Importance

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Abstract

A conditional purchase offer (CPO) management system is disclosed for receiving CPOs from one or more customers, such as cruise and airline passengers, and for evaluating the received CPOs against a number of CPO rules defined by a plurality of sellers, such as cruise operators and airlines, to determine whether any seller is willing to accept a given CPO. A CPO is a binding offer containing one or more conditions submitted by a customer for purchase of an item, such as airline travel, at a customer-defined price. A CPO rule is a set of restrictions defined by a given seller, such as a cruise operator or an airline, to define a combination of restrictions for which the seller is willing to accept a predefined price. The CPO rules may be securely stored by one or more servers. The CPO management system permits a seller to correct for forecasting errors, if necessary, or other competitive forces which have produced excess capacity, by providing inventory for sale to CPO customers. If a CPO is accepted by more than one seller, the CPO management system executes a post-sell multi-bind process to permit each accepting seller to directly market to the customer and post-sell their product. Thus, the customer selects for himself which seller acceptance to utilize, based on materials furnished by each seller. The CPO management system may optionally also provide a CPO which specifies preferred sellers to the excluded sellers who may make counteroffers to the customer, in an attempt to obtain the business, before one of the specified sellers accepts the CPO.

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First Claim