Again, thanks for your fast response--trying to use SQ KFF, and having no luck at all :S. For reference, the flight I am investigating is SQ237 on 30 March, which is showing CS, but both SQ and a travel agent have told me no I class on that flight--shame really, I was hoping for that upgrade :). Only telling you exact details because you might be able to figure out exactly what is going on--whether SQ have changed their feed on you or something.

You need to take some strong placebo pill and let KVS go... It's not what it used t be anymore... Time to move!

There is saver level award availability on SQ237 on 30/Mar. You can verify this yourself using the SQ website.

I'm no expert on SQ KFF, but award and upgrade are often two extremely different things...

Nor am I, just pointing out that the award inventory is being correctly displayed. Whether that means they can upgrade is another matter as you say.

I believe KVS finds BA availability by running a "hidden browser" that visits ba.com and does a large number of searches. In the industry this is called "Scraping". This is the reason KVS is a computer program - it runs code on your machine that talks to ba.com (and other airline sites, travel agents, etc). But you surely know all this as a KVS user.

The BA.com terms of service
http://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/...rms-conditions

states
Now it's entirely possible that BA have given KVS their express written agreement, however as you are the person running it that doesn't help you. As such, running KVS and doing a search for BA appears to be in contravention of their terms of service.

Sadly BA.com do not advertise their revenue codes (Z, U, P, X) via the standard method (GDS) that they use for F,A,J,C,D,R,I,W,E,T,Y,B,H and the lower classes. They did for a while, about 14 months ago, and availability came up on legitimate tools like flightstats or expertflyer -- tools that pay for the data and access it legally. I made great use of this to bump my SEA CW return to a SEA F return using expertflyer's email notification service.

The fact the the KVS mobility companion appears to only offer access to data that can be legitimately bought on the open market, and doesn't instead run the code the KVS tool runs, implies to me that the person running the servers is actually concerned about the legality of the scraping tool, so he doesn't use it in a situation where he can be more easily traced.

If you are in a library soon, you may want to see if you can find Decoding Air Travel: A Guide to Saving on Airfare and Flying in Luxury - By Nicholas Kralev, who metnions KVSTool and Victor (aka KVSTool), and the fact that airline officials have complained about it.

KVSTool claims to be a browser, however it masquerades as internet explorer, rather than have it's own "Signature", that legitimate webbrowsers have.

The last time a guy <deleted by moderator> tried to sell me something seemingly useful down the pub, for a "donation", I said no, I wasn't worries it was broken in it's fall off the back of the lorry, or that the police might get me for handling stolen goods, it's the morality of such a thing that turns me off.

Indeed, there is definitely I (CS) Class Availability on that flight, which can be confirmed via SQ.com:

http://i.snag.gy/1C7c9.jpg

Travel Agents cannot see I Class Availability.
You may wish to contact SQ directly to find-out the actual reason why your Upgrade is not going through ...

If KVS did a large number of automated searches and saved that data, I would agree with you in calling it a scraper. But it doesn't. I use KVS for only one search at a time, similar to my activity when I use Internet Explorer to view the website. KVS simply presents the data to me differently than IE.

Incredibly, the terms of service require the user to have BA's express written agreement to access their website using any browser.

There is nothing in the ... that changes the meaning of this extract.

I don't see anything here that prevents me from accessing their website with KVS any more than accessing it with IE. (In fact both violate their ToS.)

Yes, KVS behaves badly here by not identifying itself as the user-agent. It breaks convention. But that does not make it illegitimate or illegal, it just makes it badly behaved.

You should search a definitions of "computer program"... KVS Availability Tool is a computer program, Internet Explorer is a computer program, Firefox is a computer program. Basically everything on your computer is a computer program since it runs code on your machine as you say...

That's where you are wrong. In many cases, KVS queries either various sources or one source repeatedly before presenting aggregated results. I can prove that KVS indeed stores data in volatile memory before presenting them...

To be fair to KVS, KVS is not the only culprit here. You should do more reading before saying "It breaks convention"... AFAIK, "user-agent" does not say "who I am" but is says to whom I am compatible with... So for example, Opera uses "Mozilla/5.0"...

I have done more reading recently and interestingly, I found that in my own country (Australia), the Spam Act 2003 makes harvesting of e-mail addresses from websites illegal... I know, it is different from what KVS does, but I am going to do more reading about tis...

Can we please stop clogging this thread with posts about the legality of this tool, it's been going on for months and it's BORING. If you don't want to use the tool because you feel you are committing a crime, fine, that is your choice. You have the Wiki post on this thread so be happy with that and lets leave this thread for KVS tool support.

