Jul 19, 2021, 9:34 pm
Last edit by: Adam Smith
SADLY, AS OF OCTOBER 5, THIS TOOL HAS BEEN SHUT DOWN INDEFINITELY AND LIKELY PERMANENTLY, AS DESCRIBED IN THIS POST.
Other cowtools remain available at cowtool.com
ACCESS RULES ARE CLEARLY DESCRIBED BELOW. READ THEM. DO NOT POST OR PM ADAM SMITH ABOUT ACCESS, OR YOU WILL BE BANNED FROM EVER GETTING ACCESS TO THE TOOL.
[PSA from forum moderator Adam Smith: since it doesn't seem obvious to everyone, please note that the cowtool was created by cowtool. He has invested hundreds of hours in creating this very useful tool and making it available to the FT community. I, Adam Smith, have had nothing to do with creation of the cowtool. I can do nothing to get you access to the cowtool. Please do not ask me to give you access - I can't and won't, and will suggest that you be blocked from the tool for this waste of time, and lack of appreciation for cowtool's efforts, as described in more detail in this post. Also note that, other than this section and a clearly indicated moderator note below, the author of this wiki, writing in first person, is canadiancow, on behalf of [cowtool].
Please do not PM other Flyertalk users to try and gain access to cowtool, for the same reasons Adam's laid out above. - YOWgary
https://acrewardsearcher.cowtool.com/
Due to abuse, you must now first register (see https://www.cowtool.com, and read the rest of this wiki) and sign in to use it. All access is logged (not what you're searching, but the complexity of the searches, and the number of searches). Abusers will be throttled or terminated. Continued abuse will lead to a more involved registration process, up to and including personal vetting by cowtool.
Access to this cowtool for new users is temporarily disabled due to anticipated ("I'm going to make a big blog post") publicity and actual increases in usage. This is not free for me, and I am concerned what will happen if all the US major blogs pick it up.
If anyone "new" needs an account here, as long as you have 25 posts and your account is at least 3 months old, please register for a cowtool account, and then PM me (please include your email address) and I'll set you up with reward search access.
YOU DO NOT NEED TO INCLUDE ANYTHING IN THE PM OTHER THAN YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS. The PM interface shows me your posts and join date. A lot of people have explicitly included that information. It's unnecessary. I also don't need a paragraph of text, whether it's a please to bend the rules, or immense thanks. My life is immensely easier if the subject is "cowtool access" and the message is "[email protected]". I don't read the messages anyway.
However, I will read your posts, so don't spam FT with crap please. If you have a genuine interest in travel, points, and so on, it really isn't hard to make 25 contributive posts to FlyerTalk and be eligible for access. If you do not meet this threshold, I am not making an exception for you. Not because you live in SFO like me, not because you're really excited, and not because of any personal issues. In fact, if you PM me without meeting the requirements, you will be blocked from ever getting access. Moderator note: the rules for access are very clear. Please don't post in this thread, or anywhere else, asking how you can get access, offering to pay for access, or asking for the access rules to be changed. Those posts will be deleted.
I do not process PMs instantly. My goal is at least once per week, so it may take a few days.
Additionally, any Prince of Travel Platinum members may contact canadiancow over POT Discord for access.
Alerts
Basic price alerts were currently in available to all registered users. They have been turned off due to high load, until the system can be re-written to accommodate them.
Full search/availability alerts are in early alpha.
Each account is limited to 4 alerts* for now.
A price alert is set on a specific itinerary that includes AC metal (this may be expanded as we begin to see EK dynamic pricing). The general idea is that you making a booking at price X, set an alert, and then if the price drops, you'll get an email, and can rebook the itinerary at a lower price and cancel the old, more expensive, booking. This really only works well if you're SE or booked a fare with no cancellation fee. All results with AC flights will show a "Price alert" link on the right. Clicking this will add one. You can view all your alerts in the alerts section, where you can delete them, or select two one-way alerts to merge into a round-trip alert, which will determine the current round-trip price and reset the alert level (since round-trip pricing is not the sum of the two one-ways).
If you have at least 2500 FT posts and would like access to the price alert beta, send me a PM including the email you used to sign up for cowtool. There are currently no exceptions on the post count restriction. I am trying to slowly roll this out, and need an easy way to expand access, ideally to people who have contributed to FT a lot.
* Due to the fact that a round-trip alert requires making and then merging two alerts, the technical limit is 5, but I'm advertising it as 4.
Having Trouble? Hold "shift" and click the refresh button.
Feature Requests:
Bugs:
Other cowtools remain available at cowtool.com
https://acrewardsearcher.cowtool.com/
Due to abuse, you must now first register (see https://www.cowtool.com, and read the rest of this wiki) and sign in to use it. All access is logged (not what you're searching, but the complexity of the searches, and the number of searches). Abusers will be throttled or terminated. Continued abuse will lead to a more involved registration process, up to and including personal vetting by cowtool.
