KR20150067025A - Automated refund of travel document subsequent to involuntary exchange - Google Patents

Abstract

A method, an apparatus, and a program product automatically perform a refund operation for an involuntary exchange document. The refund operation utilizes monetary information from an original document from which the involuntary exchange document was generated in determining the refund amount. By doing so, the refund operation may be automated, thereby reducing the required expertise and/or training for an end user such as an agent, and further reducing the amount of time required to complete the refund operation.

Description

{AUTOMATED REFUND OF TRAVEL DOCUMENT SUBSEQUENT TO INVOLUNTARY EXCHANGE}

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] Embodiments of the invention relate generally to computer and computer software, and more particularly, to refunds in the travel industry using them.

Computer reservation systems are used in the travel industry to store, retrieve and conduct transactions related to air travel, rail travel, hotels, car rental, and other travel-related activities. An important component of such a system is related to ticketing, which is the process of issuing and managing tickets, and documents confirming traveler purchases for travel products such as flight seats of aircraft are issued by travel providers. For example, a document managed by an electronic ticket ticketing system used in air travel may include a paper ticket, an electronic ticket (e-ticket), and an electronic miscellaneous document (EMD) Services such as excess baggage fees, in-flight meals and services, and other services beyond the scope of the electronic ticket for flights between the origin and destination.

However, in some cases, a traveler may not be able to consume all the services associated with a document (e.g., a ticket or an EMD) so that many computer reservation systems support the ability to process refunds of all or part of the services associated with the document . In particular, the refund operation may cause the owner of the document to return the remaining value associated with any unused travel-related service associated with the document, and generally abandon the unused travel-related service (e.g., To be able to book refunded seats to other travelers).

However, refund processing has been a difficult and time-consuming operation, often for skilled travel or provider staff. Travel providers often apply a refund penalty and, in some cases, refunds can complicate calculating the appropriate amount to refund travelers who are affected by the tax. Travelers can use a large number of forms of payment to pay for tickets, which can complicate the way travelers return refunds. In many cases, refunds are governed by, for example, travel provider rules defined in Airline Tariff Publishing Company (ATPCO) Category 33.

Furthermore, some refund operations are more complex than others, making this process more difficult. As an example, some refunds are associated with involuntary exchanges in the traveler's itinerary. Involuntary exchanges can occur in response to, for example, weather conditions, mechanical issues, worker strikes, or other situations where a traveler must be rebooked with different flights or other means of transportation, Without additional charges to the traveler. In this situation, when a traveler is re-booked on a different flight, a new document is issued for the new flight. However, after re-booking, the data in the original document is no longer valid, so if the traveler wishes to request a refund (e. G., After a disruption has occurred, If you want to catch a plan), the refund process creates additional complexity. Also, given that involuntary exchanges often occur in the last minute and can affect a large number of travelers, travelers who wait for alternate arrangements after the interruption are long-lived, which makes the travel agent's staff particularly vulnerable .

Thus, there is a significant need in the art for refund operations for travel-related documents, and in particular travel-related documents associated with involuntary exchange.

The present invention, in one aspect, solves problems and other problems associated with the prior art by providing a method, apparatus, and program product that automatically performs a refund operation on an involuntary exchange document. The refund operation uses monetary information from the original document in which the involuntary exchange document was generated when determining the refund amount. By doing so, the refund operation can be automated, reducing the amount of expertise and / or training required of end users, such as employees, and further reducing the time period required to complete a refund operation.

Thus, in accordance with one aspect of the present invention, an automated refund of an involuntary exchange document may comprise the steps of determining whether the travel document is an involuntary exchange document, in response to a request to initiate a refund for the travel document, And automatically determining a refund amount of the involuntary exchange document based on the fund information that has been accessed in the original document.

These and other advantages and features which characterize the invention are set forth in the claims which form a part hereof and which form a further part of this specification. However, for a better understanding of the present invention and the advantages and objects attained through its use, reference is made to the accompanying drawings which illustrate embodiments of the invention and to the following description.

