Original matrix.itasoftware.com is now gone?
Dec 16, 2011, 2:59 pm
#91
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: YYZ
Programs: A3*G AC*nobody TK*nobody
Posts: 1,967
For non technical user, hipmunk.com seems to be a good alternative... (BTW, they also support some of the feature like SFO::UA UA UA etc...)
See http://milepoint.com/forums/threads/...support.21578/
Dec 16, 2011, 2:59 pm
#92
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Feb 1999
Location: Seat 1A, Juice pretty much everywhere, Mucci des Coins Exotiques
Posts: 34,339
You don't notice all the extra mousing around that is required? Count the clicks it takes to do ANYTHING and compare to the original.
I suppose if you're not a hacker / programmer / nerd type, you probably are used to using the mouse a lot anyway. Some of us are 10-20x more efficient in a UNIX environment where we can TYPE! If you're not, you wouldn't notice. i.e. we are NOT talking about connection speed here.
I suppose if you're not a hacker / programmer / nerd type, you probably are used to using the mouse a lot anyway. Some of us are 10-20x more efficient in a UNIX environment where we can TYPE! If you're not, you wouldn't notice. i.e. we are NOT talking about connection speed here.
And I am a very fast with the keyboard, keys or mouse clicks. If you are saying it is too slow because of keystrokes or mouse clicks, then you maybe need more practice with a PC. It doesn't take me anytime at all to run searches with Matrix 2. Perhaps it does take a few more actions to complete, but so what? It's only a few seconds here and there.
Dec 16, 2011, 4:23 pm
#93
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: DEN
Programs: UA Gold-MM, AA Gold-MM, F9-Silver, Hyatt Something, Marriott Gold, IHG Plat, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 6,393
Dec 16, 2011, 11:18 pm
#94
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: DFW
Programs: AS, BA, AA
Posts: 3,670
And I am a very fast with the keyboard, keys or mouse clicks. If you are saying it is too slow because of keystrokes or mouse clicks, then you maybe need more practice with a PC. It doesn't take me anytime at all to run searches with Matrix 2. Perhaps it does take a few more actions to complete, but so what? It's only a few seconds here and there.
The O'Hare Affair
Objective You want to meet a friend at O'Hare airport at noon and return home the same day. Given a date and an origin airport, find the pair of nonstop flights that gets you to Chicago and home again on that date, minimizing your total time away from home, subject to the constraint that you are at O'Hare at noon.
Details Your program, which must be written in Java, will work by scraping our http://matrix2.itasoftware.com website. Your program should accept two command-line inputs as follows:
java -jar OHareAffair.jar YYYY-MM-DD airportCode
The program should navigate to matrix2.itasoftware.com and pose a round-trip query between the given airportCode and O'Hare (ORD), limited to nonstop flights only, using BOS as the sales city, with appropriate date and time constraints. The program should then scan the resulting solution set for solutions that meet the objective specified above. No more than 15 http requests should be made of matrix2.itasoftware.com per invocation. Finally, details of the three shortest solutions (breaking ties arbitrarily) should be written out in human-readable form to the console.
Objective You want to meet a friend at O'Hare airport at noon and return home the same day. Given a date and an origin airport, find the pair of nonstop flights that gets you to Chicago and home again on that date, minimizing your total time away from home, subject to the constraint that you are at O'Hare at noon.
Details Your program, which must be written in Java, will work by scraping our http://matrix2.itasoftware.com website. Your program should accept two command-line inputs as follows:
java -jar OHareAffair.jar YYYY-MM-DD airportCode
The program should navigate to matrix2.itasoftware.com and pose a round-trip query between the given airportCode and O'Hare (ORD), limited to nonstop flights only, using BOS as the sales city, with appropriate date and time constraints. The program should then scan the resulting solution set for solutions that meet the objective specified above. No more than 15 http requests should be made of matrix2.itasoftware.com per invocation. Finally, details of the three shortest solutions (breaking ties arbitrarily) should be written out in human-readable form to the console.
Last edited by janetdoe; Dec 16, 2011 at 11:23 pm
Dec 17, 2011, 8:06 am
#95
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: London
Programs: Mucci. Nothing else matters.
Posts: 38,644
matrix1 worked in a fraction of those times, so this is a major adverse change.
The new interface also doesn't work properly with my IE. But using my other browser to print a set of fare rules to PDF now means generating a file that's between 1MB and 2MB in size when IE will print the same page to a PDF of about 50KB.
Very poor.
Dec 17, 2011, 8:28 am
#96
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Feb 1999
Location: Seat 1A, Juice pretty much everywhere, Mucci des Coins Exotiques
Posts: 34,339
Dec 17, 2011, 9:00 am
#97
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: London
Programs: Mucci. Nothing else matters.
Posts: 38,644
Not everyone's computer or internet connection is going to be top rate. I'd be the first person to admit that I don't like changing my IT equipment unless I have to. But my setup works really well for just about everything I do. Until last week, that included using ITA Software. The difference in performance is very marked.
