jasonvr

***********2/21/2016 - First Version For the New Site Available********


I've developed a GreaseMonkey script to simplify the process of searching for a one way award on united.com. The script adds four floating buttons to the upper right of the award search page. Two buttons allow you to move forward and back one day easily. The third and fourth buttons allow you to easily scroll up and down the page to see the available options. This allows you to quickly move thru a range of dates on a given route (useful for award searches where date isn't important and you just want to get to a location).

You can filter out specific classes of awards as well (i.e. only show the classes you are interested).

Absolutely no warranty on this, but it appears perfectly stable (subject to United changing their code of course). I've tested it in Chrome and Firefox successfully.

Any feedback is appreciated.

In order to use the options dialog, click the Options button. On the window that appears, change the options you would like. Hitting save will preserve the settings and automatically refresh the page to apply the new options.

You Can Find The Script Here
https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/17...a-award-search

Installation Instructions

• Firefox
  • Install the GreaseMonkey add-on from within Firefox
  • Visit the script location link above
  • Install using the green "Install this script" button in the upper left corner
• Chrome
  • Install the TamperMonkey extension from the Chrome store
  • Visit the script location link above
  • Install using the green "Install this script" button in the upper left corner
  • A TamperMonkey page will appear with the script details and source code. Click the Install button

Easy Access to United's One Way Search Page
http://www.united.com/web/en-US/apps...chOW.aspx?CS=N

Important bug reporting instructions
If you are reporting a bug, please make sure to include a representative search so that I can try to replicate it. The important pieces of information should be:

• Browser being used
• Origin
• Destination
• Number of passengers
• Date

Current Known Bugs (as of v1.0)

• Scrolling past the calendar may not work correctly if class sorting isn't enabled - possibly fixed in v2.2

Version History
1.0 - 2/21/2016

• First release for the new United site. Adds the navigation buttons, allows class filtering, scrolling past the calendar, and initial class sorting.

1.1 - 2/26/2016

• Fixed a bug where first class sorting was selected but no 3 class flights exist which caused script to exit prematurely

2.0 - 3/5/2016

• Filtering standard awards also works for economy awards now.
• If, after filtering, there are no awards left in a row, the row will be removed

2.1 - 3/5/2016

• Adds in details on flights, carriers, and routing without having to expand the details tab

2.2 - 5/10/2016

• Fixed a bug due to United's inconsistent column naming. Occasionally the business class column would be labeled as "first" which caused sorting and filtering to fail

2.3 - 5/10/2016

• Fixed bug where columns weren't deleted in details when award types were filtered

<************Information below here is for the original script for the old UA site*************>
I've developed a GreaseMonkey script to simplify the process of searching for a one way award on united.com. The script adds four floating buttons to the upper right of the award search page. Two buttons allow you to move forward and back one day easily. The third and fourth buttons allow you to easily scroll up and down the page to see the available options. This allows you to quickly move thru a range of dates on a given route (useful for award searches where date isn't important and you just want to get to a location).

As of version 3.0 you can filter out specific classes of awards as well (i.e. only show the classes you are interested).

Absolutely no warranty on this, but it appears perfectly stable (subject to United changing their code of course). I've tested it in Chrome, Firefox, and Safari+Ninjakit successfully.

Any feedback is appreciated. This is only about my third GreaseMonkey script, so I can't guarantee bug free operation (although I am a software engineer).

In order to use the options dialog, click the Options button. On the window that appears, change the options you would like. Hitting save will preserve the settings and automatically refresh the page to apply the new options.

You Can Find The Script Here
http://userscripts-mirror.org/scripts/show/131534

Installation Instructions

• Firefox
  • Install the GreaseMonkey add-on from within Firefox
  • Visit the script location link above
  • Install using the green "Install" button in the upper right corner (it says "How do I use this?" below it). Anything else may be a banner ad that will install who knows what.
• Chrome
  • Install the TamperMonkey extension from the Chrome store
  • Visit the script location link above
  • Install using the green "Install" button in the upper right corner (it says "How do I use this?" below it). Anything else may be a banner ad that will install who knows what.
  • A TamperMonkey page will appear with the script details and source code. Click the Install button

Easy Access to United's One Way Search Page
http://www.united.com/web/en-US/apps...chOW.aspx?CS=N

Important bug reporting instructions
If you are reporting a bug, please make sure to include a representative search so that I can try to replicate it. The important pieces of information should be:

• Browser being used
• Origin
• Destination
• Number of passengers
• Date

Version History
1.0 - 4/21/2012

• Only adds the three buttons to a one way award search

2.0 - 4/24/2012

• Adds in a scroll up button
• Filters out all search result rows that only contain standard awards

2.1 - 4/24/2012

• Expands mixed itinerary information instead of it being a popup
• Color codes mixed cabin info as green if it is because a class doesn't exist on a plane (1 or 2 cabin plane)
• Color codes mixed cabin info as yellow if it is because the higher class is sold out
• Removed the three columns for standard awards leaving only saver awards

2.2 - 4/24/2012

• FIXED BUG - Display was not correct when no three class flight options were available
• Added in config options dialog with the help of GM_config
• Minor code cleanup to prevent uncaught exceptions

2.3 - 4/26/2012

• Made United text about not being able to find any awards larger and red
• Added a large warning that all results had been filtered out because only standard awards were found

2.4 - 4/27/2012

• Added support for Safari+Ninjakit
• Made the warnings for filtering all results and no results less obnoxious
• Revamped the formatting of the options dialog
• Hitting save on the options dialog will now automatically reload the page and thus apply the new settings

