rmyadsk

I really like the Great Circle Mapper, in fact I used it and a spreadsheet for my calculations before Flying Fish came into being, but I never made this program to compete with it. If you are more visually oriented then hands-down the mapper is the better tool for you. Though it can only do distances...

I designed Flying Fish to take into account commonly used figures for frequent fliers (i.e. class bonuses, status bonuses, and the like) and have the ultimate output of the program be costs per mile/EQM/etc. as well as aggregate mileage totals (EQM and total miles besides actual distances). Those costs and totals - everything except distance - are the most important statistics to mileage runners, and they happen to be the exact pieces of information I needed those spreadsheets for.

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Flying Fish: FT'er developed mileage calculator tool

tfong007

I have a quick question. When I use the lookup for an American city. Say Denver, I get a code E57 and insert and I insert say YYZ nothing happens? But when I manually type in DEN and YYZ I get the mileage amount?

rmyadsk

Version 1.0.8 has been released. This version incorporates an enhanced lookup tool, whereby you may now lookup airports by name and /or code, and have information such as elevation, latitude, and longitude displayed. The help file has also been updated. Several smaller interface improvements are also included.

There is a bug on the route dstination field which I am working on. This is due to the way the flight routing box is handled. A need some opinions before finalizing the solution: would you like the program to automatically insert dashes after an airport code? i.e. you enter LAX for Los Angeles and the program will automatically enter a dash after the X, so you may enter the next airport code. Or do you prefer manually entering a routing with the dashes yourself?

Please, leave a response with your thoughts.

-Ryan

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Flying Fish: FT'er developed mileage calculator tool

rmyadsk

This bug is actually an issue with the data set. Names and information are looked up using DAFIF, the Digital Aeronautical FLight Information File, which is the de facto standard for aviation navigation and planning. Names are found only as they exist in DAFIF, i.e. the airport with code E57 is found in DDAFIF first before Denver International Airport is.

In fact, I have adjusted the program so only alphabetic codes are queried in the flight routing box. Codes with numbers are general-aviation and other airports not used for commercial flights.

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Flying Fish: FT'er developed mileage calculator tool

cbellero

It works great. It would be nice to have paid class bonus of 200%, otherwise some programs, such as LH cannot automatically be calculated for first class.

Also it doesn't seem that the Other Bonus Miles are added into the total equation.

A long term suggestion would be to add the possibility of setting the boni on a segment by segment basis. This would allow the possibility to do computations, like "I am booked on a two-class aircraft on a RTW C ticket and need this segment to be credited as Y or F (US).

Thanks for the great software!

rmyadsk

You can currently type in any number (followed by a percentage symbol) into the box to set your desired bonus, for example 200%, though I am adding that number now. Very soon those levels and elite-qualifying markers will be customizable from an options screen.

"Other Bonus Miles" works once again. I was declaring it in two modules and it was resetting to zero.

The issues above will be addressed in 1.0.9 due out very soon.

Bonus by segment is very interesting and I may want to implement it sometime.

THanks for the suggestions!

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Flying Fish: FT'er developed mileage calculator tool

[This message has been edited by rmyadsk (edited Mar 21, 2004).]

rmyadsk

Since I didn't get any responses about the auto-insert feature I'm going to make it an option. On a side note, more and more of the program will become customizable.

Other upcoming features include a tighter interface, a fully fixed route destination field, and a better flight routing input box. This is in progress and I expect 1.1 to be out by the end of this weekend.

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Flying Fish: FT'er developed mileage calculator tool

rmyadsk

Version 1.1.0 is now available for download. This version is a major update which fixes many interface quirks and bugs.

Many options are now controlled via the "Options" toolbar, including auto-roundtrip routing and auto-dash-insert (the latter function is still in an early stage and is imperfect but for the most part will save you from pressing the "-" button between city pairs).

You may also lookup codes/information by name or code now, and the search mechanisn has been enhanced. Also the help file has been made a bit more user-friendly.

Please, offer your comments and suggestions. Remember that the auto-insert feature is still quite early and in heavy development.

davidMEL

this is completely fabulous. thank-you so much.

if i could add anything it would be status credits earned for puposes of attaining higher levels in various frequent flyer programs (i understand there is a basic system for one world and star alliance, although i could be wrong). and some airlines provide bonuses in points for higher levels as well as class of travel. no doubt these are both complex and vary for almost each program. besides, these things can be calculated fairly easily by hand once the base mileage is known.

well done. a great help.

I-flybynight

Thanks I'll download it again.

kelly786

Hi

Thanks so much for the fabulous tool. I use it all the time.

