Hmmmmm okay. I'll have to check KVS when I get back to my home computer.

Why don't you give an example and tear it apart to show what do you mean?

I can hardly see Amadeus changing the timetable of 5 different airlines, 10s of different routes.

Wow, i've been gone for a few months. I come back and all he77 has broken lose around this place.

I searched for several months (2) C2-C1s and C1-C6 and C1-C2 (F) and found nothing. Is this really true or just poor availability?!

Almost everything is gone

The question was about booking SQ suites specifically - if that's possible would love a hint or more detail.

I expect fully there to be reactions to what has happened given the info about UA examining flights and conducting surveys. Is there any possibility that the seeming re-filing of flights by a European airline is entirely unconnected with all of our obsessing and is just a regular re-occurence?
I've NEVER been able to get many valid LM itin's to show up on the KVS 'timetable' - I've personally found using ITA to be a better bet, but even there I have gotten LM to price itineraries which ITA does not show revenue tickets available for (and Vice versa MANY times) ... so is there a 'definitive' way for mere mortals to see amadeus fares/routings filed?

I can price tickets right now which don't even come close to being visible in the KVS timetable.

Is the question/hypothesis posed by germantraveller related solely to 'forced carrier' itineraries? - this might make a little more sense - and matches more closely with my experiences....

Amadeus timetable <> LM connectivity example:

When looking up connections FRA-MUC forced on LO on Amadeus (for example KVS timetable method which uses Amadeus timetable) around 15AUG14, you do find non-codeshare connections via WAW... and so shows LM availability.
However, MUC-FRA forced on LO does not show any non-codeshare connections around 15AUG14... and I also do not see any LM availability.

(by the way FRA-WAW-MUC is not "cabbage-forbidden" as of EU regulations)

I do not think Amadeus routings are "filed"; I cannot imagine someone sitting at Amadeus and manually entering all possible connecting flights; it rather is an algorithm that calculates possible connecting flights... I think that algorithm has been changed.

It works on forced carrier itineraries, correct.

However, I think it's the same for non-forced itineraries – because they ARE forced by LM... they are forced to *A carriers.
KVS's Amadeus access does not allow that, you can only filter the results but not influence the search itself on "only *A"/"only non-codeshare".

Which would imply that *different results* are obtained if a search is constrained - as the 'LM Routes' are not a subset of the total set returned by Amadeus in a normal search.

We could perhaps test this hypothesis by examining whether the 'forced carrier' routes returned by this method always also show up in the KVS output when not forcing a carrier?

UPDATE: they do not - to take germantraveller s example - a straightforward search FRA-MUC never returns ANY LO options unless LO is the forced carrier.... so now, how do we get access to an amadeus timetable which allows for something like the "only *A"/"only non-codeshare" constraint referenced above :-)

Flight C2x to BKK - times are same as before, flight BKK to C2y same as before. LM prices each flight (65,000) individually and both have availability. LM used to show this as an option, but not anymore. Both flight schedules are unchanged. I have a screenshot from about 10 days ago, flight times are exactly the same on these particular dates. This was NOT a forced airline itinerary, it was one with late departure.

It was such a cheap way to visit Asia for 22,500.

Thanks Jeff.

Still works for 35

I know. It is a matter of time. But yeah, 1 option out of 15 to BKK is so much more relieving.

For the record, I believe they simply do not allow and show flights that take 24 hours or more which effectively kills the boomerang and trick. The flights are there, the availability is there, they just don't show (or even look for) flights that take "so long".

It is very sad indeed :(

Being offered an itinerary of duration 35:55 hours in J as we speak - in fact it seems to me that I am being offered longer layovers on LM over the past few days than I am used to seeing - have seen several above 8 hours in last 2 days.

Hm. Thanks for the data point. I guess I am wrong or they may enforce it while travelling certain regions... eg. C2-C2 simply can't take 24 hours.

There used to be an implicit rule which I've corroborated on a number of boomerang options where the distance between origin and destination had to be at least 1/3 the shorter leg, so for instance some destinations at the western and eastern borders of a continent could be used while others more in the middle of that same continent couldn't, when the turnaround point was very far away... This rule only seemed to be applied with prefered airline routings.

Maybe this is part of the Amadeus algorithm?

What I believe happened is they've tightened that rule, so either it's simply a smaller divider or another calculation. Effectively that makes classical boomerangs impossible.

The problem is, given the current availability situation it's nearly impossible to test this. That's why if the Amadeus story holds true we would have a great test bed...

