bedelman

As my last post suggested, I did indeed need to change the URL format to get the priority seat data. See post #1 in http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=51964 for a description of what needed to be done.

Thanks to happydad100 and sammy343 for bringing this problem to my attention. Thanks to NoStressHere for explaining this so clearly in his original post (which I believe is the thread that inspired my seat map web site). And thanks to the much-improved FT search feature which made it so easy to find the post that explained what was going on here.

sammy343

And thank you again for the phenomenal tool. It's perfect for international flights where you can't see the seats ahead of time. ^ ^

davefr

This is a great site!!

Does anyone know if there's a web based tool (or agent) that will automatically search for Z inventory.

I'd like to enter my flight number and date and be alerted if an upgrade seat appears. (based on the theory that one might pop up before the DL waitlist assignment kicks in).

Does something like this exist?

bedelman

smile67 has made a Windows tool that will check a flight for most fare buckets (including upgrade and award seats for AA, not sure about DL). See http://www.benedelman.org/travel/inventory/ for a couple relevant links including http://www.stud.ntnu.no/%7Ehartberg/...etoolSetup.htm (the site to download the tool), http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9565 (FT discussion), http://www.benedelman.org/travel/farecodes/ (fare codes on major airlines).

However, this tool can't run a search on a continuing, automatic basis. I once thought about writing such a script for the old Aeroplan.de Galileo data, but decided not to for fear that this would hasten the removal of the Aeroplan site. I could probably write a tool that gets data either from smile67's program or from some other site (e.g. ITN), but it wouldn't be easy, and it is definitely beyond my plans for the coming weeks.

brendamc

Been trying to check the following for 3 days now & keep getting all kinds of different error or non-replies or 'Internet Zone' replies using the bendelmen.org.dl site:

08JUN DL145 VCE/JFK - B/F
08JUN DL369 JFK/LAX - F

what am I doing wrong?

bedelman

brendamc,

I'd be happy to try to help you. Can you explain exactly what you're trying to do, and what problems you're having?

The correct address of my site is: http://www.benedelman.org/travel/dlseats . "bendelmen.org.dl" (s.i.c.) definitely won't work!


Ben

brendamc

Thanks - I have the correct address... just trying to shorten my typing time! When I put in all the data & hit 'view seat map,' it sounds & looks like something is going to come up, but then I just get 2 blanks squares below & bottom of my screen changes to 'Internet Zone' - what am I doing wrong? Dieing to try this out! TIA!

bedelman

What kind of computer are you using? MAC? PC?

What browser? Version?

I design the site using IE6 on a PC, which is the only configuration to which I have easy access. So if you can find a PC with IE, that would be a great place to start.

'Internet zone' sounds like IE, so I would expect things to work. My site should be in your Internet zone -- it shouldn't have (and doesn't need) the special benefits of Intranet sites. The real puzzle is why you see only the blank boxes (no doubt where the seatmaps will ultimately appear) but not the rest of the page. Maybe knowing platform and version will help me reproduce the problem...


-

I'm aware of some problems with my javascript code as used on other platforms. I hope to have this fixed within the evening, with help from generous FT javascript experts!

bedelman

I still can't offer you a tool that searches automatically. But if you want to check yourself from time to time, and if you're interested in seatmap data (rather than inventory data, and we know the match isn't always perfect), I can help.

I've added "bookmark" features to the seatmap tool. Enter a search criterion, press Bookmark, and then store the resulting URL. Can store it as a bookmark (ordinary Favorites - Add Favorite in IE). Can email it, can post it to FlyerTalk.

An example:
http://www.benedelman.org/travel/dls...ATL&de=CUN&c=J

I've tried to make the URLs easy to understand. The example above is flight 243 on May 30, from ATL to CUN, with front-cabin sold as J (URL parameters stand for Flight, Month, Day, Origin, DEstination, and class).

The "Advanced" mode also has a bookmark feature. Example:
http://www.benedelman.org/travel/dls...un,4,ATL,CUN,J


Back when I ran an English-language interface to Galileo (via aeroplan.de), I had a bookmark feature there, and it got a good bit of traffic. I and others loved to have easy access to check our flights, check for upgrade seats, etc. Will this be quite as good? No. But it might be useful for quickly and efficiently checking whether any better seat has opened up, for making sure adjacent seat remains empty, etc. And perhaps some people may want to make use of the features of emailing seatmaps and/or posting them to FT.


Ben

heckler

For those who are interested, Ben Edelman's seat mapper page is back up and working. Thanks Ben! ^

PS - Seems to only work with Internet Explorer for me. I usually use Netscape 7.0 and it seems hit the site ok, but does nothing when I run a seat query.

bedelman

heckler,

See above, where I wrote
(I should have mentioned that other browsers constitute other platforms at least for purposes of breaking my Javascript!)

However, with help from another member of this group, I think I found the problem in my code. (More precisely, he found the problem and showed mew hat to fix.) Are you still having problems? In any event, I recommend using IE for now; I'll fix the Netscape problems if I haven't fixed them already.

heckler

Thanks Ben!

brendamc

I'm on a Mac, but just tried it on my husband's PC & it worked beautifully. Thanks!!

findmeinfirst

Is there something wrong or is it me? I put in my info but get no response. Anyone else having problems?

Pointfreak!

Just checked my flights to GRU moments ago. All is well. Do you have anything else running that might interfere?