SkyBuck

There are 27 or so airlines in *A and about that many different FF programs that an LH flight (or a UA flight, or an LH codeshare on UA, or vice versa) could be credited to. Each program has its own rules about RDM and EQM accrual for each fare class on each partner airline, and the rules and fare classes change now and again. Seems like it would be rather complicated for ITA to keep all of that updated and apply it to each search. Instead, they give you the calculation based on BIS miles, to which you can apply the rules of your preferred program -- and depending on the program, YMMV.

It would be nice to be able to set a preference to include or exclude 500-mile minimums, though.

sparkchaser

I am also interested in the answers to these questions.

aau

I'm getting weird strange behavior when performing an airfare search on ITA. After choosing the outbound portion of a roundtrip, ITA chooses the return portion automatically. Its always the lowest priced return leg. I'm not able to choose it myself. I first noticed this a couple of days ago and its happening on every computer I've tried. Anyone else seeing this issue?

miikkak

I'm having the same problem and many others. To be able find fares for certain big airlines offering the lowest fares inthe market I have to use advanced routing codes.

aau

I'm using advanced routing codes, like limiting the search to a one airline, but ITA still chooses the return leg for me. I think it defaults to the earliest departure if there are multiple options at the lowest price.

jbalmuth

I've noticed this as well. Some new (as in faulty) algorithm appears to have been implemented before being properly tested.

Palmer

I can't get ITA Matrix to work on my iPad. I've tried using it through various browsers on the iPad - Chrome, Apollo, Safari - and every time I search it just reloads the original splash screen, with the fields empty.

The Matrix iPad App is useless. There's no multi-city search option and no option to search for business class fares...

Palmer

c_9

The matrix website works perfectly on Safari on my iPad. Maybe it's time for a reboot?

dc_traveler

I'm also having the exact same problem.

ITA Hacker

I am not able to reproduce this problem.

The only thing that occurs to me is that you got put back into "complete trips" mode instead of "individual flights" or "time bars".

Can you describe exactly what you're seeing and how you got there? PM is also fine if you don't want to reply to this thread.

hillrider

I lately have noticed what I thought was a HUGE decrease in the quality of the results, which turns out to be a learning experience on which extensions to use.

I was searching MIL-SIN, outbound on 11FEB and return on 15FEB, business class, with advanced routing code "/ f BA" in both segments, and ITA completely missed a return SIN CX BKK BA LHR BA MXP connection than brings the total down from ITA's EUR 3486 to EUR 2551.

The connection in BKK is pretty long (9:15), but even modifying the advanced routing code on the return to "/f BA; maxconnect 720" won't bring out this best solution. "N* BKK N* / f BA; maxconnect 720" won't return anything, and one MUST spoonfeed "N* BKK N* LHR N* / f BA" before it brings the EUR 2551 solution.

It turns out that it's probably an issue isolated to using the "/ f xx" carrier fare extension. Using a "/ alliance oneworld" marketing carrier extension alone will return the EUR 2551 quote rapidly, as it does if you use a "/ alliance oneworld, f BA" or if you use a "BA,CX /f BA".

Lesson learned (and shared): don't start your searches with using "/ f xx" alone, and if you do, always specify the potential carriers (or an alliance) as well!

Incidentally, what I do find a problem is when matrix tells me (when I used "/ f BA") that the lowest cost is EUR 2710, when those itineraries are downgraded from the requested J to W on a 13 hours flight!! Poster definition for junk returns.

hillrider

A comment on the puzzling "/f xx" behavior: I am surprised that this is not a refined extension, as I thought that this would be the primary way for a private label solution. I.e. if carrier XX uses ITA to power its front end, it want to maximize its revenues by not restricting to sell only services that are entirely on itself, but also all options where there's an interline but it takes the share of the revenues (e.g. when its own fare governs the fare component). So I would have presumed the logic of the /f extension to be more mature, and really work.

I guess that's room for ITA to improve, and I guess that this type of feedback is the reason why matrix is free -- to get the type of feedback that makes it stronger.

dc_traveler

I sent a PM in order to spare readers the level of detail but I am still having the problem. Thank you for responding and taking a look.

angatol

.....

ITA Hacker

These extensions that we have allowed on matrix are intended for debugging by the developers, and our customers do not use them to limit searches (we have much more sophisticated static configuration that they use instead).

"/f ba" acts as a post filter; we generate a set of routes to consider without taking that restriction into account, then when we attempt to price we force the use of BA fares only. As you can imagine, most of the routes we generate on other carriers cannot be priced only with BA fares, so this is quite wasteful.

Other commands like "/alliance oneworld" restrict the routes considered to only those on oneworld carriers, so we try a lot more routes that can be priced with BA fares.