TRAVEL INFORMATION DEPARTURE DATE/DURATION GRID

• US 20070198306A1
• Filed: 02/15/2007
• Published: 08/23/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 02/17/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Crean, Hugh, Fridgen, Michael, Bartot, Jay
• Granted Patent: US 8,484,057 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/5
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/02 Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0629 for generating comparisons

Abstract

A method and system for presenting travel information in a way that facilitates identifying travel plans that satisfy objectives is provided. A travel information system collects travel information for the travel items on various observation dates including the current date and presents the travel information to a user in a way that facilitates travel planning and travel shopping. The travel information system stores the travel information in an observation store. To provide travel information that satisfies a search criterion, the travel information system retrieves the travel information that satisfies the search criterion either from flight information of the observation store or from current flight information provided in real time from a source of travel information. The flight information system provides the travel information in various formats to facilitate travel planning. These formats include a fare history graph, an interval grid, a route map, a future fare graph, and/or a departure date/duration grid.

Claims

1. A method in a computer system for presenting airline fare information, the method comprising:

receiving a search request having a search criterion that includes a departure location and at least one return location;

for each return location, identifying a fare for an airline flight with that return location that satisfies the search criterion for each of multiple departure dates and durations;

generating a departure date/duration grid from the identified fares that illustrates in cells of the grid fares of the airline flights that match the search criterion at various combinations of departure date and duration; and

sending the generated grid for presentation to a user.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the identified fare is the lowest fare for an airline flight that satisfies the search criterion for a departure date and duration combination.

3. The method of claim 1 including sending for presentation to the user along with the grid a list of airline flights that satisfy the search criterion.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the search criterion covers multiple trip durations.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the identifying of fares is performed on flight information previously collected.

6. The method of claim 5 including sending for presentation to the user an indication to search for current flight information for an airline flight that satisfies the search criterion.

7. The method of claim 1 including generating a legend indicating ranges of fares and a corresponding cell indicator for each range.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the cell indicator is a color.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein when a user selects a cell of the interval grid, presenting to the user only the search results for the airline flights within the corresponding departure interval and return interval that match the search criterion.

10. A computer-readable medium embedded with instructions for generating a presentation of airline fare information, by a method comprising:

receiving a search request having a search criterion that includes a departure location and at least one return location;

for each return location, identifying a fare for an airline flight with that return location that satisfies the search criterion for each of multiple departure dates and durations;

generating a graphics representation of the departure date/duration information from the identified fares that illustrates fares of the airline flights that match the search criterion at various combinations of departure date and duration; and

sending the generated graphics representation for presentation to a user.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 10 wherein the identified fare is the lowest fare for an airline flight that satisfies the search criterion for a departure date and duration combination.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 10 including sending for presentation to the user along with the graphics representation a list of airline flights that satisfy the search criterion.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 10 wherein the search criterion covers multiple trip durations.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 10 wherein the identifying of fares is performed on flight information previously collected.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 14 including sending for presentation to the user an indication to search for current flight information for an airline flight that satisfies the search criterion.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 10 including generating a legend indicating ranges of fares and a corresponding indicator for each range.

17. A method in a computing device for generating a presentation of airline fare information, the method comprising:

receiving from a user a search request having a search criterion that includes a departure location and at least one return location;

sending to a travel information system the search request;

receiving from the travel information system a departure date/duration grid generated by, for each return location, identifying a fare for an airline flight with that return location that satisfies the search criterion for each of multiple departure dates and durations and illustrating in cells of the grid fares of the airline flights that satisfy the search criterion at various combinations of departure date and duration; and

presenting the received grid to the user.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein the identified fare is the lowest fare for an airline flight that satisfies the search criterion for a departure date and duration combination.

19. The method of claim 17 including sending for presentation to the user along with the grid a list of airline flights that satisfy the search criterion.

20. The method of claim 17 wherein the search criterion covers multiple trip durations.