1 is a block diagram of a computer system configured to implement a refund service in accordance with the present invention.
2 is a block diagram of an exemplary implementation of a computer system capable of implementing the refund service referenced in FIG.
3 shows an exemplary refund record of a travel document;
Figures 4 and 5 illustrate exemplary original and involuntary exchange documents, respectively.
FIG. 6 is a flow chart illustrating an exemplary sequence of steps performed by the computer system referenced in FIG. 1 to perform an involuntary exchange refund operation in accordance with the present invention; FIG.
Figure 7 illustrates exemplary stop and involuntary exchange affecting only a portion of the remaining coupons of a travel document.
8 is a diagram illustrating exemplary interruptions and involuntary exchange affecting all of the remaining coupons of a travel document;

The embodiment according to the present invention provides an automated refund operation for an involuntary exchange document used to access the fund information of the original document from which the involuntary exchange document was generated to determine the refund amount of the refund operation. In some embodiments of the invention, the involuntary exchange refund operation is an " involuntary exchange document "resulting from an involuntary exchange of another document referred to herein as an" original document " When identified, can be performed. In some embodiments, the involuntary exchange document may include a flag or other identifier that indicates the status of the document, but in other embodiments other mechanisms may be used to identify the document as an involuntary exchange document. Thereafter, when a refund operation is initiated for this document, the state of the document may be identified indicating that the fund data in this document is not accurate and that it may be necessary to access the fund data from the original document.

Thus, in some embodiments of the present invention, the involuntary exchange refund operation may be performed by accessing an original document associated with an involuntary exchange document and using funds data (e.g., paid fees, taxes, etc.) from the original document Even when the refund operation is performed on the involuntary exchange document, for example, when accessing the pricing engine to calculate the refund amount, the money from the original document instead of the money data of the involuntary exchange document Data is used.

Further, in some embodiments, the refund operation performs a refund on the involuntary exchange document and the original document, thereby setting the coupon in both documents from an " open "state to a" refunded "state. Further, in some cases, if a large number of involuntary exchanges exist in the document chain, all coupons in the chain having an "open" state can be updated to a "refunded"

In some embodiments, for example, the involuntary exchange document may include a document identifier for the original document to enable a refund service or other function implementing the refund operation to identify the original document. It is understood that in some cases several documents are involved, so that refund operations may be required to perform refunds back through multiple document chains.

Other variations and modifications will be apparent to those skilled in the art.

Hardware and software environment

Referring now to the drawings in which like reference numerals refer to the same parts throughout the several views, FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary data processing system 10 capable of implementing a refund service in accordance with the present invention. The system 10 includes a central service implemented in a ticketing system 12 that interfaces with a number of additional travel-related computer services, e.g., the pricing engine 14, and implements the refund service 18 internally . While the pricing engine 14 basically provides the ability to calculate the refund amount for use in establishing a refund price, the FOP service 16 basically provides a number of different forms of payment for use in refunding customers' ≪ / RTI > The ticketing system 12 may be implemented as an electronic ticketing server (ETS) for use in manipulating an electronic ticket including, for example, electronic travel documents (EMD) associated with a secondary travel-related service . The refund service 18 is implemented within the ticketing system 12 and includes a refund service in accordance with one or more rules defined by the associated airline and accessed via a fare publication service such as Airline Tariff Publishing Company (ATPCO) Can be applied.

It is understood that systems 12, 14 and / or 18 may be combined in some implementations and implemented in the same or different computer systems. Furthermore, the systems 12, 14 and / or 18 may be operated and / or managed by a same or different entity, e.g., a third party that supports a travel provider or multiple travel providers.

The system 12 includes a plurality of different types of users, for example, a travel agent 22, a salesperson 24 acting for a travel provider, and a traveler 26 ). ≪ / RTI > A different user interface may be provided for different types of users and a traveler 26 may be provided with a simple web based interface that may require less knowledge than the expertise that may be assumed to the staff 22, It is understood that they can interact. However, in some embodiments, user access may be restricted to employees only, or, in some embodiments, to travelers only. The user can issue a refund request 28 to the ticket issuing system 12 via the user interface 20 and receive the response 30. [ The user interface 20 may be based on a graph or based on a web standard such as, for example, HTML, or other interface architecture, e.g., other client-server interface architectures known in the art. Additional management interfaces may be further supported in accordance with the present invention. Further, in some implementations, only the travel provider representative may be accessing the system 12 and not supporting the employee 22 access.

The system 12 may be implemented in a number of ways in accordance with the present invention. 2 illustrates an exemplary apparatus 50, for example, in which several steps from a refund operation can be implemented in a manner consistent with the present invention. For purposes of the present invention, the computer 50 may represent virtually any type of computer, computer system, or other programmable electronic device. Moreover, the computer 50 may be implemented using one or more networked computers, for example, in a cluster or other distributed computing system, or may be implemented using a single computer or other programmable electronic device such as a desktop computer, a laptop computer , A handheld computer, a cell phone, a set-top box, and the like.

