Basic questions - forgive my naivete. I'm trying to figure out if the value of this tool for my particular needs is greater than the cost (and at what level I would need to "contribute" should I chose to do so).

I used to use EF every couple of weeks to look at fare bucket availability for DL flights in the continental US. Not partner availability, but DL marketed flights. I'm sad that it's gone. Does this tool offer that sort of visibility? Like Y9 B9 M9 Q4 H0.... type of stuff? I would use this info to find SDC opportunities, respond to IROPS, etc.

Probably once or twice a year it might be nice to use a tool like this to look for DL awards (again primarily in the continental US), but I was never able to use EF for that. Is that something that is available in the KVS Tool?

I have, yes. If I understand rightly, it is:
1) Find a different fare
2) Navigate through some menus
3) Type in a set of city codes and a particular RTW fare code

I still haven't figured out how to see the set of possible RTW fare codes from a particular city - which is why I bought the tool.

Two parts to this:

Regular availability: KVS will do what you're asking for, with a couple notes. One, availability is currently only available through the mobile companion (and not available on the desktop app), which requires the highest tier of "membership"/"contribution"/whatever. It is unclear why this availability source is not available on the desktop app, nor has there been any info about getting a source in the app.

The second note on regular availability is that for unspecified reasons, flights in the morning (before a certain hour, I forget which) will not be shown.

As for award availability, just to be clear, KVS doesn't provide a new source of data, it just formats it differently, as it scrapes various websites. Any result you get in KVS for an award search, you can get by finding the appropriate airline website. That said, KVS does provide handy tools like saving searches and multi-day searching (although I couldn't ever seem to get that to work).

tl;dr: yes, and kind of (though both answers have caveats)

You can't search for a listing of RTW fares with KVS anymore. Currently that can only be done with ExpertFlyer.

Sigh.

Back to EF I go then. I just wish it wasn't so rapid to sign out - when using a slow connection it's a real pain (which is what made KVS Tool so appealing).

Please contact us via http://Contact.KVSTool.com/

Your understanding is correct -- currently, each specific RTW Fare must be requested separately.

Yes and yes -- the KVS Tool supports both of the above-mentioned functions at the Diamond Level.

Fares with unspecified airline
 

Apart from still not being able to do US/CA fare searches, it's now impossible to search for fares without specifying an airline? If I leave the airline field blank, it defaults to IATA YY fares, which of course are insanely expensive. By that logic, just searching for fares between A and B to see which airline has the best deal isn't possible anymore?

Please be sure to select the "** (All Airlines)" option, not "YY (IATA YY Fares)":

[KVS Tool 7.7.2/Diamond - Fares/GOL]

Thanks!

Hello

Why did you remove the GTC availability method ?

BTW the new (and only one) fare method is a shame : having to double-click to see the fare bucket :rolleyes:

@ KVS

Thank you for answering this questions about your tool:

• Why won't you integrate the mobile availability into the tool?
• Why does the tool not contain any link to the mobile availability site?
• What's the POS of the mobile availability site?
• Which GDS supplies the data to the mobile availability site?
  
• What's the POS of the Fares/GOL method?

help
 

from reading the comments and seeing the new kvs availability tool screens i am trying to figure the following

i ised to be able to see availability for the different classes a j etc

this allowed me to wait out for lastminute aeroplan purchases on lh lx and united

for example if 8 seats were available then i knew that 1 would be released a week before and a second the next day how do i still do this
i am a long time kvs user and actually enjoyed the service

It was removed for policy reasons.

This type of integration is being considered, but is currently not feasible for operational reasons.

These parameters are dynamically-managed and not fixed.

Regular Availability is currently accessible via the KVS Tool Mobile Companion.

[Issue fixed 12 Dec (post #53 below)]

I'm not sure whether this is new, I certainly haven't noticed this with Availability/FS and Availability/GTC before

But the KVS Tool Mobile Companion results are incomplete. Examples:

HKG-MEL 22Dec CX Direct: CX105 00:05 not shown
HKG-YVR 15Jul CX Direct: CX888 00:30 not shown
HKG-DOH 15Oct all airlines direct: QR815 01:30 not shown

In the long run we really need an Availability search function back in the tool.

I renewed my Diamond membership (my 7th contribution to date) and they quoted me what I said in the other thread:

"I don't think I'll be able to continue 'supporting' this tool"
"Thankfully, there are alternatives."

And asked me why I changed my mind?

Simply put, my dislike for your business practices and the $45 fee for 6 months does not outweigh my need for the convenience the Tool offers.

But of course, if the practices get shadier or the "contribution" amount increases, that may change.

It's a known bug (in that the bug is stated somewhere on the KVS website). The mobile companion availability search can't display flights before 0700. It's unclear why that is. I haven't seen any workarounds.

ETA: bug has been fixed; see post 53.

