wherein the service provider database comprises at least one of an airline database, a hotel database, and a rental car database.

4. The reservation system of claim 1, further comprising a contract module adapted to set contracts for reservable services.

5. The reservation system of claim 1, further comprising a content module adapted to display the itinerary options according to a template.

6. The reservation system of claim 5, wherein the template is specific to a geographic location.

7. The reservation system of claim 6, wherein the itinerary options are filtered according to the geographic location of the template.

8. The reservation system of claim 5, wherein the template is specific to a property.

9. The reservation system of claim 8, wherein the itinerary options are filtered according to the property of the template.

10. The reservation system of claim 5, wherein the template is specific to an organization.

11. The reservation system of claim 1,

wherein the user comprises a subagent that resells services, and

wherein the reservation system further comprises a subagent manager module adapted to manage subagents that resell services.

12. The reservation system of claim 1, further comprising an accounting module adapted to receive payment from the user and to pass payment on to service providers.

13. The reservation system of claim 12, wherein the accounting module is further adapted to track and generate reports on service reservations.

14. A method of aggregating service requests involving a plurality of service providers, comprising:

querying the plurality of service providers to identify available inventory based on a service request;

applying inventory rules on the identified available inventory to filter query results;

applying itinerary rules on the filtered query results to create itinerary options;

receiving an itinerary selection selecting one of the itinerary options; and

transmitting a reservation request to each inventory owner corresponding to the itinerary selection.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the inventory rules comprise rules set by an inventory owner.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein the itinerary rules comprise rules set by a service requestor.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein querying the plurality of service providers comprises querying an internal database, a distribution system database, and a service provider database.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the service provider database comprises at least one of an airline database, a hotel database, and a rental car database.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the distribution system database comprises at least one of a Global Distribution System (GDS) database and an Alternate Distribution System (ADS) database.

20. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

displaying the itinerary options on the basis of a template.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the template comprises one of:

a geographic template, a property template, and an organization template.

22. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

receiving payment from a service requester; and

transmitting individual payment to each inventory owner corresponding to the itinerary selection.

23. The method of claim 14,

wherein the method further comprises automatically placing the itinerary options on an auction WebSite, and

wherein receiving an itinerary selection comprises receiving an itinerary selection from a bidder on the auction WebSite.

24. The method of claim 23, further comprising:

receiving payment from the bidder; and

transmitting individual payment to each inventory owner corresponding to the itinerary selection.