The computer 50 generally includes a random access memory (RAM) device including a main storage of the computer 50 and any supplemental level of memory, e.g., cache memory, non-volatile or backup memory And a central processing unit 52 having at least one microprocessor connected to a memory 54, which may represent a memory (e.g., a programmable or flash memory), read-only memory, and the like. Further, the memory 54 may include any cache memory physically located in the computer 50, e.g., a processor in the CPU 52, and, for example, a mass storage device 56, Or any storage capacity used as a virtual memory stored in another computer connected to the computer 50. [ The computer 50 typically further receives a plurality of inputs and outputs for communicating information with the outside. To interface with a user or an operator, the computer 50 typically includes one or more user input devices (e.g., a keyboard, mouse, trackball, joystick, touch pad, and / , An LCD display panel, and / or a speaker). Alternatively, user input may be received via another computer or terminal.

For additional storage, the computer 50 may include one or more mass storage devices 56, e.g., a floppy or other removable disk drive, a hard disk drive, a direct access storage device (DASD), an optical drive A drive, a DVD drive, etc.), and / or a tape drive. Further, the computer 50 may include other computers and electronic devices, including, for example, (e.g., a wireless LAN, a WAN, and / or the Internet) One or more client computers 64 (e.g., for interfacing with employees 22, 24 and travelers 26) and one or more servers (e.g., implementing systems 14 and 18 and engine 20) 66). As is well known in the art, the computer 50 is generally understood to include a suitable analog and / or digital interface between the CPU 52 and each of the components 54, 56, 58 and 60. Other hardware environments may be considered within the context of the present invention.

The computer 50 operates under the control of the operating system 68 and executes or relies upon various computer software applications, programs, objects, modules, data structures, for example, refund services 70. Moreover, many applications, configurations, programs, objects, modules, etc. may be executed on one or more processors in another computer connected to the computer 50 via the network 62, for example in a distributed or client- So that the processing required to implement the functions of the computer program can be assigned to and processed by a plurality of computers via the network.

In general, the routines that are implemented to implement the embodiments of the invention, whether implemented as part of an operating system or as a particular application, configuration, program, object, module or sequence of instructions, or even a subset thereof, Quot; computer program code "or simply" program code ". The program code generally includes one or more instructions that reside in various memory and storage devices in a computer and which when read and executed by one or more processors in a computer may cause the computer to perform various aspects of the invention To perform the steps necessary to implement the step or element to be implemented. Moreover, although the present invention has been or may be described or illustrated in the context of a fully functional computer and computer system, those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that various embodiments of the invention may be distributed in various forms of program products , It will be appreciated that the present invention may be equally applicable regardless of the particular type of computer readable media used to actually perform the distribution.

Such a computer-readable medium may comprise a computer-readable storage medium and a communication medium. The computer-readable storage medium is non-volatile in nature and is volatile and non-volatile, implemented in any method or technology that stores information such as computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data, - may include removable media. The computer-readable storage medium may be any type of storage medium such as RAM, ROM, erasable programmable read only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read only memory (EEPROM), flash memory or other solid state memory technology, CD ROM, versatile disk, or any other optical storage medium, magnetic cassette, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage device, or any other medium that can be used to store the desired information and which can be accessed by the computer 50 . The communication medium may embody computer readable instructions, data structures, or other program modules. By way of example, and not limitation, communication media may include wired media, e.g., wired network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared and other wireless media. Any combination of the above may be included within the scope of computer readable media.

The various program codes described below may be identified based on the application implemented in a particular embodiment of the present invention. It is understood, however, that the term " any particular program thereafter " is used merely for convenience, and that the invention should not be limited to being used by any particular application identified and / or implied by the term. Furthermore, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made in the computer program (e.g., a program, a program, a program, a program, It is to be understood that the present invention is not limited to the specific configurations and program functions described herein, as the manner in which the functions can be assigned is generally never ending.

Those skilled in the art will recognize that the exemplary environments depicted in Figures 1 and 2 are not intended to limit the present invention. In fact, those skilled in the art will recognize that other alternative hardware and / or software environments may be used without departing from the scope of the present invention.

Refund after involuntary exchange

Refunds of travel documents or travel-related documents (eg, e-tickets, paper tickets or EMD) may be refunded to the legitimate owner of the document, along with giving up the corresponding travel-related services The remaining values are returned, so that the owner can not regain this service. In general, the result of the refund operation is to return the corresponding value back to the customer and flag the corresponding document as refunded, thereby making the document no longer available to the customer.

In the embodiments described below, a refund operation associated with air travel is described, whereby the travel provider can be an airline. However, the present invention may be used in conjunction with other types of travel providers, travel services, and forms of travel, including but not limited to trains, buses, hotels, cruises, I understand.

In one embodiment, the refund operation can be divided into two basic steps: initiating a refund and performing the refund. 3 shows an example of an example that may be presented to a user, such as a travel agent or a travel agent employee (e.g., an airline or gate employee), when performing refund operations on e-ticket documents, for example in this case Refund panel 100 is shown.

