Welcome to FT!

Indeed, KE Award Availability is not currently visible via any Tool, service or website whatsoever.

Other than this notable exception, the KVS Tool fully supports Award Availability throughout all 3 major alliances (Star Alliance, OneWorld and SkyTeam):

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

Personally, I prefer KVS, but I hate the go arounds to make it work on Mac OS. Until then I'm using the competition. Would be nice if you had a mac native client.

KVS shows YS+, AA can't see it
 

i'm trying to book a one-way coach saver award, MIA-EZE. lan arg (4M) shows availability in coach (YS+) on the KVS tool, amadeus-oneworld. but when i call AA to book it, they tell me it's only available in biz. i called 4M who tells me the seats in coach are available to OW members. KVS uses qantas to show availability, so if it's available to qantas, it should be available to AA, right? why can't AA see them? are they blocking them? any clues?

In my experience the BA/Oneworld and the QF/Oneworld tools do sometimes show different availability. I would cross-check with the BA/Oneworld tool (which is generally more accurate) before calling...

Please see the reply in the http://www.Flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...l#post18468182 Thread.

Indeed, cross-checking LA/LP/4M Availability using the [Awards/BA-OneWorld] Method is a good idea.

Cross-posting is against the rules of this forum.

Why do only connecting flights show up for awards?
 

I'm a new user with the latest version and diamond level and think I might be making some error. When searching for flights that I know have some award availability (e.g. MSP to ATL on DL), the tool shows results for connecting routes only. For example, MSP to DTW to ATL, rather than MSP to ATL. If I search DTW to ATL, which previously showed as having an award, then it shows some connecting routes from DTW to MSP to ATL, for example. Am I doing something wrong that makes it not show the direct route availability?

Thanks.

Welcome to the KVS Tool!

Could you please provide some specific date example(s)?

KL flights for KL members, not DL?
 

Hi,

So I think I just needed to scroll more and use the Ctrl-N, because that seems to have fixed it. So, now I have gone through the process of finding flights that have the awards I want. I found the one below on KLM and Delta is telling me they aren't available for me with Delta miles. Is she correct that though these seats might be available, they are not available for people with Delta miles (vs. KLM). Any recommendations for a) how to know that in advance and/or b) how to get around it?

Thanks a lot.

[KVS Availability Tool 6.9.9.R2/Diamond - WSpan: Awards/DL-SkyTeam]

Those Award seats are definitely available (incl. as SM Awards).

For tips on dealing with Agents, who may claim otherwise, please see http://Help.KVSTool.com/#AgentSaysNo:

[KVS Availability Tool 6.9.9.R2/Diamond - Amadeus: Awards/SkyTeam/FR-AF]

Looks like the "check for updates" feature was broken in 6.9.9.R2. I was having problems with AC-StarAlliance so I checked for an update. It told me I was up to date. Went to the website and found 6.9.9.R3 which solved the AC-StarAlliance issue

The system will not currently issue notifications for minor (.Rx) version updates.

Are there any trials available for the tool? Thanks.

YGPM!

Problems With Awards/AC-StarAlliance
 

As noted in this thread, I've been having problems trying to book an Aeroplan award ticket Africa-Europe return.

When I try to check availability with Awards/AC-StarAlliance (using KVS v6.9.9.R3 on Win7), I get the following error:
Datasource Error [RD]: "(Engine Error/Unsupported Route)"

This seems to occur for any route between Africa and Europe (eg: JNB-LHR, FRA-ADD, etc). However, it doesn't occur for TATL routes (eg: LHR-YYZ, or even JNB-YYZ (which routes via LHR)).

Is this a problem with KVSTool, or with the Air Canada/Aeroplan booking engine? (The latter seems plausible, as I get errors when I try similar Africa-Europe routes on their website - so I was trying to use KVS to check if it was an availability problem, or a technical problem).

On a related note, can I check award availability on ET using Sabre:Availability/FS? This shows X-class availability for ET flights (although not for any LH flights, as far as I can tell), although it isn't listed as a method for checking award availability on ET on the KVS FAQ. Or does availability in X mean something else in this context?

The [Awards/AC-StarAlliance] Engine does not support certain routes -- please use the [Awards/StarAlliance] Method instead:

[KVS Availability Tool 6.9.9.R3/Diamond - SNT: Awards/StarAlliance/JP-ANA-SP1]
We have never actually seen that Method displaying X Availability on ET ...

just purchased the kvs tool... awesome tool!

have had some issues and i was wondering if im doing something wrong.

looking up an award flight from iad to bkk on july 11.

united.com shows over 20 flights with about 3-4 having YS+ whereas KVS only shows 4 flights and only 1 of those are YS+...

any suggestions?

link to kvs tool search https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/XO...H7qvrC4oevbLqw

Welcome to the KVS Tool!

