Patent ID: 7797187

Claim:
A price protection system for protecting an flight itinerary price, the system comprising: a memory storing computer-executable instructions of a component that receives predictions of likely directions of ticket prices for flight itineraries based on analysis of historical pricing information; a component that receives from a purchaser a request for ticket price information for a desired flight itinerary specification, the desired flight itinerary indicating characteristics of the desired flight; a component that, prior to the purchaser purchasing a ticket for the desired flight itinerary specification, offers to sell for a protection fee price protection for a protected price for the desired flight itinerary specification when the predictions indicate that the likely direction of a ticket price for a flight that matches the characteristics of the flight as indicated by the desired flight itinerary specification make it desirable to sell price protection; a component that, prior to the purchaser purchasing a ticket for the desired flight itinerary specification, sells the offered price protection to the purchaser for the protection fee; and a component that, after the purchaser purchases the offered price protection for the desired flight itinerary specification and subsequently purchases a ticket for the desired flight itinerary specification at a purchase price that is higher than the protected price, establishes a redemption price for the price protection and compensates the purchaser based on the protected price and the redemption price, the redemption price being based on a ticket price for the desired flight itinerary specification after the purchaser purchases the price protection and being identified independently of the purchase price, wherein the purchaser is compensated only when a ticket for the desired flight itinerary specification is purchased within a protection period, and wherein the protection period is variable based on risk associated with the price protection; and a processor for executing the computer-executable instructions stored in the memory.