The Mobile Companion Engine was previously unable to display flights departing earlier than 07:00 [am]. This issue has now been resolved and the website will be updated shortly.

OK, can see the the three flights now, thanks for resolving.

One World Awards
 

Hi KVS,
is there a know bug which prevents looking up award seats using the QF/One World method? All I get is a "Engine Error"
Thanks :)

What are your search parameters?

Need availability info but can't access KVS Mobile Tool
 

I'm a Diamond-level contributor but have used KVS Tool only occasionally and had never tried to use the mobile tool until a few days ago, when I tried to search for non-award availability on a particular airline in my preferred class of service. Got a message that the current version doesn't allow this and that I should upgrade to the latest version. Went to the upgrade page and it said latest version also doesn't include availability, must use the "KVS Tool Mobile Companion". So I went to my Ipad and followed the instructions for signing on to the mobile tool (email address plus a password that is the ten-digit "S-number" for KVS on my laptop) but got a message that this is an incorrect username and/or password. Tried again several times, checked to be sure email and S-number were correct, same result. Filled out a web-based email form detailing the above and asking for help; the next screen said I'd get an email response within 24 hours. That was three or four days ago, but I have not yet received a response. I'm running out of ideas. Do I really need to go to the airline site and do multiple dummy bookings/seat map checks to get a rough idea of availability on various days during my time period, or have I been missing something in my attempts to access the KVS mobile companion? Thanks so much for any suggestions.

Please provide an alternative e-mail address via http://Contact.KVSTool.com/

OK, I've sent you an alternative email address. But all the addresses I have are from the services you recommend not using. Why on earth would AOL, Yahoo, and gmail all reject messages from the domain kvstool.com, while servers from businesses etc. would let these messages go through? (This isn't a rhetorical question; I'm genuinely curious. And my curiosity is compounded by the fact that I've received numerous less important messages --- notifications of subscription renewal etc. -- from KVS Tool in the past. Why would they reject the one message I really need?)

I have recently started having a terrible time with getting my e-mail on AOL originating from FlyerTalk. The e-mail alerts I receive are coming anywhere from 3 to 24 hours after they have been generated by FlyerTalk. I contacted FlyerTalk and they advised that AOL is delaying or preventing e-mail from them.

We have now forwarded a copy of our previous e-mail response to your alternative e-mail address.

This is not specific to our domain in any way -- AOL is currently blocking or severely delaying incoming e-mail messages from a wide range of IP addresses.

This question would be best directed to AOL itself.

Indeed, it's a widespread problem with AOL.

Its not so much the domain, its when you use mail servers to send out mail that not are associated with the domain in the email address that the receiving mail servers get suspicious thinking its spam.

Gmail seems to work for receiving email from KVS. I have a gmail account for KVS that forwards to the account I really read. Got his GTC instructions OK. I also use this method to receive Le Club Accor and National Australia Bank email.

Jet Airways Award Availability?
 

Does KVS offer Jet Airways (9W) award availability? AA offers LHR BOM awards via Jet.

Does the app now include legitimate 'GTC' access, paid for by subscriptions to KVS?

KVS Tool supports Award Availability on 112+ airlines worldwide:
http://Help.KVSTool.com/#Classes

However, 9W is not currently one of them.

Trying to figure out why a simple domestic US OneWorld award isn't showing up in KVS Tool. I'm searching on Dec 26 PHX-MCI and have tried Awards/BA-OneWorld and also Awards/OneWorld and the only results I get are on AA flights with connections.

When I look on usairways.com and aa.com there is a non-stop on US that has low availability. Why isn't this flight showing up on the KVS Tool?

Questions related to the legality, or exposure to civil claims by use, of the KVS application won't be answered. However, the answer to your question appears to be "no." I am not aware of any legal way to access GTC, unless you are an authorized user of that system.

On the Mobile Companion, I keep getting an error - - -

"Reservation system error {I1). Please try again later."

Any thoughts?

I checked the subscription expiration date - Jan 6.

Same here. Thought I was doing something wrong, glad to see I'm not the only one with problems.

NOW, I can't even get the app to open! I get . . . .

"Webpage not available"

Again, I get the same. The main website for the KVS Tool is also not accessible.

The KVS Tool Homepage server had experienced a brief outage earlier on.

The Mobile Companion issue has now been resolved -- please try again at your convenience.

Can anyone find KVS mobile tool in apple app store? I had it on my old phone and can't seem to find to download on new phone.

Please see http://www.KVSTool.com/Mobile-Companion-Info.php

OW awards
 

Method: Awards/OneWorld (QF credentials are entered, of course)
From: Muc
To: BKK/SFO/JFK/SIN (and loads of other airports)
Date: 01.Jan 2015 till August 2015
POS: AU-QFA-SP
Seats: 1

Message: No award availabilty/Engine Error