The system searches in the consolidator's Faremate database and adds the subagent's markup and responds with a list of fares sorted by the best price. Only the fares that qualify all the fare rules are shown. We check for validity dates, validity days, blackout dates, minimum/maximum stay, etc. For example, if a fare does not meet the minimum stay requirement, the fare will be shown in red and indicate why the fare cannot be booked. The weekend surcharge, if applicable, is also shown. The objective is not to hide fares that do not match the rules; rather the goal is to prompt the user to access that special fare if they can make adjustments to the travel.

Once the passenger sees a fare they like, they can then check seat availability. At this point we log into the consolidator's CRS address and check for seat availability. If the seats are available, the user can choose from the various flight options available and enter passenger information. The passenger enters credit card and billing information on our secured site. A PNR is created and displayed on the screen. We place the PNR in the ticketing queue waiting for the PNR to be ticketed. By logging into the consolidator's CRS address, ConProbe establishes a clear distinction between the competition and Patheo. With ConProbe, the consolidator maintains the segment count from the CRS.

This feature of showing the price and seat availability separate is a unique feature to ConProbe. Since a majority of the passengers are price shopping at first, it is important that we separate the price quote from seat availability. If every time the seat availability is checked simply when the passenger wants a price, the interface with the CRS increases, thereby significantly increasing the hit-count. Since the consolidator has to pay per-hit fees to the CRS, it is important that we provide availability only when the user wants the availability, rather than on every price search, thereby keeping the hit-fees to a minimum.