Originally Posted by
Great_circle
...I fail to understand how the perfect way it once worked would be a disadvantage to those travel providers.
As far as the ticket buying & searching, we are at the opposite ends of the transaction. Any tool that gives advantage to the buyer is automatically a disadvantage for the seller. GF put themselves in the middle of this somewhat similar to the mob. At first they just trashed the sellers business by giving the buyers a free access. Now that sellers are willing to pay up for some protection, GF has to make things more difficult for the buyers without shutting down the traffic completely.