Patent ID: 7548870

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for interactively selecting tickets to seats on an airplane by an end user over a wide area network, the method comprising: transmitting information relating to a plurality of available individual seats on one or more airplanes to an application running on a general purpose computer on the wide area network for display to the end user, each of the one or more airplanes traveling a flight segment of a trip having one or more segments; providing a graphical user interface on the computer that comprises an interactive seating map representing information relating to available individual seats on each of the one or more airplanes from which the end user, selects one or more available individual seats, the graphical user interface providing additional current available seat information on the one or more available individual seats in response to a user interaction with the graphical user interface, the interaction being triggered when placing a mouse over at least a portion of the interactive seating man, wherein the mouse over causes the computer to display the additional current available seat information indicating seats that have not been previously taken; receiving from the end user a selection of one or more selected seats for each of the one or more airplanes, wherein the selection is based on a mouse click; and accepting over the wide area network from the end user payment information for the one or more selected seats.