There are not that many single connection options between IAD & BKK. For 2 connections, please use the [Awards/AC-StarAlliance] Method:

[KVS Availability Tool 6.9.9.R3/Diamond - ITA: Awards/AC-StarAlliance/CA]

Many thanks for this - and for your answer in my other thread.

It would be nice if Aeroplan mentioned their booking engine's limitations on their own website, but maybe that's too much to ask for...


[KVS Availability Tool 6.9.9.R3/Diamond - Sabre: Availability/FS/US]
There you go!

I have am having still some problems.

One is that I get an error message whenever (whichever fare method) I try to get routing rules from YOW to Perth on ANZ.

I have decided that I want to travel in Dec on a Circle Pacific fare, probably in business class. The rules state that I can only use YVR as the gateway, if I want to use a Canadian gateway city (which I do; I do not want to use an American gateway city). Looking at your example above, none would be Circle Pacific fares. So if I enter YVR to YVR on the KVS tool, is there only one, or are there several business class fare options, for a Circle Pacific business class fare?

One of the web sites also states that SQ and NZ have a combined (those 2 airlines only) fare - can the KVS tool find the fare (presumably, again I would have to use YVR as the Canadian gateway city)?

Thanks.

Many thanks to pandaperth for answering FlyerGoldII's questions.

Ex-North America, SQ/NZ/VS xRWESC Fares are only available from select cities in the US.

Thanks, to both of you.

For the world escapade fare, which other US cities are they available from?

In particular, I am interested in LAX, or HNL, or one of the NYC gateways.

Well I think it is time you learnt to use the KVS tool yourself :)

On the fares tab choose RTW, plug in various US cities in turn and choose SQ, VS or NZ as the carrier and see what comes up

The idea is great, as it speeds up searching for the +7 days.

The problem, which I can see is:
- no connecting flights
- it gives you the results for non-existing flights :D:D:D
Please cross-check below vs. which flights actually fly on these days.

I understand that it is beta and the general idea is good.

[KVS Availability Tool 6.9.9902/Diamond - SNT: Awards/StarAlliance-7D]

Seat Map closed message
 

Having an issue looking up seat map info on transatlantic USAirways flights in Class C/D etc. Y and other economy class seat maps come up but nothing for Envoy just this message. I tried about 6 different flights and the same over and over.

Have US blocked out the business class seat maps and data recently? I regularly used this as a way to judge whether to book a business fare or to chance the Go-Envoy paid upgrade if there were plenty of seats in inventory a week out.

I pull this as I used to from Availability tab using 'SABRE: Availability' as the option. The Availability counts are there but seatmaps/text/Business brings up the message 'The Seat Map is currently closed for the requested flight/cabin'

Thanks

Stuart

Could you please provide a specific Flight/Date example?

So far the 7 day forecast works very well. Nothing to complain about.

Gotta agree. I haven't used it extensively, but it seems to work fine. Some other options might be nice though, such as +/-3 days instead of just x thru x+6. I realize that I can accomplish that by setting my start date 3 days earlier than I intended, but sometimes thinking of it as a delta around a center point is easier.

Thanks for your feedback!

Both of these are limitations of the underlying Engine itself.

Flight departure/arrival times are based on the 1st date in the range and flights that do not actually operate on a particular date are easy to spot, as they will have the No Cabin ("/") indicators shown for all Cabins.

Excellent suggestion -- this has now been implemented in the updated KVS Tool Beta V6.9.9903 as a user-selectable option:

http://www.KVSTool.com/Images/Screenshot_SA7D.gif

Nice, but can I suggest that the days be listed as -3,-2,-1,<nothing>,+1,+2,+3. Since the date isn't listed, it's hard to tell where the median date (i.e. the date you entered) is. It happens to be +3.

Sabre Availability/FS not working at all?
 

Am getting an error message when trying to look for flight availability:

The requested method/function is currently unavailable or may require a newer version of the KVS Tool.

Am using version 6.9.9, Check for Updates tells me it's the latest :-(

Go to the KVS tool website and download 6.9.9.R3 which should solve the problem.

Field Examine
 

agdgsdgdsggdvdgsdggsdgd

Just started using it. Excellent so far ^

KVS: +7 Day Search Tool
 

KVS,

Thanks for your continued efforts. The 7 day feature is a nice addition.

A couple of comments:

- (assuming you are using the ANA tool for the underlying search), could the 7 day search include the connections option (it appears the output is only displaying the more truncated view).

-it would be quite helpful if the return display shows the date of the departure of the flight in the list of the specific flights. Having to roll over the flight to see the date at the bottom of the box is suboptimal. This also would help with the regular (non 7 day) flight display when you want to extract the display into excel or txt - today the date of the flights doesn't carry over.


Thanks for the continued development and support!

KVS
 

does KVS show availability for UA GPU upgrade on used on LH flights?

It sure does -- unlike UA, LH only has one set of Award/Upgrade Booking Classes that are used for all types of Upgrades: http://Help.KVSTool.com/#LH