Access to this cowtool for new users is temporarily disabled due to anticipated ("I'm going to make a big blog post") publicity and actual increases in usage. This is not free for me, and I am concerned what will happen if all the US major blogs pick it up.
If anyone "new" needs an account here, as long as you have 25 posts and your account is at least 3 months old, please register for a cowtool account, and then PM me (please include your email address) and I'll set you up with reward search access.
YOU DO NOT NEED TO INCLUDE ANYTHING IN THE PM OTHER THAN YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS. The PM interface shows me your posts and join date. A lot of people have explicitly included that information. It's unnecessary. I also don't need a paragraph of text, whether it's a please to bend the rules, or immense thanks. My life is immensely easier if the subject is "cowtool access" and the message is "[email protected]". I don't read the messages anyway.
However, I will read your posts, so don't spam FT with crap please. If you have a genuine interest in travel, points, and so on, it really isn't hard to make 25 contributive posts to FlyerTalk and be eligible for access. If you do not meet this threshold, I am not making an exception for you. Not because you live in SFO like me, not because you're really excited, and not because of any personal issues. In fact, if you PM me without meeting the requirements, you will be blocked from ever getting access. Moderator note: the rules for access are very clear. Please don't post in this thread, or anywhere else, asking how you can get access, offering to pay for access, or asking for the access rules to be changed. Those posts will be deleted.
I do not process PMs instantly. My goal is at least once per week, so it may take a few days.
Additionally, any Prince of Travel Platinum members may contact canadiancow over POT Discord for access.
Alerts
Basic price alerts were currently in available to all registered users. They have been turned off due to high load, until the system can be re-written to accommodate them.
Full search/availability alerts are in early alpha.
Each account is limited to 4 alerts* for now.
A price alert is set on a specific itinerary that includes AC metal (this may be expanded as we begin to see EK dynamic pricing). The general idea is that you making a booking at price X, set an alert, and then if the price drops, you'll get an email, and can rebook the itinerary at a lower price and cancel the old, more expensive, booking. This really only works well if you're SE or booked a fare with no cancellation fee. All results with AC flights will show a "Price alert" link on the right. Clicking this will add one. You can view all your alerts in the alerts section, where you can delete them, or select two one-way alerts to merge into a round-trip alert, which will determine the current round-trip price and reset the alert level (since round-trip pricing is not the sum of the two one-ways).
If you have at least 2500 FT posts and would like access to the price alert beta, send me a PM including the email you used to sign up for cowtool. There are currently no exceptions on the post count restriction. I am trying to slowly roll this out, and need an easy way to expand access, ideally to people who have contributed to FT a lot.
* Due to the fact that a round-trip alert requires making and then merging two alerts, the technical limit is 5, but I'm advertising it as 4.
Having Trouble? Hold "shift" and click the refresh button.
Feature Requests:
Allowing alerting by brandFinish and release alerts"Copy into round-trip alert" instead of "merge into" in case you want bothOption to launch AC.com in new tab should be saved to your accountShow more information about stops, such as the timeSave filters to profileHistorical pricesColored background gradiated by %age of mixed cabin. Solid green if 100%, fading to white as percentage drops...Option to enable a priority reward discountLie-flat filter (maybe with lie-flat % filter as well?) - Unsure if this data is easily accessible+/- 1 or 2 days dropdown if entering a single value for date at top, grayed out if entering more than one date or rangeCities/Aircraft/Airlines should allow an OR condition in addition to the default/current AND
Annoying error dialog pops up far too regularly related to JS/Cognito crap
[SHUT DOWN] Unofficial Advanced AC Reward Search Tool (cowtool)
Feb 18, 2022, 12:35 am
#241
Join Date: Jun 2005
Programs: Former UA 1K, Hyatt Globalist
Posts: 576
Glad to hear it will be back up! Thanks for all the hard work. It is a great tool.
Feb 18, 2022, 12:35 am
#242
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: SFO
Programs: AC SE MM, BA Gold, SQ Silver, Bonvoy Tit LTG, Hyatt Glob, HH Diamond
Posts: 44,302
Okay it's back up. But you need to register an account now.
Feb 18, 2022, 1:50 am
#244
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: SFO
Programs: AC SE MM, BA Gold, SQ Silver, Bonvoy Tit LTG, Hyatt Glob, HH Diamond
Posts: 44,302
I just want to make sure I don't get in the way of someone who has a specific search bookmarked that they check once a day. Right now, I'm just logging usage by user. Already in the past hour, someone was doing a large search every 30-60s, but then stopped. It's quite a bit of usage, but it's very reasonable (if it has, in fact, stopped for the night).
Registration was on its way in (technically the registration page has been live for a couple weeks), which is why I only had to take it down for a short while, but I had intended to keep anonymous access around. Another option could be to re-enable anonymous with a CAPTCHA... though I'm still not sure the hassle of anonymous is worth it.
