Patent ID: 8902455

Claim:
A method for formatting travel data, comprising: receiving, at a travel station shared by a plurality of travel providers, instructions to transmit first travel object data and second travel object data to a hardware device, wherein the first travel object data is associated with a passenger request and has a first data format that is specific to a first travel provider of the plurality of travel providers, and the second travel object data is associated with the passenger request and has a second data format that is specific to a second travel provider of the plurality of travel providers, wherein the first and second travel providers cooperate to respectively provide first and second segments of a travel itinerary, and wherein the hardware device utilizes a third data format, the third data format being a common-use format that is specific to the hardware device; accessing the first and second travel object data respectively via a first travel object manager that is specific to the first travel provider and a second travel object manager that is specific to the second travel provider; identifying the first and second data formats respectively based on the first and second travel providers and the travel station at which the instructions are received; identifying the third data format utilized by the hardware device; accessing first travel object configuration data based on the first data format and the third data format; accessing second travel object configuration data based on the second data format and the third data format; converting the first and second data formats respectively of the first and second travel object data to the third data format according to the first and second travel object configuration data such that converted first and second travel object data can be processed by the hardware device, the converting comprising adding characters to and removing characters from the first and second travel object data; transmitting the first and second travel object data having the third data format and payment information associated with the passenger request to the hardware device; processing, at the hardware device, the converted first and second travel object data to respectively generate a first travel document associated with the first segment of the travel itinerary and having a first layout specific to the first travel provider and a second travel document associated with the second segment of the travel itinerary and having a second layout specific to the second travel provider; and providing, at the hardware device, the first and second travel documents.