IIRC correctly from my upgrade, your 3 months of Gold will get prorated down based on some formula (probably based on the relative cost of Gold vs Diamond) and then added to the months of Diamond that your purchase. Probably something like 7 months of Diamond total (3 months of Gold prorated to 1 month of Diamond + 6 months of purchased Diamond). Note that I have no idea what the formula for prorating is, so the above is just an example.

That is correct.

Based on the actual formula, it will be a total of 7.4 Months (i.e. 1.4 Months [which is the equivalent of 3 Months Gold] + another 6 Months).

Not at the moment, but you can use the Alliance [Filter] buttons in the main KVS Tool application.

Thanks for the suggestion, jasonvr - downloaded and installed it.

I did a screen capture of browsing the ANA site (around 4s search then 2s per day change):
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/647010/ANA%20website.wmv (2.7MB)

and also did one of KVS Tool:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/647010/KVS%20Tool.wmv (4.7MB)

Hopefully this shows how speedy things are when looking at fares/timetables compared to the slowdown when looking at award inventory. The >30s times I got previously thankfully don't seem to be the norm but it remains 3-4x slower than the ANA website at around 15s or so/search today).

Thanks for uploading the screen captures, from which it can be seen that your actual timings for the *A Award Searches are:

• Using a Regular Web Browser: 20 seconds (starting at 00:00, ending at 00:20)
• Using the KVS Tool: 15 seconds (starting at 00:41, ending at 00:56)

LOL I agree with the KVS one, but not quite sure how you get the web browser timings! :) You seem to be counting the time to type in details on the webpage, which isn't a fair comparison - so it's actually from 00:15 when the 'Next' orange button is clicked to 00:20.

I appreciate KVS allows for other items to be changed between searches but realistically I just want to find dates I can get an award booked! It's the day-to-day search that is particularly problematic - in a practical sense when I'm searching for an award then what I need to do is keep clicking through to find a day with the award - the website seems to be much quicker at doing this. The interesting thing was that when it was taking >30s for a KVS search the website one was no different in time - thankfully this seems to have improved a bit but I'm on the same machine so I don't know why.

why is the payment system to get KVS designated as a "contribution", rather than a "purchase". is this to skirt tax laws?

You need to start at the beginning of the process (i.e. Step 1 at 00:00) for comparison.

Even if you subtract the time it took you to do the typing in that video (i.e. ~5 seconds from 00:07 to 00:12) from the 00:20 total search duration using a [regular] web browser, that will still make your website timing 15 seconds (which is the same as the KVS Tool).

As mentioned previously, the [Previous/Next] functions in the KVS Tool are different (and more powerful) than those in ANA. They cannot (and should not) be compared directly.

Likewise, as mentioned before, that is a technical impossibility.

Once again, thanks for taking the time to create the video screenshots, which have now fully confirmed that the timings are within their normal ranges and the discrepancies you had previously reported cannot be substantiated.

I appreciate the point you're attempting to make, KVS, but I disagree. In the practical way I want to use it - ie. searching for availability on a known route over a number of days - KVS is slower than ANA. TBH on my most recent award booking it was the free AwardNexus.com that did the trick, mainly as it can search multiple dates at once.

Anyway, we'll just need to agree to disagree - you've received my 2 months Diamond fee but I won't be renewing once this time is up.

The Beta for Award Availability on Etihad Airways [EY], is now underway.

Those, who have already signed-up for this Beta, should have received the relevant instructions. Otherwise, please be sure to check your Spam/Junk e-mail folder.

If you are interested in joining this Beta, but haven't yet done so, please complete the EY Beta RSVP Form on the KVS Tool Homepage at http://www.KVSTool.com/

For EY Beta feedback, please visit the http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/other...-searches.html thread.

And if you are redeeming AADV miles, please also see the http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...advantage.html thread.

same. also, the lack of native OSX support (i.e. without requiring parallel/vm solutions requiring $ 3rd party app) is disappointing.

In practice, this hasn't been an issue for the many KVS Tool members, who continue to run the KVS Tool on their Macs every day:

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

http://www.KVSTool.com/Images/Screen..._CrossOver.gif

I am known to be critical of KVS at times, but I do not agree with this. KVS is natively available for PC only and that's it. There are thousands of such software packages available on the market and people do not stop using them or spit on them just because they are not available for other platforms.

Coupon
 

Are there any active coupon codes for the annual membership? Thanks!!

