Online fare booking method and system

摘要

An online model for booking a trip over at least one travel segment that comprises: (a) Receiving, from a client terminal, a fare search request specifying one or more fare criteria corresponding to a trip to be booked by a user; (b) Querying a fares database in accordance with at least one of the fare criteria to identify one or more qualifying fares; (c) Generating a qualifying fares display enabling a user to select from the qualifying fares a plurality of preferred fares for which booking availability will be checked; (d) Enabling the user to specify a number of passengers to make the trip to be booked and a user defined time period; (e) Defining an extended time period encompassing the user defined time period; (f) Generating a travel booking distribution system query based on the extended time period, the preferred fares, and the number of passengers; (g) Querying an online travel booking distribution system to determine whether a trip can be booked in accordance with the query; (h) Dynamically generating an availability display accessible by the user, including an indication of whether a trip over the at least one travel segment is available using each of the preferred fares for the number of passengers, within a displayed time period encompassing the user defined time period; and (i) Enabling a user to select one of the displayed trips for booking.