Discovering and reserving travel solutions

Abstract

A system and method to facilitate discovery and reservation of travel options suitably include routing processing, flight selection processing, and fare validation processing. Flight selection processing generates flight combinations for each routing discovered by the routing processing. Not all flight combinations are allowed to proceed thus permitting better flight combinations to emerge. Fare validation processing loads fares, checks availability, and validates them according to the specifics associated with each fare. A list of low cost travel solutions is returned to a travel consumer.

The embodiments of the invention in which an exclusive property or privilege is claimed are defined as follows: 
     
         1 . A computer-implemented method for a travel request, the method comprising:
 periodically calculating, by a processor node associated with a computer, potential routings and split points for later use in the creation of theoretical travel paths for potential travel itineraries;   obtaining, by a search node associated with the computer, a travel request having at least one origination and at least one destination;   creating, by a routing module associated with the search node, at least one theoretical travel path for a travel itinerary based on the travel request;   generating, by a travel module associated with the search node, travel combinations based on travel routings associated with each theoretical travel path; and   providing a list of valid travel itinerary options from the travel combinations in response to the travel request.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the creating includes using a combination of at least one travel template and at least one of the origination and the destination, the travel template including a travel origination field including either the origin or destination, split point placeholders, and types of pricing units. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the types of pricing units include at least one of One-Way (OW) templates, Round-Trip (RT) templates, Origination Open Jaw (OOJ) templates, Destination Open Jaw (DOJ) templates, Open Departure Open Jaw (ODOJ) templates, and circle trip (CT3, CT4) templates. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein each travel template provides the routing module with building information for theoretical travel paths from a routing database that includes suitable routings, fares, and split points. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising validating, by a fare validation module, each pre-calculated routing of a unique travel combination. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the validating includes checking, by the fare validation module, availability of each travel combination. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the generating includes correlating, by the routing module, the unique travel routings into at least one unique travel combination for each theoretical travel path. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising sorting, by the travel module, the travel combinations in accordance with travel parameters associated with the travel request. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein sorting includes selecting the most reliable travel combination. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein sorting includes selecting travel combinations matching traveler parameters of the traveler originating the travel request. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the periodically calculating includes obtaining pre-calculated fares associated with each pre-calculated routing and the determining includes selecting price travel routings based on the pre-calculated fares associated with each pre-calculated routing. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 calculating, by the routing module, a path price representing a minimum cost for each of the theoretical paths by combining costs of each of the travel routings in a respective travel combination, travel routing cost being based on the pre-calculated fares associated with each pre-calculated routing; and   obtaining, by a fares validation module associated with the computer, a set of valid fares associated with each travel routing in a respective travel combination and determining whether the calculated path price matches available seats for each respective travel combination.   
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 12 , wherein the calculated path price includes tax information from a tax database to calculate a more accurate total travel price using taxes assessed along the respective travel combination. 
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 12 , wherein the obtaining, by the fares validation module, includes validating a fare associated with a specific booking code for each travel routing in a respective travel combination and further comprises checking, by the fares validation module, seat availability of each fare and selecting only the cheapest valid fare with free seats in a respective travel combination. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 12 , wherein the calculated path price for each respective travel combination includes a total cost value, calculated in the travel module, that adds the path price to estimated extra costs, the estimated extra costs including lodging, transportation, and meal price estimates. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 15 , wherein the estimated extra costs are calculated in the travel module based on whether the respective travel combination includes overnight layovers, long layovers, or changes in airports within a designated city. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 12 , wherein the providing the list includes sorting the travel itinerary options by the relative valid calculated path price of each respective travel combination. 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein each split point has at least two connecting segments, an incoming segment and an outgoing segment. 
     
     
         19 . A non-transient computer-readable medium having tangibly stored thereon instructions that, when executed by a processor, perform the method of  claim 1 . 
     
     
         20 . A computing apparatus comprising a processor and a memory having stored thereon instructions that, when executed by the processor, perform the method of  claim 1 .