Patent ID: 7853575

Claim:
A method for caching and utilizing airline flight availability data comprising the steps of receiving, by an electronic distribution computer, a first availability request from a first subscriber included within a subscriber family identified by a subscriber identification code; receiving flight availability data corresponding to the received first availability request from an airline server, wherein the received flight availability data is associated with a number of available seats; storing the received flight availability data in a cache database corresponding to the subscriber identification code for the subscriber family; configuring a minimum seat count for the flight availability data stored in the cache database, such that the associated number of available seats cannot be less than the configured minimum seat count in order to use the flight availability data stored in the cache database; receiving a second availability request from a second subscriber; accessing a control list to verify that the second subscriber can utilize the cache database; providing the flight availability data stored in the cache database to the verified second subscriber if the number of available seats associated with the flight availability data is not less that the configured minimum seat count; sending by the electronic distribution computer, a real-time availability request for flight availability data to the airline server if the number of available seats associated with the flight availability data is less than the configured minimum seat count; and sending the flight availability data corresponding to the sent real-time request from the airline server to the verified second subscriber.