The registration also means features like saving searches or your preferred filters become easier (though I suppose a simple bookmark works for both of those).
Anyway, I'll see what the usage data looks like in a week, the I'll re-evaluate things.
Feb 18, 2022, 4:15 am
#245
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 4,784
Registered
Strong password policy, wow - Upper/Lower mixed case, numeric character
followed by email verification code
Previously Saved searched URL worked after logged in, thankfully
Strong password policy, wow - Upper/Lower mixed case, numeric character
followed by email verification code
Previously Saved searched URL worked after logged in, thankfully
Feb 18, 2022, 7:20 am
#246
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: NY, NY
Posts: 695
Yeah, there are various things I can do. reCAPTCHA v3 is likely a good option.
I just want to make sure I don't get in the way of someone who has a specific search bookmarked that they check once a day. Right now, I'm just logging usage by user. Already in the past hour, someone was doing a large search every 30-60s, but then stopped. It's quite a bit of usage, but it's very reasonable (if it has, in fact, stopped for the night).
Registration was on its way in (technically the registration page has been live for a couple weeks), which is why I only had to take it down for a short while, but I had intended to keep anonymous access around. Another option could be to re-enable anonymous with a CAPTCHA... though I'm still not sure the hassle of anonymous is worth it.
The registration also means features like saving searches or your preferred filters become easier (though I suppose a simple bookmark works for both of those).
Anyway, I'll see what the usage data looks like in a week, the I'll re-evaluate things.
I just want to make sure I don't get in the way of someone who has a specific search bookmarked that they check once a day. Right now, I'm just logging usage by user. Already in the past hour, someone was doing a large search every 30-60s, but then stopped. It's quite a bit of usage, but it's very reasonable (if it has, in fact, stopped for the night).
Registration was on its way in (technically the registration page has been live for a couple weeks), which is why I only had to take it down for a short while, but I had intended to keep anonymous access around. Another option could be to re-enable anonymous with a CAPTCHA... though I'm still not sure the hassle of anonymous is worth it.
The registration also means features like saving searches or your preferred filters become easier (though I suppose a simple bookmark works for both of those).
Anyway, I'll see what the usage data looks like in a week, the I'll re-evaluate things.
Feb 18, 2022, 11:16 am
#247
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: SFO
Programs: AC SE MM, BA Gold, SQ Silver, Bonvoy Tit LTG, Hyatt Glob, HH Diamond
Posts: 44,302
Feb 18, 2022, 11:22 am
#248
Join Date: Apr 2016
Posts: 609
Anyways, thanks Cow for keeping the tool running! It's been useful for me and I figured out how to register without much issue.
Feb 18, 2022, 5:26 pm
#249
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: USA
Programs: AC SE100K, F9 100k, NK Gold, UA *S, Hyatt Glob, Bonvoy Titanium
Posts: 5,187
wait
What if I'm a blogger doing award searches and bookings for profit. You're wrecking my business model and discriminating.
Or what if I'm an Aeroplan employee who used it to increase productivity booking for customer calls 1000-fold when the cowtool launched.
What if I'm a blogger doing award searches and bookings for profit. You're wrecking my business model and discriminating.
Or what if I'm an Aeroplan employee who used it to increase productivity booking for customer calls 1000-fold when the cowtool launched.
Feb 18, 2022, 5:34 pm
#250
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: SFO
Programs: AC SE MM, BA Gold, SQ Silver, Bonvoy Tit LTG, Hyatt Glob, HH Diamond
Posts: 44,302
If you're scraping it and hitting me 50 times per second, then I don't care who you are or why you're doing it.
Since requiring registration, the heaviest user has clicked "search" 90 times. I'm not really worried about that.
Feb 18, 2022, 8:58 pm
#251
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: CGK/LAX
Programs: KF,JMB, OZ, SPG,AA,UA,AS
Posts: 1,163
Thank you Cow! Registered, and glad this it's backed up.
Feb 18, 2022, 9:25 pm
#252
Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: YOW
Programs: AC SE, FOTSG Platinum
Posts: 5,725
Clearly time for enterprise.cowtool.com.
Feb 19, 2022, 8:38 am
#253
Join Date: Mar 2019
Posts: 68
Could you please add a "forgot my password" feature? I registered yesterday and already forgot my password. I can't login this morning. Thanks
Feb 19, 2022, 9:27 am
#254
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: May 2015
Location: BOS, YVR, ZRH
Programs: *G
Posts: 17,384
FT should really have some "exceptional service to the community" award or the likes at the yearly awards.
Feb 19, 2022, 11:55 am
#255
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: SFO
Programs: AC SE MM, BA Gold, SQ Silver, Bonvoy Tit LTG, Hyatt Glob, HH Diamond
Posts: 44,302