The panel 100 typically includes a header 102 that includes a travel agency employee sign, date, traveler name, date of issue, and document number. Furthermore, the upper portion 104 of the panel 100 may include a fare rule established by the travel provider, and a coupon status (e.g., based on whether the coupon is completely unused or partially used) (For example, fees, taxes, penalties, etc.) to be refunded. The lower portion 106 specifies one or more forms of payment (FOP) in which the refunded amount is re-credited to the customer.

The commencement of a refund operation generally includes a population of panel 100 that determines the amount to be refunded and the form of payment (FOP) to which the money is to be re-credited to the customer, and then updates the document (sales, coupon status, etc.) A refund operation, which is a reconciliation of reconciliation and a processing operation, accompanied by a bookmark update, a transfer of money, and the like are performed.

The planting of the upper portion 104 of the panel 100 may be performed in a number of different ways in some embodiments. For example, the planting material may be based solely on document data, which is used to pre-plant the field in the best effort mode. As a result, this does not include determining the calculation or penalty. Thus, in many cases, manual updates are expected from travel agents to update amounts and add penalties. Alternatively, a fare filing may be made in the pricing engine and combined with the document data to automatically plant the amount associated with the refund.

The planting of the lower portion 106 may be expected to be manually updated by an employee to apply a corresponding amount based on the FOP identified in the refunded document and matching the amount to be refunded.

Embodiments in accordance with the present invention automate refunds for travel documents or travel-related documents, e.g., e-tickets, paper tickets and EMDs when travel documents or travel-related documents are associated with involuntary changes or exchanges Can be used. In this regard, involuntary changes or exchanges may require re-bookings to be made on different flights or other means of transportation, generally accompanied by no cost to the customer or traveler, such as weather conditions, mechanical problems, worker strikes, It can be considered that there is any involuntary change in nature from the point of view of the customer or the traveler. In some embodiments, for example, involuntary change or exchange may be a specific case or scenario defined by a standards body such as the International Air Transport Association (IATA). One aspect of the involuntary exchange in many cases is that the travel-related documents issued after the involuntary exchange carry out any automated computation process (for example, according to the IATA Ticket Ticketing Handbook Recommendation for Involuntary Exchange) And may not include all of the charge or fund data that may be required.

Furthermore, involuntary exchanges often occur in connection with events that potentially affect a large number of travelers at the last minute, so that travel and / or travel provider employees may be subjected to considerable workload, while travelers may, for example, It can be understood that a long line can be waited for rescheduling the trip due to a large number of flight cancellations. Thus, preferably, any employee action associated with exchanging a previous document with a new document can be very fast and minimized, minimizing the impact on the traveler, so that embodiments according to the present invention use automation Thereby reducing the amount of time required to process the refund associated with this event. In many cases, involuntary exchanges can be associated with a higher number of refund requests proportionally, since travelers with involuntary exchanges may wish to establish alternative travel arrangements and accept refunds for original travel documents I understand.

Further, reducing or eliminating the need to automate refund operations after an involuntary exchange, e.g., manually updating, or performing an operation on a refund panel or record, may, in some embodiments, provide training to employees and other end users And / or reduce the amount of expertise and further reduce the likelihood of employee miscalculations that may lead to the need to perform an ADM (Agency Debit Memo), for example, if an airline's revenue accounting ) If the system detects that a refund has been misapplied, the system may issue an ADM and send it to the travel agency to penalize the travel agent. In fact, in some cases, the refund amount can be automatically calculated by the pricing engine, and as a result, this amount will not be received by the travel agent, for example, the ADM caused by incorrectly calculating the refund amount It can be thought that it is guaranteed to be.

Furthermore, in some cases, simplifying and automating the refund process will allow you to implement an online refund directly to the customer, without going through the staff.

In the case of involuntary exchange, as is apparent from the following scenarios, it causes a problem of automating the refund operation. In this scenario, the original document is considered to be a document, e. G., An e-ticket, processed by the customer or traveler prior to the reissue of the interrupted and involuntary exchange. The document to be refunded is the document resulting from the involuntary exchange and the document that the customer or traveler requested for the refund.

Referring back to FIG. 3, if a non-voluntary exchange, such as an original document or a voluntary exchange of documents, there is no involuntary exchange, the refund operation will (1) return the header 102 of the refund panel 100 to the Populating the data retrieved from the document; (2) calculating the amount to be refunded based on pricing the data extracted from the document to be refunded and populating the upper portion 104 of the refund panel 100 with the calculated amount; And (3) searching the FOP from selling the document to be refunded and filling the lower portion 106 of the refund panel 100 with the retrieved FOP. Calculating the amount to be refunded can be performed by extracting specific pricing data from the document to be refunded and accessing the pricing server to retrieve the toll rules used during the issuing process of the document to be refunded. So, for example, based on the ATPCO Cat33 / Cat16 fare rule, rates and taxes can be automatically calculated for partially flown documents, and cancellation penalties can be applied, if any.

