SYSTEM FOR AND METHOD OF PROVIDING SERVICES AT A MINIMAL PRICE
First Claim
1. A method of having a customer purchase a particular travel service, including the steps of:
- defining the particular travel service including certain criteria including price, date, time, class, service, originating site, destination site and service provider, providing a continuous circulation of travel services offered by various suppliers to meet the certain criteria defined by the customer, and comparing the certain services defined by the customer and the services offered by the suppliers in the continuous circulation of the travel service to provide a particular service meeting the certain criteria defined by the customer.
4 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A traveler provides parameters (e.g., origin, destination, price, date, departure time) for purchasing a ticket. The price may be below the established airline price. A calculation is provided of parameters (e.g., prices, dates, time) of flights of airlines traveling between the origin and the destination. A comparison is made between the parameters of the traveler and parameters of the airline flight. When the comparison matches or almost matches, the traveler is notified, and is given a specified time (e.g. 24-hours) to accept the flight The traveler may pay the airline'"'"'s established price. The traveler receives a coupon or voucher for the price reduction. The traveler redeems this coupon or voucher at an airline ticket office or at agencies identified by the airline.
-
Citations
29 Claims
-
1. A method of having a customer purchase a particular travel service, including the steps of:
-
defining the particular travel service including certain criteria including price, date, time, class, service, originating site, destination site and service provider, providing a continuous circulation of travel services offered by various suppliers to meet the certain criteria defined by the customer, and comparing the certain services defined by the customer and the services offered by the suppliers in the continuous circulation of the travel service to provide a particular service meeting the certain criteria defined by the customer. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
-
-
8. A method of having a customer purchase travel service, including the steps of:
-
obtaining from the customer a plurality of parameters defining the travel service determined by the customer, the parameters including particular ones of the date and the time and the acceptance of place of departure, time of arrival, place of arrival, number of stops between places of departure and places of arrival, airport of departure and airport of arrival, airlines acceptable to the customer and class of service;
providing a continuous circulation of flights offered by the airlines with parameters approximating the parameters determined by the customer;
providing a continuous and repetitive circulation of the parameters defining each of the circulating flights;
providing for a selection by the customer of one of the circulating flights having parameters meeting the parameters of the customer when the customer is able to make such a selection;
providing for a selection by an agent of the customer of one of the circulating flights having parameters meeting the parameters of the customer when the customer is unable to make such selection; and
providing the customer with a particular period of time to confirm the selection by the customer or the agent of the customer. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12)
-
-
13. A method of presenting a need of a customer for travel-related services and of presenting offers from suppliers for fulfilling such needs and providing acceptance of the travel-related services offered by one of the suppliers, including the steps of:
-
providing parameters defining the travel-related need of the customer, providing for a commitment from a selected one of the suppliers to reduce the price of the offer from the selected one of the suppliers when the price quotation by another one of the suppliers is less than the price quotation from the selected one of the suppliers, reducing the price quotation from the selected one of the suppliers in accordance with the commitment of the selected one of the suppliers when the price quotation from the other one of the suppliers is less than the price quotation from the selected one of the suppliers, providing from the customer the parameters that the customer would accept from the supplier(s) when the price quotation from the supplier(s) is not acceptable to the customer, circulating the parameters from the suppliers on a repetitive basis and comparing the parameters from the supplier with the parameters from the customer in the recirculating relationship of the parameters from the suppliers to obtain a match between the parameters from the customers and at least one of the suppliers. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
-
-
20. A method of providing travel-related services to a recipient, including the steps of:
-
determining from the recipient parameters defining a proposed travel-related service to be provided to the recipient, obtaining considerations through a wide area network from first competitors offering to perform the travel-related services in accordance with the parameters defined by the recipient, obtaining considerations through the internet from second competitors offering to perform the travel-related services in accordance with the parameters defined by the recipient, providing a recirculating display of the considerations offered by the first and second competitors for providing the travel-related services to the recipient, determining from the recirculating display whether a selected one of the travel-related competitors is at a disadvantage relative to other competitors in the consideration to be provided by the recipient for the travel-related services, and providing for a change in the consideration to be provided by the recipient to a selected one of the travel-related competitors to produce an advantage to the selected one of the travel-related competitors in performing the travel-related services to the recipient. - View Dependent Claims (21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29)
-
-
26. A method of presenting a need of a customer for travel-related services and of presenting offers from suppliers for fulfilling such needs and providing acceptance of the travel-related services offered by a selected one of the suppliers, including the steps of:
-
providing parameters defining the travel-related need of the customer, the parameters defined by the customer including a particular price, listing on a display screen from a number of different suppliers a plurality of travel-related recirculating offers fulfilling the travel-related need of the customer, providing for a commitment from a selected one of the suppliers in the recirculating offers to reduce the price of the offer from the selected one of the suppliers when the price quotation by another one of the suppliers is less than the price quotation from the selected one of the suppliers, and reducing the price quotation from the selected one of the suppliers in the recirculating offers in accordance with the commitment of the selected one of the suppliers when the price quotation from the selected one of the suppliers is greater than the price quotation defined by the customer.
-
Specification