Originally Posted by
stevens397
First of all, I love the program and have for years. My only issue is the times I have to go elsewhere to get the information I need - nothing would be better than a program as good as EF that had all the info I need.
Thus my question. I also have to use AwardNexus since they have information about award tickets on airlines you can't access. AwardNexus is obviously an independent website. So I realize this it a thread in the 400's and this may have been addressed (and if so, sorry), but if they can do it why can't you? Obviously, someone has access to Lufthansa, BA, etc.
Hi
stevens397, first, thank you for your support over the years, we're glad ExpertFlyer has been helpful to you.
To answer your question, the reason why we have the information and services that we do, is because we pay for and access the airline reservation systems directly (the GDSs), whereas AwardNexus gets data from directly browsing to various airline websites (QF/BA/ANA/etc).
As a result, the data/feature set is different. AwardNexus is a nice front end to the airline websites and makes searching those sites easier, however it can only show the exact same data as those websites. ExpertFlyer, on the other hand, can show data that isn't available anywhere else, not even on airline websites, because of our GDS access. For example, we show upgrade inventory for AA & DL, information that the airline websites don't even show. Also, for all of our supported Award/Upgrade airlines we show the actual inventory values available (0,1,2,3, etc) whereas most airline websites just show a yes/no response for the quantity searched for. It also allows us to provide advanced services like Flight & Seat Alerts, graphical Seat Maps for over 115 airlines, advanced availability and fare searches, etc. It also allows us to have a very scalable and fast architecture that supports our growing user base. If you've noticed, a +/- 3 day Award/Upgrade search for multiple classes takes about the same amount of time as a search for one class on one day.
To answer your next question, we cannot do the same kind of screen scraping of airline websites. Partially for technical (speed/stability) reasons, but mainly for legal ones.
I hope that answers your question, feel free to also email us with any questions you might have.