pone66

What would they be testing and watching for? This is obviously not a consumer service, and the idea that the "purpose" of leaving the ITA Matrix site around is that they are going to change the user interface and watch our response to that seems far fetched because millions of people are not using this. This is a power user tool for people who travel a lot and who probably have engineering or computer backgrounds and therefore do not fear command languages. That's a bizarre test audience for a consumer product company like Google. Where is the money in that for Google?

croberts134

Google bought ITA to get into the airline game. There are very few genuine pricing engines for airline shopping out there (Google QPX, Amadeus FlexPricer, PROS/Vayant OneSearch, SabreSonic Smart Shop) that actually power airline websites, GDS pricing, and other distribution channels. Pricing is a ridiculously complex task blown out by ever increasing itinerary numbers, class combinations, fare families/branded fares, etc.

They aren't testing the front end to see how people react; Google is testing through the public ITA front end, how their underlying methodology for returning more accurate pricing faster responds to changes. Better to see errors, missing itineraries, incorrect pricing in an environment where it doesn't matter (since there are no paying customers of the front end website) than have it happen on an airline's website or in distributing prices to OTAs, corporate TAs, etc.

fuyao

Not quite sure what I think about ITA.
Either they keep it online as a live demo for people interesting in purchasing ITA/QPX engines or its just there because its always been and nobody ever bothered into "taking it down"
I mean look at QPX Express, they were forced to offer it by anti monopoly rights to offer it for a grace period, once that was over they shut it down.

But QPX Express was extremely limited, didnt offer any of the advanced routing codes.
Up to this day ITA is the best b2c available search + availaibility + pricing engine.

I'd even go further: I've played around with a lot of GDS pricing engines and I must say, ITA is clearly the most accurate and fastest there is, much better than any GDS engine

Globaliser

No, AIUI it really is as croberts134 says. I don't know why people find it so hard to understand that, even though we can all see how ITA can perform differently from day to day or from week to week as ITA tweaks what the underlying software (not the interface) is doing with the countless millions of possible combinations that even fairly simple searches can throw up.

pone66

A really fantastic enhancement would be for Google to design an XML file format that embeds ITA commands. Allow us to save that XML file to our file system. Then give Google Flights an option to import that XML file for its own searches. In that mode, Google Flights would use the ITA Matrix as its back end, but the results and calendar display would all be done using the enhanced web user interface of Google Flights. That would be a very nice integration of those tools.

The other benefit of my approach is that complex, trip-specific searches could then be saved into discrete XML files and reloaded into ITA Matrix in future travel adventures.

armouredant

it’s worth pointing out that google flights doesn’t support the price calendar on multi city searches, only straight returns and one ways, so I’m not sure this feature would have the desired result.

pone66

ITA Matrix does not support calendar on multi-city as well. I think the ITA Matrix limitation is not theoretical. They just do not want the performance hit, which I do not think is reasonable because you can approximate the multi-city search in the simple roundtrip or one-way searches, just by additional routing code options.

In Google Flights you can effectively build a multi-city search into a roundtrip or one-way flight. You have a pull-down menu on which you can specify connecting cities and another pull-down where you can specify up to two connections allowed. The Date Grid in Google Flights works with those options. See the attached image where I configured SFO to ILM and routed through Atlanta and allowed up to two connections. The Date Grid works fine in that multi-city search.

Now, if you want to talk about designing vacations with three and four intermediate stops - where you must do the search using the full multi-city capability - then yes Google needs to decide how and if it wants to enable a Date Grid search for that case by any means. I think charging people for the performance hit to their servers would be a reasonable way to prevent people from abusing the capability.

Globaliser

What I think is completely unreasonable is criticism of the policies of a company that makes publicly and freely available a tool from which we benefit at no cost to ourselves, even though we are neither the company's customers nor the company's customer base. If ITA Matrix were intended to be some sort of service provided to members of the public such as ourselves on a commercial basis (whether subscription or ad-funded or whatever), that might be different. Google Flights is like that, but ITA Matrix isn't. So please could the "I want more" complaints be directed at other targets?

cheltzel

+1

I have been using ITA Matrix for several years and with the addition of the power tools, it has been my "go to" tool for finding some outrageously low fares.

And to add to the point that pone66 raises about using the calendar tool for simple round trips ... I have often done two simple round trip calendar searches for two different destinations (and some times two different departure points and have used the data to combine into one multi city trip that is either an open jaw or even a trip from A to B and a return from C to D and get the routing I want (and a price I like).

ITA Matrix has its blemishes and when google is messing around on the back end there have been many maddening issues where the tool just does not work. IMHO, considering the price we pay, a little sweat equity on our part is a small price to pay for the benefits that we can get from this tool.

pone66

Totally inappropriate remark. My comment was "Could I please PAY to get more?" I never asked for any free features.

If Google does not want to give more functionality as a commercial service, that is okay. But it is also okay for me - as a potential customer - to ask them if they are willing to do something for money. No foul, either way.

Globaliser

As a member of the public, you are neither a customer of ITA's nor a potential customer of ITA's.

pone66

The point is I was not rude to ask for a new feature. As long as my intent is to pay for that, asking for it is fair play. Google can politely decline and say I am not their customer. No foul either way.

Globaliser

It was not your request that was unreasonable (albeit that the request was unrealistic).

It was your criticism of ITA that was unreasonable, given what ITA does and what ITA Matrix is there for.

TWA884

Folks,

Please keep in mind FlyerTalk Rule 12.2 when posting in this thread:

TWA884
Travel Tools moderator

andydd

IMHO, ITA is an unparalleled monopoly and basically no other tool on the planet offers the advanved functionality offered by ITA.

ITA was a top notch product, until Google bought it and then treated it as a second cousin. Of course Google's main interest is in QPX and commercial customers.

Why does Google offers it for free for general public?
For the same reasons that ITA (before it was bought by Google)was offering for free to general public. I am guessing that they test features, performance loads on the system and also monitor what system can deliver or not. May be eventually introduce more features to its commercial product.

In any case, I am thankful for such a powerful and free service, with unparalleled fucntionality. I hope Google continues to operate it and may be even enhance the features in it. Nothing wrong to wish for more 😊