Abstract: A method for handling large amounts of standard data contained in one or more databases conforming to a standard data model is described. When large amounts of standard data are needed to answer requests of end-users of a software application, the method assumes that a significantly reduced amount of metadata useable by the software application are first built out of the large amounts of standard data. The metadata are stored in an intermediate database of metadata and delivered to the software application through a metadata engine in lieu of the large amounts of standard data. The invention allows software application to consider much larger amounts of standard data to better answer end-user requests in an acceptable elapsed time.

Abstract: An online reservation system including a fare search engine is described. The system comprises a database of published fares, a database of rules attached to the published fares and a fare family solver to categorize the published fares into sets of predefined generic fare families on the basis of the rules attached to the published fares. The fare family solver further comprises a generic partitioning fare family database holding the attributes of each predefined generic fare family allowing to determine to which fare family the published fares belong to. The attributes of each predefined generic fare family are first set up by a fare family composer operated by an administrator of the system. The online reservation system of the invention allows returning to the end-users of online travel service providers travel solutions categorized in families of fares having various ranges of prices and levels of restrictions attached to.

Abstract: A central computer system for processing user travel requests including an outbound journey and an inbound journey, includes elements for calculating and returning information on travel products to user, including sale prices, the central computer system being accessible from at least one user terminal, and including: A travel solutions search engine that can access at least one travel segment database (FDB) and having elements for determining outbound segments and inbound segments that comply with input criteria; A fare search engine having elements to determine the fare associated with possible travel solutions; A travel products grouping engine that applies grouping criteria which include at least one fare equivalence criterion; Elements for extracting the outbound and inbound segments from each group of travel products; Elements for displaying information on at least one group of travel products on the user terminal, separating the outbound segments and inbound segments.

Abstract: A method and system for making roundtrip air flight reservations includes an end-user receiving a response having departure dates with a lowest cost outbound fare for each date and return dates with a lowest cost inbound fare for each date, outbound flight and inbound flight segments each priced with One Way Combinable fares, the One Way Combinable fares can be priced independently of all other One Way Combinable fares (i.e. restriction on covered segment, fare amount can be doubled to price the Round Trip) and can be combined together with any other One Way Combinable fare (i.e. no combinability restriction) in order to form a guaranteed pricing solution regarding IATA regulation both in domestic and international contexts for complex segments (i.e. based on non-direct flights).

Abstract: An online reservation system including a fare search engine is described. The system includes a database of published fares, a database of rules attached to the published fares and a fare family solver to categorize the published fares into sets of predefined generic fare families on the basis of the rules attached to the published fares. The fare family solver further includes a generic partitioning fare family database holding the attributes of each predefined generic fare family allowing to determine to which fare family the published fares belong to. The attributes of each predefined generic fare family are first set up by a fare family composer operated by an administrator of the system. The online reservation system allows returning to the end-users of online travel service providers travel solutions categorized in families of fares having various ranges of prices and levels of restrictions attached thereto.

Abstract: A global distribution system (GDS) organized for searching travel deals from a plurality of travel vendor fare databases (250) accessible by the GDS (200), includes: a travel multi-vendor search engine (TMVSE) operating on any database of the plurality of travel vendor fare databases; and a travel deal tracker (TDT) associated to the TMVSE (240), the TDT (270) providing directions to the TMVSE to limit the number of required transactions needed to obtain the searched travel deals.

Abstract: A method of building actual travel fares in a computer, from fare databases, is disclosed. A graph of nodes representing travel destinations is built which comprises edges connecting pairs of nodes. Each edge references a lowest travel fare. Also, a tree of fares is built for each graph edge. Trees comprise at least a root node holding the lowest travel fare of the corresponding graph edge. They possibly include more nodes comprising a context key and an associated travel fare. Trees are organized to have children nodes holding a travel fare equal to or larger than travel fare of a parent node. Thus, less expensive fare paths can efficiently be extracted since graph edges, included in the fare paths, reference the associated trees of fares and are gone through in ascending order of their lowest fare values. A learning entity is used to build and update the trees of fares.

Abstract: A method for handling large amounts of standard data contained in one or more databases conforming to a standard data model is described. When large amounts of standard data are needed to answer requests of end-users of a software application, the method assumes that a significantly reduced amount of metadata useable by the software application are first built out of the large amounts of standard data. The metadata are stored in an intermediate database of metadata and delivered to the software application through a metadata engine in lieu of the large amounts of standard data. The invention allows software application to consider much larger amounts of standard data to better answer end-user requests in an acceptable elapsed time.

Abstract: A central computer system for processing user travel requests including an outbound journey and an inbound journey, includes elements for calculating and returning information on travel products to user, including sale prices, the central computer system being accessible from at least one user terminal, and including: A travel solutions search engine that can access at least one travel segment database (FDB) and having elements for determining outbound segments and inbound segments that comply with input criteria; A fare search engine having elements to determine the fare associated with possible travel solutions; A travel products grouping engine that applies grouping criteria which include at least one fare equivalence criterion; Elements for extracting the outbound and inbound segments from each group of travel products; Elements for displaying information on at least one group of travel products on the user terminal, separating the outbound segments and inbound segments.

Abstract: A method and system for making roundtrip air flight reservations includes an end-user receiving a response having departure dates with a lowest cost outbound fare for each date and return dates with a lowest cost inbound fare for each date, outbound flight and inbound flight segments each priced with One Way Combinable fares, the One Way Combinable fares can be priced independently of all other One Way Combinable fares (i.e. restriction on covered segment, fare amount can be doubled to price the Round Trip) and can be combined together with any other One Way Combinable fare (i.e. no combinability restriction) in order to form a guaranteed pricing solution regarding IATA regulation both in domestic and international contexts for complex segments (i.e. based on non-direct flights).