However, in the case of a document associated with involuntary changes, at least some of the data in the document may be generally "false" to an original document other than an involuntary exchange document holding relevant funds data, The refund operation may not be completed. Since the customer or traveler is not charged as a result of the involuntary exchange, the fund data associated with the involuntary exchange document in particular may not match the actual fund data used when purchasing the original document. In fact, as described in more detail below, the presence of false data in an involuntary exchange document can simplify and accelerate the exchange process by design, thereby reducing the burden on the staff.

Generally, in this case, the employee is required to refund the involuntary exchange document with a manual refund processing, requiring the employee to manually calculate all amounts and penalties. Furthermore, an involuntary exchange document may not normally include an FOP at all, so an employee must manually add one or more FOPs to complete the refund operation. The entire operation can be complicated and subject to human errors, and can take a lot of time, especially when involuntary exchanges are associated with massive outages, where many travelers can wait for help.

In the above-described embodiment, documents resulting from an involuntary exchange can generally have false rates and tax information by configuration. In fact, in the case of an outage affecting air travel, the goal is usually to transfer customers from one flight to another, which means that employees can avoid computing and time-consuming behaviors. Thus, the recommendation generally requests all the toll and tax information to be copied into a document issued from the original document, whatever the content of this new document is, in terms of flight or other services.

However, for these types of documents, certain information may typically be omitted from or dependent on new documents. For example, the relevant funds amount may not exist, and the FOP may not exist in the new document. By way of example, FIG. 4 shows an example of an example of a coupon that includes two coupons, a first coupon associated with a flight from NCE (Nice Airport) to a CDG (Charles de Gaulle Airport), and a second coupon associated with a return flight from CDG to NCE The original document 110 is shown. Suppose that the first flight segment is stopped due to a strike and the traveler has been redirected from a new itinerary, namely from NCE to FRA (Frankfurt Airport) and from FRA to CDG. If an involuntary exchange has occurred and a new document is issued, the original document 110 will have a coupon associated with the segment from the NCE marked as "exchanged" to the CDG, and an "open" The coupon associated with the segment from the CDG to the NCE.

A new document referred to herein as an involuntary exchange document contains two coupons, a first coupon associated with a segment from the NCE to the FRA, and a second coupon associated with a segment from the FRA to the CDG. In general, the fund data associated with a new document is shown in FIG. 5 at 120, where the fee amount and charge calculation is that of the original document 110 (the charge calculation is preceded by "I-" for being involuntary) The tax is for the original document 110 (flagged as "O" for old), and the additional set is set to "0" because the customer was not charged for involuntary exchange. Because there is no cost associated with this change, a new FOP is not required to reissue the document, and a dedicated endorsement line can be associated with the pricing record ("INVOL REROUTE").

In order to process the discontinuity in the fund data in the new document, the embodiment according to the present invention retrieves the fund data from the original document in connection with performing the refund calculation. Furthermore, embodiments in accordance with the present invention update the status of the original document and the new (non-voluntary exchange) document to "refunded" in association with the refund action to ensure the status of all associated documents for the customer or traveler, And to keep it consistent with the outcome of the refund.

In this regard, accessible funding data or information may include fees or charges for each service associated with each EMO coupon, payments or payments made by the customer or traveler, the form of payment used to make the payment, currency, And the like. Alternatively, some or all of the fund data (e.g., paid fees, used fees, paid taxes, used taxes, penalties, etc.) may be determined by the pricing engine.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example of implementing an automated refund operation that may be implemented in the data processing system 10 of FIG. 1, including accessing the pricing engine 136 and generating an involuntary exchange document, And the interaction between the refund service 134 and the end user 132 associated with requesting a refund for a travel document associated with the exchange. The entire flow is based not in part on the data contained in the non-voluntary exchange document to be refunded, but rather on the fact that the non-volatile exchange document generally does not contain all the available information needed to perform the refund, And implements the refund amount based on the data included in the refund amount. Further, at the end of the process, both documents (original documents and involuntary exchange documents) are generally refunded, although only one document is required to be refunded by the employee. Furthermore, multiple checks are performed to ensure a consistent result.

