Hi,
When I can see redemption availability for BA flights on BA com, this doesn't seem to show up on the mobile companion site under the appropriate booking codes ie Z, U, P or X. Am I missing something?
Thanks.
I believe KVS finds BA availability by running a "hidden browser" that visits ba.com and does a large number of searches. In the industry this is called "Scraping". This is the reason KVS is a computer program - it runs code on your machine that talks to ba.com (and other airline sites, travel agents, etc). But you surely know all this as a KVS user.
The BA.com terms of service
http://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/...rms-conditions
states
use ‘screen scraping’, any automated algorithm, device, method, system, software or manual process to access, use, search, copy, monitor or extract Material (in whole or in part) from or through using this website unless We have given Our express written agreement
Now it's entirely possible that BA have given KVS their express written agreement, however as you are the person running it that doesn't help you. As such, running KVS and doing a search for BA appears to be in contravention of their terms of service.
Sadly BA.com do not advertise their revenue codes (Z, U, P, X) via the standard method (GDS) that they use for F,A,J,C,D,R,I,W,E,T,Y,B,H and the lower classes. They did for a while, about 14 months ago, and availability came up on legitimate tools like flightstats or expertflyer -- tools that pay for the data and access it legally. I made great use of this to bump my SEA CW return to a SEA F return using expertflyer's email notification service.
The fact the the KVS mobility companion appears to only offer access to data that can be legitimately bought on the open market, and doesn't instead run the code the KVS tool runs, implies to me that the person running the servers is actually concerned about the legality of the scraping tool, so he doesn't use it in a situation where he can be more easily traced.
If you are in a library soon, you may want to see if you can find
Decoding Air Travel: A Guide to Saving on Airfare and Flying in Luxury - By Nicholas Kralev, who metnions KVSTool and Victor (aka KVSTool), and the fact that airline officials have complained about it.
KVSTool claims to be a browser, however it masquerades as internet explorer, rather than have it's own "Signature", that legitimate webbrowsers have.
The last time a guy <deleted by moderator> tried to sell me something seemingly useful down the pub, for a "donation", I said no, I wasn't worries it was broken in it's fall off the back of the lorry, or that the police might get me for handling stolen goods, it's the morality of such a thing that turns me off.