Internet Booking Engine

visualFares Internet Backend (IBE) - a fully integrated flight database backend service, which incorporates a user-friendly HitchHiker front-end or other front-end system and connects to all major Global Distribution Systems (GDS), ensures a customised solution that meets all the challenges of today‘s travel vendors.



The flight database can process various 3rd-party-formats together with bestbuy and flight tariff search functions. It also processes and interfaces with all major Global Distribution System (GDS) to manage TA Pooling, GDS-Caches and display of available fares only.

The display of mixed net /published fares and the independent platform make our IBE a high-end fare-data-server for the internet /call-centers or branch office sales.

Further information from the GDS can be added automatically to the Passenger Name Record (PNR), according to individual settings, e.g.: taxes or the corresponding Gross/ IATA fare. HitchHiker‘s visualFares Internet/Intranet offers a variety of network applications for various requirements and customers.
The following applications and features are available, which can be installed on a customer‘s web-server or on the Intranet:

- Best available net fare query as well as best available published fare query.
- Including calculation models to show different calculated fares per query.
- The maximum number of shown fares per database can be defined (max. 1024 databases simultaneously) .
- A list of excluded airlines can be set for each query.
- Validation of first booking date, last booking date, first ticketing date, last ticketing date, day of week allowance, advanced purchase, maximum booking days before departure, blackout dates and last return date as well as routing and validity information for all net fare database queries.
- Control function to show corporate fares to closed customer groups and single customers only.
- E-Ticket support
- GDS interfaces to Amadeus, Galileo, Sabre and Worldspan.
- Communication through structured data exchange.
- Tax determination with and without existing booking on the GDS.
- Determine tax forecast via a tax database.
- On-the-fly net fare database update.
- Automatic validation of fares following any flight or date changes.
- GDS booking functionality, which includes special service requests, other service information and remarks
- Ability to place any generated booking on a queue of same or different pseudo city code (office ID).
- Display of data for any defined date and time range.
- Displaying availability for each separately returned net fare.
- Returning of only available net fares and published fares.
Backoffice Interface in XML format.
Support of multiple currencies
Support for multiple shop fronts


Functions
- One-way/Return
- Net/Published fares
- Single and double Open-Jaws
- Mixed classes
- Stops and Side Trips
- Preferred Airlines
- Customer/Price groups
- Currency conversion
- Airport de/encoding
- Airline de/encoding
- Calculation models
- Historical Taxes
- Availability
- Cross check of fare rules and routings (e.g. flight no's, code shares)
- Booking
- Transparent GDS-access
- Customer Group Coding
- GDS-intelligent availability cache
- 24/7 architecture
- Load balancing
- Booking history
- Credit card support for published fares
- Amadeus Value pricer
- Galileo Super Best Buy
- Sabre Journey Record
- Worldspan Power Shopper


Benefits
- Central databases
- Independent of location
- No data distribution


HitchHiker Enhanced Feeder Search

The main function of the visualFares Internet Backend and also TeMyra is “HitchHiker Enhanced Feeder Search”.

Similar functionalities are also available from the GDS directly:

» Amadeus Masterpricer
» Sabre Journey Record
» Galileo SuperBB
» Worldspan Powershopper.

All these functions have in common, that they try to get the cheapest, available fares including taxes for a given O&D .

The HitchHiker Enhanced Feeder Search goes one step further. It also calls above CRS Super searches, but additionally it retrieves fares form the offline database and tries to get availabilities and taxes for those fares too. Advantage is, that the HtichHiker Super search uses algorithms to get availabilities (also constructed availabilities), that others don’t use.

To achieve this, the Internet Backend makes extensive usage of the routing information, that is stored in the local offline database for a given fare. The Internet Backend analyzes the routing information to determine the best way on how to perform availabilities, that have a high likelihood to succeed.


Further Feature Highlights of the Internet Backend:

• Support for multiple concurrently used offline databases that can also be queried in a mixed mode within one request, while prices are returned sorted by price.
  
  
• Support for Published Fares, Negotiated Fares and Corporate Fares on all 4 GDSs.
  
  
• Fare display and Fare quote support for both GDS based fares as well, as for fares, that are stored in the offline database.
  
  
• Availabilities either from CRS or Inventory Manager or mixed from both sources.
  
  
• Sophisticated Stops and Side trip Support for locally held offline database.
  
  
• Sophisticated and complex Tolerance Searches.
  
  
• Support for Single- and Double Open Jaws.
  
  
• Sophisticated PNR-Manipulation capabilities such as:
  
  - Add segment to PNR.
  - Cancel segment from PNR.
  - Add SSR to Passenger/Segment
  - Add OSI message to Passenger/Segment
  - etc.
  
  
• Retrieval of Published Fare Rules.
  
  
• Tax Retrieval capabilities either based on CRS functionality or based on estimation.
  Bookings, this being also waitlist bookings are supported.