PS the one I spoke about earlier that didn't show up on Amadeus was an unforced boomerang. When we forced it on Amadeus (thanks for the help, GermanTraveller), it appeared. So that would be at least one data point corroborating the idea it could be Amadeus, and it could have to do with forcing the airline...

PPS I love Mozart

Didn't the 'world end' on this thread about a dozen times before and then something changed again and certain routes came back?

also old 3Xs are always coming back to life as the underlying logic kicks in again and a new fare is published....

These may come back.

not if you could fly tomorrow :-)

Well, many LH routes needed are gonna be two cabin anyway so a majority of C1-C2 boomerangs in LH F were going by the end of the year regardless.

@mlqsko you know that while it being dead for LH F it is not 100% dead (unlike the C1-C2 routes), right?

Another data point. I pulled up a 43 hour itinerary within a single 'zone'

Amadeus is only a serviceprovider. All the data is provided from the airlines and it is a mix of data and rules.

No. SQ simply don't open award availability to partners for the Suites cabin.

There's been the odd seat offered on syd-sin with lm

F is wide open with TG on certain routes

With a little manipulation, I pulled up a 52 hour itinerary ~18000 miles at very attractive price from Australia to Europe. Christchurch and Auckland worked too.

Several availabilities actually seem to have improved. Indian Ocean and Coral Sea.

Tested several Southern Hemisphere to Northern Hemisphere ( the three "Straight North" ) and most of them were good.

Thanks for giving us hope :)

J or only Y (due to the last leg)?

The more I look at boomerangs, the more I think the travel time restriction hypothesis may be correct (unless, of course, the Amadeus schedules idea is correct)

For example:
- C1-C1 via C1.5 with a total travel time of 12h25m
- C2.5-C2.5 via C2 with a total travel time of 17h40m
- C3N-C3S via C2 with a total travel time of 30h15m
- C4-C1 via C2 with a total travel time of 25h20m

However, there are options for C1-C1 via C2 with a total travel time of less than 24 hours, I see some options for under 21 hours in schedules so maybe the max travel time from Cx to Cx is set to 20 hours?

Are you still seeing these? I've searched and found nothing...

C3N - C3C via C2 with total travel time 39h 35m, Y and J

Not sure if we're using the same cities but seeing some new stuff now, on my regular searches.

Got C3N to C2N in J for 30k - 24h30m

Have you guys even seen the miles costs on the exact same flights to differ based on the preferred carrier selection (star alliance vs smart search) :

http://i.imgur.com/Ozhc1G8.png
http://i.imgur.com/1uNlS2h.png

and have smart search with avianca results never charged the booking fee or is that new as well?

You need to find the right chef :)

The booking fee should never be applied on Avianca flights. So it is the first one that is irregular, not the second one. The fee for Star Alliance flights was introduced just after the first round of 2x1 sales.

You must have somehow forced the fee on AV by choosing a Star Alliance search for the flights.

Same, but 27h40m, Y and J. I guess it's different routes (rather than variations of the same route). So that's good news :)

29h also possible :)

Because LH asked/filed some other stuff with them?

Germantraveller is perfectly right about the source of the change. Only a few people knew (or bothered to check) that the c1-c1 boomerangs for the whole LH group actually pulled up availability on m&m but they correctly priced them as 2 one-ways. None of the tatl versions pull up anymore on LH so it's most definitely not a change in how LM handles these itins.

There were reports of LH agents taking notes of the weird itineraries people were flying in F and J, some more capable agents actually noticed these were connecting in FRA. It doesn't take much from that point for some to start escalating and LH cracking down on it. Voila.

As much as I agree with the Jeff bashing (for he was not only stupid but incredibly selfish too) this happening the same time as the DoT complaint is probably only a coincidence. (unless LM asked for the changes themselves, but I'd think they're way too incompetent to make this move)

Makes sense, how about the difference in miles cost?

Smart search let's Avianca search Avianca rewards at Avianca prices. There are plenty of examples where AV charges more for rewards than they would on Star Alliance partners. A couple of weeks ago I was finding JFK LHR via BOG. Whilst this is not only an awful routing, it also had AV pricing on it so was also about 5000 per person each way more even for limited seat inventory.

Maybe you found a nice loophole where AV prices are sufficiently greater than the *A prices then there may well be instances where it is worthwhile swallowing the $25pp fee.

i think austrian doesn't work, so only swiss and turkish afaik