Dec 17, 2011, 9:03 am
#98
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: DEN
Programs: UA Gold-MM, AA Gold-MM, F9-Silver, Hyatt Something, Marriott Gold, IHG Plat, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 6,393
Dec 20, 2011, 8:21 am
#99
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: ATL
Programs: UA 3.6 MM, Marriott Lifetime Plat
Posts: 2,582
Once Hipmunk adds search by fare, will never have to use ITA again. Looks like Hipmunk will actually pass us onto websites where we can actually book the tickets, unlike ITA.
To answer an earlier question, if ITA wants to bring back matrix1, i would pay up to $500 a year. It was invaluable and saved me money and time on the road. I found fares and routings on matrix1 that my travel agent could only dream of
To answer an earlier question, if ITA wants to bring back matrix1, i would pay up to $500 a year. It was invaluable and saved me money and time on the road. I found fares and routings on matrix1 that my travel agent could only dream of
Dec 20, 2011, 9:40 am
#100
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: SFO
Posts: 886
I simply don't get the vitriol directed at ITA/Google for their free product. They certainly do not need to offer it at all, and you certainly do not have to use it. And at the Chicago Seminars, they reiterated their intention to keep Matrix available for free to consumers, even in light of the Google takeover. They've made a decision to focus their resources on improving Matrix 2, and I have confidence that it will indeed be improved. I have been using Matrix 2 for over a year and have no major complaints whatsoever, nor have I have had a problem with the auto complete.
Maybe I'm biased for lack of ever having used Matrix 1, but we need to realize that things change. They aren't making money in any way from making Matrix available publicly; why give them a reason to get rid of it completely?
Now if I had one request for Matrix, it would be the ability to create a user account to recall searches made from other computers (and a search history much longer than 3).
Maybe I'm biased for lack of ever having used Matrix 1, but we need to realize that things change. They aren't making money in any way from making Matrix available publicly; why give them a reason to get rid of it completely?
Now if I had one request for Matrix, it would be the ability to create a user account to recall searches made from other computers (and a search history much longer than 3).
Dec 20, 2011, 10:40 am
#101
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: London
Programs: Mucci. Nothing else matters.
Posts: 38,644
I'm very conscious that this is a freebie that ITA does not need to offer.
But why, when things change, do they have to change for the worse? If you don't have any experience of using matrix1, you probably don't have any real feel for how much better it was: faster, easier, clearer.
That complaint isn't directed only at ITA. Look at Amadeus' checkmytrip.com - why did they have to roll out the new interface when classic.checkmytrip.com is also faster, easier and clearer? But at least one still has the option there.
But why, when things change, do they have to change for the worse? If you don't have any experience of using matrix1, you probably don't have any real feel for how much better it was: faster, easier, clearer.
That complaint isn't directed only at ITA. Look at Amadeus' checkmytrip.com - why did they have to roll out the new interface when classic.checkmytrip.com is also faster, easier and clearer? But at least one still has the option there.
Dec 20, 2011, 3:07 pm
#102
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: NYC
Posts: 9,122
It reminds me a bit of netflix rolling out its new service - not in the best interest of its most ardent fans. It is great that it is still free - but I won't be using it much anymore.
Last edited by erik123; Dec 20, 2011 at 3:13 pm
Dec 20, 2011, 9:24 pm
#103
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: RTW
Programs: MR Ag, LH FTL
Posts: 947
I assure you they've listened. The problem is that for every person who doesn't like the differences, there might be multiple people who do. They can't make everyone happy, and they might not be inclined to support multiple versions of a product that has become wildly popular and is still free unless they are permitted to monetize it in the optimal manner (they are prohibited from doing so).
If there are 2 ways to accomplish a task, you can't make a single customer happier by removing one of them!
Dec 21, 2011, 5:58 am
#104
Company Representative - ITA Software
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Cambridge, MA
Posts: 362
Sounds OK in theory, but doesn't apply in this situation. I doubt there is a person who would say "I really disliked the fact you could ctrl-click on the links and they would open in a new tab. It's much better now since they made it impossible".
If there are 2 ways to accomplish a task, you can't make a single customer happier by removing one of them!
If there are 2 ways to accomplish a task, you can't make a single customer happier by removing one of them!
Please report any problems that you see with it.
Dec 21, 2011, 11:03 am
#105
Join Date: Sep 2010
Posts: 2,233
-snip-
Most of all I hate javascriptization of links. In matrix1 I was able to ctrl-click on a price in the month view to open it in a new tab - without losing the month view. And then ctrl-click on a price in the day view to get the details on that itinerary in a new tab, again without losing list of other possible itineraries in that day. Then ctrl-click again on rate rules to open them in new tab.
-snip-
Most of all I hate javascriptization of links. In matrix1 I was able to ctrl-click on a price in the month view to open it in a new tab - without losing the month view. And then ctrl-click on a price in the day view to get the details on that itinerary in a new tab, again without losing list of other possible itineraries in that day. Then ctrl-click again on rate rules to open them in new tab.
-snip-
But it is not working for month view (bolded part above).
Is it just me? Thanks for all the help.