SeattleFred

I have a friend at ITA who has kindly provided me with some info about extensions to the ITA "routing language" that are not documented on the ITA website.

First up: how to specify the booking code

The extensions to the routing language are accessed by postpending commands after a '/'. There's a wide set of commands available, but there's no description of them available on the ITA web site. Unfortunately, each command applies only to one part of the trip, so they must usually be entered in each box.

CONSTRAINING BOOKING CODES:

Command is: "f bc=X" or "f bc=X|bc=Y|..."
Ex: Limit each part of the trip to travel on United and booking in the
L booking-code:
from: BOS:: ua+ / f bc=l
to : LAX:: ua+ / f bc=l
Or with multiple booking-code choices and no airline restriction:
from: BOS::/ f bc=l|bc=m|bc=y
to : LAX::/ f bc=l|bc=m|bc=y

More to come…

dspringer28

Thanks, I was wondering if this could be done.

GoodKarmaGuy

Sweet. Thanks!

925

Why don't you ask your friend at ITA to add an option to display flight miles and cost per base mile. And then be able to sort the flights by either of those data items! It would make MRs SO MUCH FASTER to find!

SeattleFred

I've already asked him to add a same-day-roundtrip option to the month-long search feature. I've also asked him for a lowest-fare-to-anywhere search, with an option to specify the minimum distance. He replied that these were on the ITA to-do list, but he would not provide a timeframe for completion.

I willl pass on further requests, but let's first come up with a priority list.

As for your particular requests, you might be interested in CoMETS, the cross platform standalone database application that I've been developing. It's approaching beta release; for a preview, I've posted some screen shots. If you have feature requests for CoMETS, this would be a great time to let me know. Please also let me know if you'd be interested in beta testing CoMETS.
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CoMETS update (18 Feb 2005): CoMETS Beta 1 is now available for both Mac OS X (password: ftcomets) and for Windows (no password required). When I find a little time, I will post a short movie demonstrating CoMETS' functionality and ease of use. When I find a little more time, I will release Beta 2. FWIW, I've been using Beta 1 for several months on my PowerBook and it has been rock-solid.

UPDATE: The CoMETS Movie is finally here. Check it out to see how CoMETS will give you maximum info for minimum effort.

925

Is CoMETS a tracker of past itineraries?
Or evaluator of future itineraries?
Can you describe its purpose a bit better?

Feature request: Biggest plus would be able to cut an itinerary right out of several major websites (Expedia, Travelocity, AA.com, etc) and paste it into CoMETS, parsing it all out so the user doesn't have to do all of the parsing for the computer.

Sure, I'd play with a beta of CoMETS.

dtremit

One request for the ITA people, which I'd hope would be quick and easy: changing the settings to allow airport changes on only one of origin or destination. I'm often happy to change airports in my destination city, but if my car's at MHT, returning to PVD isn't a very good option (o:

As for Comets -- sign me up for the beta! It's great to see an app out there that's OS X compatible.

d.

SeattleFred

Yes to both. CoMETS will track past itineraries, keeping running totals of miles, EQM, BIS miles, segments, $ spent, and cost per mile/EQM/BIS. You will be able to see where you stand YTD, QTD, MTD, or LTD (lifetime) in the quest to reach your next status threshhold. Optionally, you can also track flight details such as seat, equipment, tail, captain, upgrade type, etc.

CoMETS will also feature an integrated mileage calculator (inspired by the lack of a Mac version of rmyadsk's excellent Flying Fish mileage calculator). The calculator will add bonus miles according to your status and will let you manually enter special bonus items.

925

I'm game! Bring it on! Mile Tracker and Flying Fish are the only apps keeping me off the Apple platform since the latest release of Office for Mac!

SFOTRAVELER

A valuable ITA Software enhancement that should be easy to add since the information is already present:

A column for total miles in the search results which is sortable!

denis in denver

What a great help. I have been using ITA and love it, but some of the enhancements that I have learned about on this board constantly improve the value of both ITA and this board.

I had been trying to book a rt on UA but I needed W fares to use a companion ticket. Before this I had to put in the request and then keeping jumping down fares until I thought I was in the W range. However, I would often get a mix of W and V fares or W and S fares. It was pretty sporadic.

This has just made my life easier.

Same thing for when I need to book an H fare for Int'l mileage upgrade.

Great! Thanks! ^ ^ ^

wck4

How do you get it to return business/first class fares on the month long search? / f bc=H will return CO coach fares, but I can't get bc=C or bc=J or bc=f or bc=Z to return any flights.

SeattleFred

Good question. It seems to work OK for specific dates, but not for weekend or month-long searches. I'll try to find out more.

SeattleFred

I am assured that this is not by design; I have reported it as a bug.

WindFlyer

Hi, SeattleFred. Thanks for your helpful contributions to FT. Please count me in for beta testing of CoMETS as well, Mac and/or Windoze...

Judging by the screenshots, it sets to replace my yearly spreadsheet for tracking my itns, miles, promos, etc...

Actually, I didn't see a feature for tracking promotions, but if that could be implemented, that would be great. If you'd like some ideas as to how to do that, please PM me and then I can e-mail to you how I've been doing it (which I think would integrate well).