In the illustrated embodiment, a number of preconditions exist for automated refunds. First, it is assumed that a refund occurs after an involuntary exchange affecting only a portion of the remaining open coupons in the document. The document resulting from the involuntary exchange may be based on, for example, a ticket issuing handbook (where the charge information is shown as taken from the original document, the tax is identified as "old & , Or a vendor-specific indicator such as "I-" at the start of billing. These documents can be priced manually or using automated, involuntary document exchange tools.

Two situations can exist in an involuntary exchange document. In the first situation, all remaining coupons may not be affected by the interruption, while in the second situation, all remaining coupons may be affected by the interruption. 7 and 8 show, for example, the former situation and the latter situation, respectively. In the partially influenced document of FIG. 7, coupon C1 has a status of "flipped" (ie, used), coupons C2 and C5 are in an "open" (ie, not yet used) , And coupons C3 and C4 have a "swapped out" status as a result of involuntary exchange with coupons C3 'and C4' of document 2. In the fully influenced document of Figure 8 coupons C1 and C2 have a "fly" status while coupons C3 and C4 are the result of involuntary exchange with coupons C3 'and C4' of document 2 Quot; switched "state.

The relevant funds amount and charge information is maintained in each document 1, while each document 2 is understood to include the amount of money and charge information that do not match the coupon identified therein. Furthermore, the refund operation according to the present invention relates to document 2 since the refund for document 1 only requires processing the "exchanged" status with each coupon "flying" .

In the illustrated embodiment, as a prerequisite for refund, each document 2 is refunded only if all coupons in document 1 are still open after being affected by the interruption (e.g., C5 in FIG. 7) . Furthermore, if there is a chain of involuntary exchanges (e.g., document 2 is exchanged involuntarily with document 3 (not shown)), the refund operation will return along the chain and obtain the relevant funds information from original document 1 can do.

 Referring now back to Figure 6, the refund operation is divided into two basic steps: initiating a refund (e.g., initiated via a request for refund information) and a refund confirmation phase (e.g., initiated via a refund confirmation request) , Where the latter is performed after the refund record is displayed on the end user (e.g., an employee or a customer). The refund initiating step, which begins at step 140, is initiated by the end user 132 via a request to the refund service 134 that identifies the document to be refunded (e.g., document 2 in Figures 7 and 8) .

For each different type of refund, the message may be sent to an electronic ticketing server (ETS) hosting the refunded document and to a ticketing database (step 142) that retrieves the document from the funds data. Next, at step 144, the refund service determines whether the document is involuntarily exchanged (IE) based on the presence of the FO line (e.g., "I- " And based on this detection, the fund data for the original document (document 1 in this case) can be retrieved from the ETS and ticket issuing database. Next, at step 146, a preliminary check is performed to determine if all of the coupons in the IE document have an unused state (i.e., "open" state) and if the original document coupon combination has an &Quot; swapped "state to " refunded " during processing of all coupons.

Next, at step 148, the document data of the original document is transmitted to the pricing engine 136 and the coupon has an "exchanged" status that is treated as having an "open" Thus, from the perspective of the pricing engine, the pricing engine attempts to calculate the refund amount as if the "exchanged" coupon is still an "open" coupon (step 150). The refund amount information is then returned to the refund service 134 (step 152) to fill the upper portion of the refund panel, including any refunded taxes and / or penalties.

Next, the lower portion of the refund panel may be filled with, for example, the FOP (s) belonging to the original document, and the refund service 134 may display the refund panel to the end user (step 158).

Once the refund panel is displayed on the end user, the end user can confirm the refund by sending a refund request to the refund service 134 to process the refund transaction (step 160). At this time, the states of the original document (if there is an available open coupon remaining) and the open coupon available for the IE document are updated and the refund transaction is inserted into the sales report database (step 162) Is completed. If any of the above steps fail, the refund process may be stopped and a rollback may be performed to return the coupon status to the previous state.

In the illustrated embodiment, as a result of the refund operation, the coupon in the IE document is updated to a "refunded" state, and the refund transaction associated with the IE document is generally a sale containing the refund amount and any refund FOP It is inserted into the report database. Further, an Amadeus Interface Record (AIR) message may be sent to the back office application and the document portion of the associated PNR (if present) may be updated to a "refunded" status. From the perspective of the original document, if any coupon still has an "open" status, these coupons are updated to a "refunded" status. Further, the refund transaction associated with the original document may be inserted into the sales report database and the associated amount may be set to zero (0). Further, as in the IE document, an AIR message may be sent to the back office application and the document portion of the associated PNR may be updated to a "refunded" state.

In addition, if there are a number of consecutive involuntary exchanges, for example N represents the last document exchanged involuntarily, and K represents the last document voluntarily issued, the refund service will prime the document K data Engine to process an NK zero refund transaction (if any).