Which is exactly what the sources of that data are trying to prevent by establishing TOSes that prohibit this. This is a civil issue, not a criminal one.

It's not a KVS owned thread for "support". It's a FlyerTalk thread. @:-)

Moderator's note:

Does KVS work to pull CX award availability using AA miles? I know it stopped working many months ago

What stopped working?

KVS shows CX award availability via any of the 4 OneWorld methods available. Whether or not AA will confirm what any of them show is another matter.

The JL-OneWorld method appears to be the most reliable with showing CX award seats available to AA customers. It one of just many great features that KVS offers.

That is correct.

Indeed, the [Awards/JL-OneWorld] Method is the authoritative source for Partner Award Availability on CX flights:

http://Help.KVSTool.com/#CX

If CX Award Availability is shown via the [Awards/JL-OneWorld] Method, then an Award seat can, most definitely, be booked using AADV miles, subject only to the competency of the Agent.

Indeed, there have been no changes in that regard.

We're glad you are continuing to enjoy the benefits of your KVS Tool Membership.

It has certainly been documented and tested on other threads that JL can give different results depending on whether the JMB account is registered in the Americas, Europe and Oceania zones etc. In what sense then can you be 'most definite' about it?

Weirdly, any search from NYC airports (only) on the Awards/Upgrades tab yields:

Error Requesting Data [RD-1]
Error 12002: Timeout
The request has timed out.
Disconnected (30s)

Error 35756: Unable to complete request/MSIE off-line mode activated disconnected

What's going on?

+1, been going on for the past week - assuming you're using Awards/BA-Oneworld?

Looks like you can't use NYC anymore, just JFK or EWR

Correct

Actually, I tried initially with JFK/EWR but that generated the error. I then tried NYC but got the same thing.

Interesting - the reverse (NYC) caused the error for me, but now I'm good w/JFK and EWR.

I'd ping KVS.

I'm now getting this error all over the place. KVS, what's going on please?

As CX Award Availability can, indeed, vary by POS country, you do need to ensure that your POS country matches the POS of the AA call center that you will be using for booking (e.g. US).

KVS Tool supports all 4 possible POSs for the [Awards/JL-OneWorld] Method.

Please follow the instructions at http://Help.KVSTool.com/#TimeOut to make the necessary corrections to your local system.

All systems continue to function normally -- please follow the instructions above to prevent the Time-Out error from occurring.

How come the ONLY city query I get the issue with is the NYC code?

Because the time required for the Engine to respond may vary, depending on the query.

In any case, this issue is moot, as this error will not occur on a properly-configured system.

KVS for United Upgrade space?
 

I did not renew my EF subscription after United disconnected them from upgrade space ('R') availability. To me that was a very useful feature and that's the ONLY reason I paid $99 for the annual subscription. Now I have to do manual searches on ua.com which is frustrating and time consuming. Would KVS tool be an option for me or did United cut them off to?

Thanks.

Unfortunately, UA currently blocks the display of its R Class Upgrade Availability, so it is not accessible via any Tool or service.

For details of Award/Upgrade Booking Classes, supported by the KVS Tool, please refer to the KVS Tool User Guide.

Hi KVS, qf FF update needed? Getting 404 error messages (yes I mean the tool giving those messages)

Must have been a transient Engine issue -- all systems are functioning normally at the moment.

I've been getting these, both at home and in the office (different computers, ISPs) consistently in the last 24 hours:

http://www.hongkongcard.com/webedito...4251_19411.jpg

Even for straightfoward SYD-BNE April 2015 lookups.
All four POSes tried with same result.

FWIW, I just checked on a couple different POS, and it worked fine for me.

Oh. Very well it might not be something wrong with the tool

Can I confirm you're on 7.7.5?

I was on 7.7.4 when I posted previously. Just swapped to 7.7.5, and still working.

Please try clearing your MSIE cookies/cache and restarting the KVS Tool.

If that does not help, please contact us directly.

Turns out it's because both my computers have Traditional Chinese HKSAR as non-Unicode program language (even if my Windows is English). 7.7.5R1 resolved problem, many thanks KVS.

WDC-Auth request fails
 

KVS is down. I cannot even reach errors.KVStool.com to understand what the error is but it says unable to reach server. It cannot authenticate the license.

KVS should post here if they are having problems.

Same error for me

No issues here. Even found 10K points on reissue this AM.

Our DNS provider is currently experiencing an outage, which is affecting some, but not all users.

We are actively monitoring the situation and will post a further update as soon as more info becomes available.

Update: Our DNS Provider's issues have now been resolved.