Abstract: Disclosed herein are methods and systems for transmitting hotel deal alerts. In one embodiment, a deal alert service receives a request to periodically receive hotel related deals satisfying a specific criteria, such as being from one or more geographic locations. Based on a frequency of the periodic basis, the deal alert service generates a list of hotel deals and sends it to the user during each frequency cycle. The deal alert service transmits the list of hotel deals using a specific transmission mechanism indicated by the user. Additionally, each list item of the list of hotel-deals includes a hyperlink to a primary source offering the hotel and the saving-deal. Upon selecting a list item of the list of hotel-deals, the user is transported to an entity associated with the primary source, through which the user is able to complete a transaction to book a hotel room and receive the posted saving-deal.

Abstract: A system and method for performing a distributed search in response to a user request. In response to a search request received from a user at a local server, a request is spawned and transmitted to a remote site to search information at the remote site. Substantially in parallel with the remote search request, a search of local resources (e.g., catalog of products/services) is initiated. At the remote site (e.g., an electronic marketplace), the search is conducted in the proper context for the user (e.g., user identity, language, organization) and the results are returned to the local server. The local server merges the local and remote search results, applies any desired business logic (e.g., to screen the results by price, description or other criteria) and provides a uniform display to the user.

Abstract: A method, apparatus and system for compiling and filtering user ratings of products is provided. In one embodiment, a method is provided. The method includes receiving a location selection from a user at a website. The method also includes accessing reviews of hotels having a physical location near the location selection of the user. The reviews of hotels are submitted by users of the website. The method further includes calculating rankings of hotels having a physical location near the location selection of the user based on the reviews. The method also includes displaying a list of hotels having a physical location near the location selection of the user on the website for the user.