Overall, the method described herein is characterized by:

1. A method for performing an automated refund for an involuntary exchange document,

Responsive to a request to initiate a refund for a travel document, determining whether the travel document is an involuntary exchange document using at least one processing unit;

The non-volatile exchange document accessing the fund information for the original document generated using the at least one processing unit; And

Automatically determining a refund amount for the involuntary exchange document based on the fund information accessed in the original document using the at least one processing unit.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising automatically updating the status of the at least one coupon associated with the involuntary exchange document to indicate that at least one coupon has been refunded.

3. The method of claim 1 or 2, further comprising automatically updating the status of the at least one coupon associated with the original document to indicate that the at least one coupon has been refunded.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the original document is associated with a first exchanged coupon and a second unused coupon, and wherein updating the status of the at least one coupon associated with the original document comprises: And updating the status of the second coupon to indicate that the second coupon has arrived.

5. The method according to any one of 2 to 4 above, further comprising inserting a refund transaction into a sales report database.

6. The method according to any one of 1 to 4, wherein automatically determining the refund amount comprises:

Accessing a pricing engine using the fund information accessed to the original document; And

And receiving the refund amount from the pricing engine, wherein the refund amount is calculated by the pricing engine based on the accessed money information.

7. The method of 6 above, wherein accessing the pricing engine comprises communicating the status of at least one coupon associated with the involuntary exchange document to the pricing engine, Wherein the amount of refund is calculated based at least in part on the state.

8. The method of 7, further comprising: determining a status for the at least one coupon associated with the involuntary exchange document based on a status of at least one coupon associated with the original document, Wherein the at least one coupon associated with the original document has an exchanged state and the determining of the status includes replacing the exchanged state of the at least one coupon associated with the original document in an open state upon accessing the pricing engine wherein the method comprises overriding the method.

9. The method of any one of claims 1 to 8, further comprising: planting a refund record for the involuntary exchange document, wherein the refund record includes a fee paid, a used fee, a refund rate, a tax paid, A tax, a non-refundable tax, a refundable tax, a penalty, a total refund amount, or a combination thereof.

10. The method according to any one of the above 1 to 9, wherein the refund amount is guaranteed.

11. The method according to any of the above 1 to 10, further comprising applying the determined refund amount to at least one payment type, briefly FOP, associated with the involuntary exchange document.

12. The method of 11, further comprising: determining the at least one FOP by accessing the original document.

13. The method of any of the above 1-12, wherein the involuntary exchange document is issued in response to an event selected from the group consisting of flight delays, flight cancellations, weather, strikes, war or terrorism.

14. The method according to any one of the preceding clauses, further comprising processing a refund for the involuntary exchange document and the original document in response to the request.

15. The method of any one of the above 1-14, wherein the request is a first refund information request, the method comprising: in response to a second refund confirmation request,

Updating the status of the original document and the status of the involuntary exchange document to a refunded status; And

Further comprising inserting at least one refund transaction into the sales report database.

16. An apparatus,

At least one processing unit; And

The program code comprising:

When executed by the at least one processing unit, responsive to a request to initiate a refund for a travel document,

Determining whether the travel document is an involuntary exchange document,

An operation of accessing the fund information of the original document in which the involuntary exchange document is generated, and

Automatically determining a refund amount for the involuntary exchange document based on the accessed money information for the original document

To perform an automated refund for the involuntary exchange document.

17. The apparatus of 16 above, wherein the program code is further configured to automatically update the status of the at least one coupon associated with the involuntary exchange document to indicate that at least one coupon has been refunded. .

18. The apparatus of claim 16 or 17, wherein the program code is further configured to automatically update the status of the at least one coupon associated with the original document to indicate that the at least one coupon has been refunded. .

19. The apparatus of any one of 16 to 18 above, wherein the program code includes: an operation of accessing a pricing engine using the fund information accessed to the original document; and an operation of receiving the refund amount from the pricing engine, And the refund amount is calculated by the pricing engine based on the accessed money information.

20. The apparatus of 19 above, wherein the program code is further programmed to: determine a status for at least one coupon associated with the involuntary exchange document based on a status of at least one coupon associated with the original document; Delivering a status of the at least one coupon associated with the document to the pricing engine, wherein the at least one coupon associated with the original document has an exchanged status, And to determine the state by replacing the exchanged state of the at least one coupon associated with the original document in an open state when accessing the formulating engine.

21. The apparatus of any of paragraphs 16-20, wherein the program code is further configured to apply the determined refund amount to at least one payment type, briefly FOP, associated with the involuntary exchange document.

