ChgoBob

I just spent over a week, almost two, using ANX, and have been VERY impressed.

I was able to watch and follow some return flights from Europe on LH and OU well past the 331 days. THIS WAS AN INVALUABLE help in waiting for the 331 return flights to be available at United.

For the first time, I felt comfortable waiting to book all at one time, rather than choose both TATL flights at 332, and calling each and everyday to change the return. (That can backfire, when some agent cancels the wrong flight/trip )

I will confirm that LX has a different (better) availability at EF than ANX or KVS.

I will also confirm that different legs can retrieve different TATL availability for the "married segments", even if nearby airports are used.

Of course, that's what makes this so much fun............

Anyway, I got my EXACT flights, on the EXACT days that I wanted, in "C" Class from ORD-FRA-VCE, returning from DBV-FRA-ORD, for 2.

I also used EF, KVS, and ANX, since IMO, to snag two C seats on my choice of days is worth the tiny fee for their help.

Sea-Wolf

I really like this, it's simple and effective, however I'm curious, if the tool is 'scraping' the relevant websites, do you think you might start to run into problems with the site operators?

ckpeter

ChgoBob, thanks for your help during the pre-release. ANX has improved because of your suggestions.

Sea-Wolf, glad to hear that you like it. ANX operates on similar ground as Yodlee, acting as agent of the user, when accessing the services of the various web sites.

3544quebec

Thanks for the tool.

I've found one anomaly searching for a seat GIG-BCN on Oct 10.

The QFF website returns:
Rio De Janeiro Madrid IB6024
Madrid Barcelona IB6766

available in Business Class

But Award Nexus searching with the QFF button doesn't bring up any availability

ckpeter

Thanks for the report. This is rather interesting. How are you doing a search on QF for GIG-BCN?

GIG does not seem to be a supported origin or destination on the QF web site drop down list. I tried submitting the GIG code directly to QF, bypassing the web site interface, but the site merely refreshes to the same page.

If you can tell me, step-by-step, how you do the search, I can find a way to make it work.

3544quebec

GIG is supported but:

The QFF website doesn't allow searches with the first segment starting in South America (for some unfathomable reason). So I need to do a mulitisegment search putting a dummy segment in for the 1st flight eg

Segment 1 BNE-SYD
segment 2 GIG-BCN

Thanks for looking at this

MKE-MR

Thanks--this is a great, fast, low-graphics engine.
I'm seeing a bug on IE7/PC though. The font gets bigger and bigger as I go down the page. If I use route builder it literally gets so that the submit button is bigger than my screen, so it seems to be some iteration in the layout (I'm not an expert on HTML/javascript/whatever is used).

Another bug: if I do get a lot of results, how can I actually see them all? For instance, a route like XXX-ORD-AMS may pull up a bunch of connections XXX-ORD even though it's only going to connect to the same ORD-AMS flight--but I can't expand the calendar to see what the latest connection available is since it sorts from the 6 AM flight and shows me that 6, 7, 8, 9 etc are all available.

ckpeter

Thanks for trying it out.

I see what you mean by the escalating font size in IE7. It is very weird. I will have to look into it.

As for the viewing option, are you referring to the results from a route builder search? My suggestion is that you use the checkboxes on the left to filter out the route that you want to see. So,

1) Select ORD-AMS to see what flights are available (since long hauls are usually the hardest to find).

2) Once you find the departure time for the desired ORD-AMS flights, deselect ORD-AMS and select XXX-ORD. Also, switch on flight time display under display settings, so you can see what time each flight arrives.

3) Don't forget that you can click on the calendar date for a more detailed display on the right.

Right now, the calendar view is tailored toward week-long search, but there is an upcoming table view option that should make it much easier to see all the flights in a listing.

In case I misunderstood your question, let me know if you were looking for something else.

ckpeter

I spent some time playing with the QF site and I can see that you workaround pulls up GIG options. That is such an odd restriction on QF's part.

I can modify the engine to switch from the current oneway search to multicity with workaround, but this is going to take more than a few days, especially since I haven't fully worked out all the implications of using the dummy first segment (e.g. access to additional cities and advance ticketing restriction). On the bright side, it looks like your dummy segment workaround also pulls up CX flights that is otherwise not visible, so that's a very useful discovery.

I have some upcoming enhancements that I need to roll out first. As soon as get them out, I am going to work on adapting the QF engine to search for GIG and related destinations.

ckpeter

I determined that the bug was due to some invalid HTML code, and it has been fixed.

Thanks for taking the time to let me know.

Rom Sac

Small change: would it be possible to update the title when the search is done? I often switch to a different tab as it runs in the background, and it would be nice to know that the search has completed.

Larger change: what about supporting multiple origins/destinations in a single query? For example, suppose I'm trying to get from ORD to LHR/FRA/CDG in a certain class and time range. It would be great to be able to make this a single query. This is especially valuable during high-demand periods, or when searching for more than 1 seat.

MKE-MR

Step 3) was the one that wasn't working. It was highlighted as clickable but nothing happened when I tried. Of course, my security settings aren't under my control at work (@#$%@#) so it might be no fault of the site.

Yup, doing it in Firefox on a Mac, it works and solves the problem. I'll check again at work just to make sure I'm not a total idiot but it seems not to work there for whatever reason.

stevenshev

Couple of things, but pretty solid start.

Should be a mixed-cabin flag.

Ran a CX search for F and it returned LAX-HKG-SYD - but I know HKG-SYD on this flight has no F. That should get flagged.

There should also be a nonstop option.

Good stuff otherwise.

ckpeter

Good points, and you brought them up with an excellent timing, as I just rolled out physical cabin display an hour ago, along with the option to hide mixed cabins.

The non-stop filter is not too difficult to implement, but I want to finish a few other changes first.

ckpeter

It is very possible that if you don't have a recent version of IE, parts of the site won't work. IE 8 is what I use, but I imagine IE 7 would work too. IE6 I am fairly certain will have problems.

Let me know if you encounter any other browser issue. I use Firefox primarily and sometimes I roll out changes without having the time to check with all the browsers.