Originally Posted by
hungarianhc
Okay thanks - just seems like it should automatically default to a lower setting, show routes, and then mention that more are available? I did the search, and there really aren't THAT many possible routes. Does your search first check all possible airport code matches, and then check Star Alliance routes against that? If so, that would explain why it takes so long! Might be much faster to have the computational logic only go against *A routes... just a thought - working great though - thanks - I don't like having to turn off trans-pac routes to get it to work, but I could theoretically do two searches - one w/ transpac off. And one w/ trans-atl off. Only thing is that would cost me twice as many points, just to do "one" search in essence. Thoughts? Keep up the great work!
Route Explorer is already limiting itself to only *A routes. However, given the immense distance and the dozens of major airports in US and Europe, thousands of paths that ping-pong between hubs have to be checked.
This is where
you come in. Route Explorer is great at uncovering obscure routes that you could not think of yourself (something like SFO-MEX-FRA-JNB, I mean, who thinks of connecting in Mexico City to JNB?). However, given the immense possible search space, you have to guide it by telling it the max distance (e.g. 150% of nonstop), max stop, whether to skip going over the pacific, etc.
Originally Posted by
hungarianhc
Update below: These are the results I got.. Isn't it odd that every route has me stopping at LAX? I know there are plenty of SFO-FRA/LHR/ZRH/other routes I could take....
I am going to guess that you set max
3 stops and the max distance over non-stop to be
170%, and got the red warning about maximum path limit reached.
Remember, once you get the warning, you will most likely miss some paths. What happened in this case is that you set the limit at
170% over non-stop (19000 miles) and tells the Route Explorer to route you literally
all over the world, so Route Explorer ran out of path limits checking SFO-LAX-XXX before it can check SFO-FRA-XXX or SFO-MUC-XXX.
To put things in context, 19000 miles is greater than the Earth's half-way circumference of 12000 miles.
For extreme long-hauls such as SFO-MRU, I suggest limiting the max distance to
130% and max
2 stops. (max 3 stops if you are willing to tweak other settings to guide the search).
Originally Posted by
hungarianhc
... I could theoretically do two searches - one w/ transpac off. And one w/ trans-atl off. Only thing is that would cost me twice as many points, just to do "one" search in essence. Thoughts? Keep up the great work!
I understand your concern about point usage. Right now, the tools are free to all members until September 30, 2011. After that, the tools are free as part of premium membership, so you may consider it a small investment of what Route Explorer and the other tools can do for you.
Thanks for the feedback,
hungarianhc. My goal is to make things more intuitive and I know that, right now, Route Explorer is not doing a good job explaining those factors to you.