22. The apparatus of any of paragraphs 16-21, wherein the program code is further configured to process the refund for the involuntary exchange document and the original document in response to the request.

23. The apparatus of any of paragraphs 16-22, wherein the request is a first refund information request, the program code further comprising, in response to a second refund compliance request,

Updating the status of the original document and the status of the involuntary exchange document to a refunded status; And

And insert at least one refund transaction into the sales report database.

24. As a program product,

Non-transient computer readable medium; And

And program code stored in the non-transient computer readable medium, the program code, when executed by the at least one processing unit, responsive to a request to initiate a refund for the travel document,

Determining whether the travel document is an involuntary exchange document,

An operation of accessing the fund information of the original document in which the involuntary exchange document is generated, and

Automatically determining a refund amount for the involuntary exchange document based on the fund information accessed to the original document

To perform an automated refund to said involuntary exchange document. ≪ RTI ID = 0.0 > 11. < / RTI >

It is understood that some of the features of the exemplary embodiments of the present invention may be used without corresponding use of other features. Further, various additional modifications can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. Therefore, the invention resides in the claims hereinafter appended.

Claims (15)

CLAIMS What is claimed is: 1. A method for performing an automated refund for an involuntary exchange document,
Responsive to a request to initiate a refund for a travel document, using at least one processing unit to determine whether the travel document is an involuntary exchange document;
Using the at least one processing unit to access funding information for the original document from which the involuntary exchange document was generated; And
And automatically determining a refund amount for the involuntary exchange document based on the fund information accessed in the original document using the at least one processing unit. The method according to claim 1,
Further comprising automatically updating the status of the at least one coupon associated with the involuntary exchange document to indicate that the at least one coupon has been refunded. The method according to claim 1,
Further comprising automatically updating the status of the at least one coupon associated with the original document to indicate that the at least one coupon has been refunded. The method of claim 3,
Wherein the original document is associated with a first exchanged coupon and a second unused coupon, and wherein updating the status of the at least one coupon associated with the original document further comprises updating the second coupon with the second coupon And updating the state of the first device. The method of claim 3,
Further comprising inserting a refund transaction into the sales report database. The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the step of automatically determining the refund amount comprises:
Accessing a pricing engine using the fund information accessed to the original document; And
And receiving the refund amount from the pricing engine, wherein the refund amount is calculated by the pricing engine based on the accessed money information. The method according to claim 6,
Wherein accessing the pricing engine comprises communicating the status of the at least one coupon associated with the involuntary exchange document to the pricing engine, wherein the pricing engine is configured to determine, based at least in part on the status, And calculating an amount of money. 8. The method of claim 7,
Further comprising determining a status for the at least one coupon associated with the involuntary exchange document based on a status of at least one coupon associated with the original document, wherein the at least one coupon associated with the original document is exchanged Wherein the step of determining the status comprises overriding the exchanged state of the at least one coupon associated with the original document when the pricing engine is accessed, Lt; / RTI > The method according to claim 1,
Further comprising populating a refund record for the involuntary exchange document, wherein the refund record includes at least one of a paid rate, a used rate, a refund rate, a tax paid, a used tax, a non-refundable tax, A refundable tax, a penalty, a total refund amount, or a combination thereof. The method according to claim 1,
Further comprising applying the determined refund amount to at least one payment type, referred to as FOP, associated with the involuntary exchange document. 11. The method of claim 10,
Further comprising determining the at least one FOP by accessing the original document. The method according to claim 1,
Further comprising processing the involuntary exchange document and the refund for the original document in response to the request. The method according to claim 1,
Wherein the request is a first refund information request, the method comprising: in response to a second refund compliance request,
Updating the status of the original document and the status of the involuntary exchange document to a refunded status; And
Inserting at least one refund transaction into the sales report database. As an apparatus,
At least one processing unit; And
Program code,
Wherein the program code, when executed by the at least one processing unit, is responsive to a request to initiate a refund for a travel document,
Determining whether the travel document is an involuntary exchange document,
An operation of accessing the fund information of the original document in which the involuntary exchange document is generated, and
And automatically perform a refund for the involuntary exchange document by performing an operation of automatically determining a refund amount for the involuntary exchange document based on the fund information accessed to the original document. . 17. A non-transient computer readable medium having stored thereon program code,
The program code, when executed by the at least one processing unit, responsive to a request to initiate a refund for a travel document,
Determining that the travel document is an involuntary exchange document,
An operation of accessing the fund information of the original document in which the involuntary exchange document is generated, and
And automatically perform a refund for the involuntary exchange document by performing an operation of automatically determining a refund amount for the involuntary exchange document based on the money information accessed in the original document. - Temporary computer readable medium.

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