System and method for airline purchasing program management

• US 20030110062A1
• Filed: 07/02/2002
• Published: 06/12/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 07/02/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Liberty Peak Ventures, LLC (Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC)
• Original Assignee: American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. (American Express Company)
• Inventors: Mogler, Brian, Winterton, Andrew
• Granted Patent: US 7,856,359 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 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0206 Price or cost determination based on market factors

Abstract

A method and system for air carrier contract management and optimization is disclosed. In particular, a system is described that facilitates travel contract optimization by generating contract terms and conditions desirable for optimizing client expenditure. Once the contract terms and conditions are determined, a yield management system facilitates compliance with contract terms and conditions by generating and providing selling instructions to booking systems to facilitate compliance with contract terms by travelers. Booking activity is provided back to yield management system to update contract compliance system and to revise selling instructions accordingly.

Claims

1. A contract management method, comprising the steps of:

acquiring data from contracts and communicating said contract data to a yield management system;

generating selling instructions based on said contract data;

communicating said selling instructions to a booking system, wherein said booking system facilitates reservations in accordance with said selling instructions;

receiving reservation booking activity data from said booking system;

updating said yield, management system with said booking activity data;

comparing said booking activity data to said contract, data; and

revising said selling instructions based on said comparison.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said reservations are airline travel reservations.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of determining contract data to be used in said acquiring step.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said contract data are derived from terms and conditions of contracts between corporations and airlines and include the name of airline, target percentage, destination city and origination city.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of integrating said yield management system into a GDS system.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising the step of presenting selling instructions from the said yield management system in concurrence with the flight information obtained from the GDS system.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising the step of using filtering information from said yield management system to filter information received from the GDS system, wherein said filtered information presented on the booking system provides the preferred or mandated selection for a specified city pair.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said communicating step occurs over a wide area network.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein said booking activity comprises the number of seats reserved on a particular airline between a particular city pair.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of receiving airline information from a travel information provider.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the booking system facilitates online reservations.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the booking system facilitates automated telephone reservation.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the booking system facilitates in-person airline reservations.

14. A contract management system comprising:

a central host system configured to communicate with a booking system, said host system further comprising a database system and a server;

contract compliance software associated with said host system, wherein said contract compliance software is configured to acquire contract data, generate selling instructions in accordance with said contract data, accept booking activity data from a booking system, and revise said selling instructions in accordance with said booking activity data; and

a communication system associated with said host system configured to facilitate communication of said selling instructions from said host system to said booking system and communication of said booking activity data from said booking system to said host system.

15. The system of claim 14, further comprising a filtering tool for filtering data received from GDS.

16. The system of claim 14, further comprising a network to facilitate communication between the host system and the booking system.

17. The system of claim 14, further comprising a corporation communication channel for communicating with corporations to automatically receive contract data.

18. The system of claim 14, further comprising a travel contract database.

19. The system of claim 18, further comprising a corporation client database.

20. The system of claim 19, further comprising a airline database.

21. A contract optimization method comprising the steps of:

accepting client historical data;

receiving airline data from a travel information provider;

performing a capacity analysis to determine a corporation'"'"'s historical expenditures by airline compared with each airline'"'"'s revenue potential;

analyzing the amount of expenditures that can be covered by different airline combinations;

facilitating the choice of a particular city pair by user;

analyzing the price per segment paid for said city pair;

identifying the amount of expenditure flown on other airlines in said city pair;

performing a shift analysis to determine the maximum amount of revenue that can be shifted to a airline; and

deriving contract terms and conditions to optimize expenditure.

22. A contract optimization system comprising:

a computer server and database system further comprising;

a first module configured to facilitate a capacity analysis, wherein said capacity analysis is configured to provide a corporation'"'"'s historical expenditures by airline compared with each airline'"'"'s revenue potential;

a second module configured to facilitate a shift analysis, wherein said shift analysis determines the maximum amount of revenue that is capable of being shifted to a airline; and

a third module configured to facilitate a savings analysis, wherein, said savings analysis estimates the level of savings and overall effective discount of each supplier contract.

23. An airline contract management system comprising the steps of;

receiving a corporation'"'"'s historical travel data;

receiving airline data from a travel information provider;

performing a capacity analysis to determine historical expenditures by airline compared with each airline'"'"'s revenue potential;

analyzing the amount of expenditures that can be covered by different airline combinations;

facilitating the choice of a particular city pair by user;

analyzing the price per segment paid for said city pair;

identifying the amount of expenditure flown on other airlines in said city pair;

performing a shift analysis to determine the maximum amount of revenue that can be shifted between airlines;

evaluating contract terms and conditions to optimize expenditure;

assimilate said terms and conditions into a yield management system, wherein said management system generates selling instructions;

communicating said selling instructions to one or more booking systems to facilitate contract compliance;

receiving booking activity information from said booking system; and

revising selling instructions according to said booking activity.