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)
Aug 21, 2023 | 8:41 pm
#1546
Moderator, Air Canada; FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Feb 2015
Location: YYC
Programs: AC SE MM, FB Plat, WS Plat, BA Silver, Marriott Plat, Hilton Gold, Accor Gold
Posts: 18,942
Largely working, but noticing that perhaps Air Canada/Lufthansa are having an issue with Lufthansa fares no longer being offered. Last week when it was back up found a few results to a few European cities on early October via Lufthansa for 70K 100% J fare. (Budapest, Geneva, Vienna). Seems you can no longer find those flights at all via Air Canada website or App. Was set to book an itinerary and appears I've missed it. Anyone know if there is an issue with Lufthansa/AC right now?
Aug 22, 2023 | 11:05 am
#1547
Join Date: Sep 2022
Programs: HH Diamond
Posts: 100
Started searching SFO flights and it gave a cow 3 error, but now it's all cleared up! hallelujah, thank you thank you thank you, hoping to book a flight soon
Aug 23, 2023 | 10:10 pm
#1548
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: YYZ
Programs: AC*E50, PC Plat, SPG Lifetime Gold, HH Gold
Posts: 404
I appreciate it.
For the record though, if you're going to use a US credit card, it's probably better for everyone if you contribute in USD. The reason I have a CAD option is that obviously most users are in Canada, and Canadian cards tend to have relatively high forex fees. I get charged something like 1%. And I'd rather have 1% go to Stripe than 3% to your bank.
While 1% isn't a lot, I doubt anyone would rather have that go to Stripe than to cowtool
As an example with real numbers, if you sent $10 CAD right now, I would probably receive around $7.30 USD, and your US card would be charged around $7.37. Or you could just send $7.37 USD, and cowtool would get the extra 7 cents, at no additional cost to you.
(But again, if you're using a Canadian card that charges a forex fee, use the CAD option)
For the record though, if you're going to use a US credit card, it's probably better for everyone if you contribute in USD. The reason I have a CAD option is that obviously most users are in Canada, and Canadian cards tend to have relatively high forex fees. I get charged something like 1%. And I'd rather have 1% go to Stripe than 3% to your bank.
While 1% isn't a lot, I doubt anyone would rather have that go to Stripe than to cowtool
As an example with real numbers, if you sent $10 CAD right now, I would probably receive around $7.30 USD, and your US card would be charged around $7.37. Or you could just send $7.37 USD, and cowtool would get the extra 7 cents, at no additional cost to you.
(But again, if you're using a Canadian card that charges a forex fee, use the CAD option)
Can't open link
The payment link you tried is no longer active." ...
Aug 23, 2023 | 10:51 pm
#1549
Company Representative, Cowtool
Join Date: Jul 2023
Location: San Francisco
Posts: 221
Hi, cowtool thanks for the amazing tool, I am trying to make a contribution in USD but I am getting error message "
Can't open link
The payment link you tried is no longer active." ...
Try now, it should be fixed.
And thank you.
Aug 24, 2023 | 7:42 am
#1550
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: YYZ
Programs: AC*E50, PC Plat, SPG Lifetime Gold, HH Gold
Posts: 404
Aug 25, 2023 | 7:46 am
#1552
Join Date: Jul 2023
Location: YOW
Programs: AC, Marriott Platinum
Posts: 4
I'm seeing a lot of redemptions and results for AC flights only. Is this just me, or are some carriers part of the Star Alliance not able to be shown in the query at the moment?
Aug 25, 2023 | 10:42 am
#1554
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: May 2015
Location: BOS, YVR, ZRH
Programs: *G
Posts: 18,121
Check here, it's a known issue ongoing with Aeroplan.
Aug 25, 2023 | 11:14 am
#1555
Join Date: Apr 2023
Location: YUL
Posts: 41
Seems like you were not on track with the current "Actions" of AC. Aeroplan is trying to eliminate people who hold partner rewards tickets but not intend to travel but resell. Therefore, LH, and LX availabilities disappeared since a week or so. All flight that operate to China except AC's flight are blocked.
Aug 25, 2023 | 11:33 am
#1556
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: May 2015
Location: BOS, YVR, ZRH
Programs: *G
Posts: 18,121
Seems like you were not on track with the current "Actions" of AC. Aeroplan is trying to eliminate people who hold partner rewards tickets but not intend to travel but resell. Therefore, LH, and LX availabilities disappeared since a week or so. All flight that operate to China except AC's flight are blocked.
Aug 25, 2023 | 2:20 pm
#1558
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: YOW
Programs: AC-SE100K, AC-3MM, Marriott- LT Titanium, SPG RIP
Posts: 2,977
The tool recently helped me snag 4 x NYC-TYO on SQ through SIN for next July. Super tough to find the right date without the tool. Thanks and donation made!
I did like the earlier functionality that showed how many rewards seats are available, but i just search on different numbers of PAX.
Now need to work on the return in a few weeks!
I did like the earlier functionality that showed how many rewards seats are available, but i just search on different numbers of PAX.
Now need to work on the return in a few weeks!
Aug 25, 2023 | 2:48 pm
#1559
Join Date: May 2023
Posts: 6
Dear Cowtool, seems like something went wrong, getting for all searches:Error searching (cow-3)
Aug 25, 2023 | 2:50 pm
#1560
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 882
get Error searching (cow-3), how to fix this?