Patent ID: 8484057

Claim:
A method in a computer system with a processor and a memory for presenting airline fare information, the method comprising: receiving by the computer system a search request having a search criterion that includes a departure location and at least one return location; identifying a plurality of departure dates for airline flights; identifying a plurality of durations, a duration representing length of a trip based on departure date and return date; for each return location, identifying by the computer system flight information that was collected before the search request was received a fare for an airline flight with the return location that satisfies the search criterion for each combination of an of identified departure date and identified duration; generating a legend indicating ranges of fares and a corresponding intensity level of a color for each range of fares; generating by the computer system a departure date/duration grid from the identified fares that illustrates, in each cell of the grid, a cell fare representing the airline flights that match the search criterion, each cell having an intensity level of the color for the range of fares that includes the cell fare for that cell, the departure date/duration grid representing various combinations of departure date and duration by having one axis representing departure date and another axis representing durations, the axis representing departure dates having labels identifying departure date and the axis representing durations having labels identifying durations; generating scroll arrows for departure date/duration grid that allows a user to scroll the departure date/duration grid to departure dates other than those departure dates that are currently represented by the departure date/duration grid; sending the computer system the generated grid, the generated legend, and the generated scroll arrows for presentation to the user wherein the user can select a cell of the generated grid obtain flight information about a trip with the departure date and the duration of the selected cell; and in response to receiving an indication of a selection of a cell by the user, sending for presentation to the user the flight information about the trip along with a link to allow the user to search for current flight information about the trip.