Would like to download the newest version, but the link below doesn't work. Could u put the web address.
kelly786

rmyadsk

Version 1.1.1 has been released. This version fixes some minor interface problems and some internal code reductions. You'll find the program here:

Download Flying Fish 1.1.1, 544KB, 4/7/2004

rmyadsk

I'm not familiar with status credit programs but it would not be hard to implement another such marker into the program. Perhaps you are referring to programs like Northwest's Platinum Points?

As for the second question, in terms of miles, I think what you are talking about is what the class bonus and status bonus dropdown boxes are provided for (percentage-wise). You may select which of these bonuses, if any, are elite-qualifying, and which, if any, are status-only. They work as a percentage of the base routing of each segment and are added into the itinerary totals. You may select a percentage from the dropdown list or enter your own followed by a percentage symbol.

Again, only for miles, there is also a "other bonus miles" field where you may enter an actual number of miles you will earn, for example 1000. This is particularly useful for online check-in bonuses, periodic new route bonus offers, and the like. Also these may be elite-qualifying or status-only. These are also added into the totals.

Thank you for your feedback, it is appreciated. Tell your frequent-flying friends about the program if you think they will find it useful. There is no greater praise...

Quick primer: negative values

If you are unfortunate enough to fly on a carrier which provides less than 100% EQM for flights on discount fares, you may calculate how many EQMs you will earn by compensating for that in the class bonus field. For example, if you earn 50% EQM on cheap fares, enter a class bonus of -50% and make it status-only. That 50% will be subtracted from your elite miles. If you earn 75% EQM, enter a class bonus -25%, etc.

You may also enter negative values into the "other bonus miles" box. For example, if you are not comfortable taking a long mileage run in Y, you might want to burn some miles for an upgrade to a higher class of service (some might argue doing this defeats the purpose of a mileage run and rather is a "status run" only, but I digress...). Simply enter a minus in the "other bonus miles" box followed by the number of miles you spent on the upgrade. This will be taken into account when totals are calculated. This is useful for calculating accurate costs per mile, etc.

rmyadsk

The next version, 1.1.5, will be a major update. There are two major added features:

*Improved help screens including an "About" screen with feedback and website links, and a version check feature which will seek the latest version number from the website and tell you if an update is available.

*A cost rating system. In addition to the cents per mile cost, there is a color-coded symbology/rating tied to these values. The system provides a visual, instantly recognizable picture of an itinerary's value to the user. The lower the cost, the better the rating. There are five grades, internally coded A, B, C, D, and F as in school. An A rating has a green color; a B rating, a yellow-green color; a C rating, a yellow color; a D rating, a yellow-red (orange) color; and an F rating, a red color. The color updates automatically with costs. They are different ratings for distance flown, elite miles, and total miles. The thresholds for each grade are 100% configurable by the user (i.e. you may decide only itineraries with costs less than .5 cents per EQM get an A rating, and so forth) for each category and threshold.

The cost rating system is the catalyst for making the program altogether more configurable. The interface will be made more and more configurable with each progressive version.

Obviously there's some documentation I need to get working on.

There are also some smaller improvements including an overall hardened code structure, some minor interface improvements, a configurable per-segment minimum mileage (aside from the default 500 if you wish), and other bugfixes.

You can expect 1.1.5 to be out on Thursday, but maybe it will be leaked here a bit early.

rmyadsk

Major Development: April 13, 2004

This weekend I completely rewrote the module which calculates distances. This uses an Ellipsoidal model of the Earth (compensating for the flattening/fattening of the Earth around the equator) rather than a spherical model. This greatly enhances the accuracy of mileages between airports with respect to what is reported by the airlines. In fact, for every flight I have taken and is reported on my FF statements, the mileage reported by Flying Fish has been exactly the same as on the statements (from both Northwest and United). I think that if you were waiting for a reason to begin using this program, this is it!

Processing/calculation times are similiar to what the old formula used (i.e. very fast).

A quirk of one of the equations that is used (which is so long and complicated it makes my head hurt thinking of it) is that for very large distances over 5000 miles or so, the mileage can become wildly inaccurate. I am exploring and researching this issue now but have implemented a failsafe: by default the program calculates mileages by the new (very accurate) method but for very long segments the program calculates mileages by the old (99% or so accurate) method.

I can virtually guarantee that every domestic U.S. segment (even ones including long flights such as Continental's EWR-HNL) will be accurate, as it will be calculated by the new method.

I will have the first version to use this technology released for you Wednesday night. This is a very major upgrade and will thus carry a version marker of 1.2. This version also incorporates an online version check where you may check to see if you have the most recent version installed, as well as the aforementioned rating/grading display system.