Cheetah_SA

Have now spent most of the weekend playing around with this most intriguing tool and must congratulate ckpeter on a terrific contribution to the award searching arena. :-:

I am a very satisfied user of KVS but really appreciate how ANX removes the tedium of doing multiple single-day, single-source searches. So instead of sitting for hours one can enter multiple searches and let it get on with it. ^ (I'm amazed at how accurate the time estimate is most of the time and really love the progress indicators - it's always reassuring to know the system hasn't frozen in mid search.)

Thanks, ckpeter!

soy

Yep, I knew that ANA is limited in terms of finding 2+stop flights. I guess the point that I was trying to get across was that AC were showing 3 seats in C on the YYZ leg. I went to the ANA website to cross check and there were only 2 seats on the YYZ-SCL leg.
I did not ticket as I was only searching. I have sent you a PM with a link to my search - was unable to insert a screenshot.

I have tried again to recreate this and no longer can get seats on AC, so maybe it was a glitch that they have fixed.

However it still seems as if CO availability > ANA.
My ANX search for Jan 16 IAD-EZE, gives 3xC seats using CO but ANA has only 2

ckpeter

Your are foretelling one of the things I would like to implement, which is award availability differentials. However, that is low on the list now, given a host of other things I need to work on first.

Thanks for taking the time to make suggestion. Please accept an upgrade in membership from me. You should now be able to access the elite version of the search engine that allows you to search up to 4 seats at a time.

ckpeter

I tried doing a search, but all 3xC seats options available on CO require double connection, which ANA does not support (only 1-stop supported).

Also interesting to note that for IAD-EZE 1-stop, ANA defaults to search only for one route of IAD-GRU-EZE. No other airports, even IAH-EZE, are considered.

Update: I also look at the PM you sent me for IAD-SCL, but in that case, some of the 1-stop are using CM (Copa Airlines), which from my research seems not to be in Star Alliance, and will thus explain why ANA does not see them.

Summary: In case this gets confusing (it was to me), my current assessment of this is that this is a routing limitation, not visibility limitation. In other words, the same inventory should be available in ANA as in AC or CO, but you just need to do the right search (with the right connection airport) to pull them up from ANA. Contrast this with visibility limitation, where no amount of tweaks will show you the availability.

(except Copa Air/CM, which is not in Star Alliance and thus naturally not visible to ANA)

gsforfree

Including a direct flight option at the first screen would be helpful.

ckpeter

Do you mean having the option to search on the search form?

It will be semantically awkward, since not all airlines support specifying connection preference when you search. However, you can easily filter connecting flights by using the result filter on the calendar page.

If you mean something else, please do clarify.

gsforfree

That's exactly what I meant.

No worries on my side though, it's not a deal breaker at all.

global_b

ckpeter, this is a fantastic tool! I'm currently spec'ing out an award itinerary in January, and this is infinitely easier than searching day by day on the ANA site. Great job!

The one thing that I noticed was that in trying to build an around the world itinerary, ANA does not allow this to be booked online, so it returns an error on the last segment. Since we're not using your tool to book, perhaps there's a way to allow RTW itineraries to be searched for without hitting the ANA limitation? This is, of course, minor, but it would make looking for relatively simple RTW trips with a single search rather than multiple.

Thanks!
B

ckpeter

Welcome!

ANX searches each segment as an one-way separately, so you should not have any problem with ANA's multi-segment limitation.

global_b

Thanks!

And, of course, I can't seem to duplicate what I had done before to recreate the error message, but it does seem to be in my saved search if you'd like to take a look. I'll PM you the link.

Thanks again,
B

ckpeter

Thanks for the followup. I didn't realized you were actually referring to an error while using ANX.

I took a look. I think the problem is that you specified NYC in your search. ANA does not seem to support city code. Try entering JFK or EWR instead.

L4ibsch

I have an idea for a new feature: email alerts

How about being able to ask ANX to send me an email when an award on alliance X in class Y on date (range) Z becomes available? Would be nice to be able to restrict things like direct flights only, carrier, etc. ANX is getting that information from the searches of its users.

global_b

Aha! Ok, that seemed to be it. User error on my part - no surprises there!

Thanks!

MKE-MR

I saw another unexpected result today. Searching for YYZ-MUC availability on two specific days using NH/CO/AC and +1 day. For day 1, I get results for MUC-YYZ, but for day 2, I get results for YYZ-MUC.

Actually, the problem seems to lie with the AC engine. The results in the wrong direction are showing up through AC, whereas the results in the right direction are showing up through NH and CO.

levanta

That's a pretty good idea. May be even a little toolbar too.