2.5 - 5/7/2012

• Updated mixed cabin highlighting due to UA not always being explicit about the reasons for the mixed cabin

2.6 - 5/9/2012

• FIXED BUG - Fixed typo in new highlighting code for business cabin in first class award

2.7 - 5/11/2012

• FIXED BUG - Further problems with mixed class highlighting
• Moved options button to the lower right

2.8 - 6/6/2012

• Changed ordering of some code so that hiding standard awards and mixed cabin expansion happens even if United decides to not put a calendar on the page for some reason

3.0 - 1/1/2013

• Added the ability to filter out specific classes of service
• Added in new @grant metadata so that GreaseMonkey doesn't complain

3.1 - 5/27/2013

• Updated code so that it works in Chrome again (GM_log is not defined)

3.2 - 12/6/2013

• Added option to automatically scroll to the top of the calendar

Ocn Vw 1K

The OP originally posted this in the new Travel Tools forum but after the OP contacted the United forum mods to discuss the best way of alerting the United forum readers as to the OP's UA-speciifc award search tool, the decision was made to host this thread in the United forum. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator.

jasonvr

I've got a possible update for this tool, but want to get feedback before I release it.

The new part of the script will remove the "Mixed Class" notification and the associated icon and replace it with the text that would normally come up in the tool tip. Should make it easier to quickly look thru the results. Instead of having to move the mouse over the "Mixed Cabin" text to determine if it is acceptable (like lower cabin on a short leg, etc), you can see it directly.

I'm also considering adding code to try to sort results so that non-mixed cabin results show up first. I'd probably sort it so that it comes out:
Pure F
Mixed F
Pure C/J
Mixed C/J
Pure Y
Everything else

Sorting would only be based on Saver Awards (does anyone really look for Standard awards?)

Hmm, maybe that's another idea - remove the columns with standard awards completely! And maybe remove rows where there are only standard awards.

Feedback is appreciated

spgaston

I will give your tool a spin. I've really been longing for a way to filter out rows with standard award only availability. That would be super useful to me

double_black77

So far so good. I think you should add scroll up button as well. Thanks.

spgaston

Be careful to click on "Install" on the upper right hand of the install page, not on the giant DOWNLOAD button that is actually a banner ad. I made the mistake and wound up installing god knows what.

jasonvr

OK, I've got some beta code that will remove all rows that contain only standard awards. I need to do some more testing on it, but it looks like it is working (only tried Firefox so far).

AirJam389

Been playing with your tool tonight and I like it. Definitely saves some unnecessary button pressing. Excited to see the Saver/Standard upgrade as well. Thanks for working on this.

belfordrocks

Yes, I made the same mistake once (not with this download though). Got me paranoid for days.

The script is very fast and works well though. Thumbs up. ^^

NiceLanding

Useful tool developing here!

The filtering is great, but is it possible to also increase the number of flights to search? I find that setting the Flights to Display option to 50, rather than 25 or Auto, will sometimes show good options not otherwise seen. Can your script set it to more than 50?

Also, it would be nice on mixed flights to highlight those where you're already in the best cabin on a lower-level segment, as opposed to one where the cabin you want is simply not available yet.

spgaston

Awesome!

jasonvr

Not sure about being able to increase the number of flights. That seems to be an option on the original search page and as of right now, the script only deals with the search results page (unless it is buried somewhere that I haven't seen yet). Also, I have yet to see a route where more that many options present. Although, now you have me wondering how many interesting flight options I have missed because I have always left it set to "auto"

As far as highlighting, I think I could probably do that since I have already figured out how to extract the mixed cabin text and place it in the cells. Just need to do some text parsing for the wording like "two cabin aircraft" and "sold out".

I think for tonight my priorities will be:
1) Releasing the code for filtering out rows with only standard awards
2) Adding in the extraction of the mixed cabin information
3) Parsing/highlighting of mixed cabin information
4) Removal of standard awards related columns (they just take up space)
5) Figuring out how to do some sort of parameterization/config settings so that things can be turned on and off by the end user (like hiding of standard awards, expansion of mixed cabin info, etc)

So, there may be a few releases tonight. Probably something like a 2.0 and 2.1 depending on how much I get done. Barring some catastrophe, I will definitely release the standard award only hiding tonight and announce it in this thread.


Whoops, missed this one. I'll add this onto the list as well. It should be simple, so I can probably sneak it in tonight

NiceLanding

I see this most often with partner flights on international itineraries, where award options are often not even highlighted in the month availability calendar. It especially irks me when I want a particular routing or partner for some reason, such as selecting LH, rather than LX, so that I can use a paper upgrade cert. Tried ExpertFlyer, but it doesn't work for many partners. Since UA sorts its results according to its own criteria, a long-haul trip with lots of options will inevitably cut off many viable choices.

It does look like the search results page has the number of flights option buried in an encoded state variable, so you would need to alter the original search page to get at it. Whether it would accept a new number is unknown, but if you ever feel like playing with that page as well, you can probably come up with other useful options. While there's certainly a lot that could be done to improve UA's primitive search options, I'll try not to bug you with too many suggestions.

jasonvr

Version 2.0 is released (follow the link in the first post)

2.0 - 4/24/2012

• Adds in a scroll up button
• Filters out all search result rows that only contain standard awards

spgaston

Working like a charm and very useful, thanks! Only drawback is that if, for some reason, you wanted to see standard award availability you would need to uninstall or use a different browser. So, it would be nice to be able to toggle on/off the standard award filter.