Looks like Amadeus - Enhanced Seat Maps. I get the error:

"Error Retrieving Seat Map Data: Unable to initialize the Seat Map engine"

Hmmm...seems dependent on the query. Not all queries cause a problem, however clicking on any of the non-stop flights in the query below seem to give the error:

[KVS Availability Tool 6.7.0/Diamond - ITA: Awards-Upgrades/CO]

As this is a UA/CO-specific issue, the reply has been moved to the http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/conti...l#post17458523 thread.

Odd, must be a recent change. I've checked these within the last few days. Maybe an effect of the merger?

Ohh, and I had trimmed out the connecting flights which is why they were all non-stop :) The query brings back connecting flights as well.

I also ran into something on another query with seat maps, maybe related? It was telling me that a certain cabin didn't exist on the flight. It was a CO flight and I was checking for business (which used to work). However it would let me bring up F which would be more typical of UA.

As this is a UA/CO-specific issue, the reply has also been moved to the http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/conti...l#post17458542 thread.

First-time user, so apologies if the answer to this is obvious, but I've searched and can't figure it out:

Using the Awards/OneWorld method, I see there there is business class award availability on IB flights, but when I go to check availability in that bucket, nothing is returned. For example, searching IB 6274 (ORD-MAD) on 6/17/12 shows CS+ under Awards/Upgrades, but when I check U inventory under the Availability tab using Amadeus I get no results.

I'm searching for U based on the chart on the website -- should I be searching in a different bucket, or is there something I'm missing?

Has the OW search using the BA engine broken overnight since they switched to Avios? I keep getting an error message when looking for some JL availability.

[Awards/BA-OneWorld] Method Temporarily Unavailable
 

Indeed, this is a result of this overnight changeover. As soon as they finalize the new design, we will be releasing an updated version of the KVS Tool.

Welcome to the KVS Tool!

As with most Award Booking Classes, IB Award Availability should be searched via the [Awards/Upgrades] Tab in the KVS Tool.

Please see the table at http://Help.KVSTool.com/#AwardUpgradeClasses_OneWorld for details.

BTW, there is no "Amadeus" "under the Availability tab" :confused:.

Thanks for the quick reply. Sorry, meant Galileo, wrote the post in a hurry. Regardless, though -- if availability is shown in the awards/upgrades tab, I can ignore 0 inventory in the Availability tab for that award bucket?

IB is known to have occasional issues with its Award Availability across different systems and the U Class showing-up in Regular Availability searches is something quite recent, so we don't yet have any authoritative data on this particular scenario...

There are no Coupon Codes, but you are welcome to take advantage of the annual bonus that is automatically included in all of the 12-month membership options.

Is there a pattern to the issues (i.e. does it tend to show availability when there is none, or vice versa)? For example, I just tried to call AA to book said flight and they were unable to find me a seat -- is it more likely that the agent wasn't looking at the system correctly, or that Qantas is returning availability when there is none? I'm guessing the latter, but I typically fly AA metal so I'm unfamiliar with the OW partner process.

Either one is possible -- an easy way to check would be to call AADV (possibly a few times) with the following 2 flights and verify what they see on their end:

[KVS Availability Tool 6.7.0/Diamond - Sabre: Availability/FS/US]
Vs.

[KVS Availability Tool 6.7.0/Diamond - Amadeus: Awards/OneWorld/AU-QFA-SP1]

Good catch. Called AA and it seems that the U inventory is accurate in this case, not the award results (confirmed that there were 3 seats available up front on 6250 but nothing on 6252).

KVS is awards/oneworld/ba down?

Its prompting me to upgrade to the latest version which I did and still didn't work. I lost the EY upgrade beta this way too.

A new version of the KVS Tool is scheduled to be released later on today or tomorrow -- please stay tuned ...

And the data from the [Awards/BA-OneWorld] Еngine matches those results also:

[KVS Availability Tool 6.7.9931/Diamond - Amadeus: Awards/BA-OneWorld]

KVS Tool Version 6.8.0 is now available for download: http://www.KVSTool.com/

Any coupon for FT members?

YGPM! ;)

Any coupon for longtime members considering renewal ;)

YGPM! ;)

Passcode problem
 

Hi there, just joined KVS on 12 months diamond membership but havent got a temporary password to start using it, just got email confirmation of purchase/contribution, any help appreciated. :)

(edit: just been emailed the code, thanks!)

Welcome to FT & the KVS Tool!

Hi KVS - How about an actual mac version??

got one - and a brilliant one. The script works GREAT, runs on multi platforms and gives the answers I want. THANKS!!! ^ ^

+1