This guy is just a master of Public Relations.

So, is "regular" availability working on the mobile app, or not?

If yes, I saw a recent post that it wasn't working on flights before, something like, 7:00 or 9:00 AM. Is that fixed yet?

I want to sign up (believe it or not, even after all of the recent "stuff"), since I'll need it for a 12 segment / 5 city trip starting on Friday.

:)

Does that agreement seek to prohibit users from looking at their router logs? It's hard to imagine any court upholding that.

Appears to be up. Doesn't appear that the time restriction is fixed. If you're going to be using it for a short period, ExpertFlyer might be a better fit for the time being while KVS gets their sources straightened out. The minimum amount for KVS is $20/2 months, while EF is $5/one month (basic) or $10/one month (pro).

EF doesn't offer DL info anymore. :(

That's why I'm here. I had an annual EF subscription.

You're kidding, right? I gave you an example why people are so "upset" with your public relation skills and the only answer you give is "kinda" saying we violate your TOS???
I'm sure that every website you scrape illegally would have a problem with you scraping them or to put it in your words, developing a "browser" that allows us to scrape the data so you officially are not violating any T&Cs but we do by using your tool.
I'm sure this is not the right approach from your side. I know you are getting a lot of hate recently from many folks and I always loved your tool cause it allows us to do many things one could not do without direct GDS access but part of the business is also the support and there is some lack there.
You have to make it clear to the customer that you are providing a tool that scrapes the data from data providers without their knowing and that this source can end at any time.

And I'm not violoating any agreements when I look into what TCP requests my device sends out to the internet, I'm not changing any code or do reverse engineering, I just look at my traffic, thats it.

So let's crowdsource reverse-engineer this! Not the whole program, but let's figure out where the data comes from and how we can navigate to it in a *traditional* web browser (also known as a "web browser") and get there without KVS. May not be as elegant, but it should last longer and it'll certainly not give any more money to this joker.

I don't have the skills to lead, but I can follow if someone wants to give it a shot.

Even if I knew how to get every bit of info from direct web access, I still prefer to use the KVS Tool. It's so much more convenient!!

I don't have the know-how. If I did, I would make a scraper to scrape EF or a bunch of other websites, like automatically requesting upgrades when the window opens, automatically re-seat when a seat opens etc.

Please don't ruin the party by putting KVS out of business. He is serving me (and probably a bunch of others) well.

If you want to use a traditional web browser, use EF!!

No skills required. Just install Fiddler.

Now that KVS has reveal their questionable business model, I've changed all my FFP login/passwords. Who knows if they get routed to KVS servers or not especially since reverse engineering the program is against their ToS. I have a legitimate GTC account and no way I'm putting those credentials into KVS.

As far as I can see no credentials get send to the KVS server.
Also if someone books an award flight with your miles you would know their exact name and DOB unless they fly with a fake passport.
So I'd guess its pretty safe that nobody steals any miles from us :)

Let's go back to how this started. Flightstats pulled the plug.

KVS instead of sending a "Sorry of the inconvenience but the flight availability feature is no longer available; here's a pro-rated refund or extension" email, provides some dodgy instruction on how to obtain a GTC account which was clearly not intended or available to the general public. Essentially KVS is having you, the donor, take on the legal risk of accessing a system which you have no permission to access so that he can keep his donations coming in.

If KVS is going out of business, it would be due to his PR skills (or lack of - especially with the bit about violating his ToS to provide the data sites it access when his tool is violating multiple ToS from the underlying data providers).

But I highly doubt KVS is going out of business. As KVS mentioned, the program is a tool (not a data service - no data center - no long term agreements with GDS etc). Initial development might have been an effort but the continuing updates is something a single individual could maintain so essentially KVS has low overhead associated with this program.

So let me see if I have this straight.

KVS is a specialized web browser. One that I'm prohibited from ascertaining which websites it visits, yet I assume all the responsibility for accessing such websites?

That's cute.

The format is quite nice. In the past, when many of the old methods still existed, the sites where the data is available often required you to have an understanding of Russian, Japanese, etc. if you wanted to have any shot at getting the data yourself. For that purpose, the tool is worth its subscription fee. I have made such tools myself (including some to help me deal with dysfunctional travel websites) that were much more crude than KVS, and believe me they're not easy to build or maintain. We are now unfortunately in an era where the airlines are flexing their muscle and the means of obtaining data are becoming an increasingly gray area or worse. This is where KVS stops being a specialized web browser, and instructions - explicit or coy - for making certain methods of the tool work become dangerous.

Well said!

Yep.

Exactly, now you can either scrape free websites and of course they can pull the plug at any time or pay ATPCO or GDS for their data.


I'm still happy about KVS in general, I love the tool and I used it many times in the past, especially the availability and the base fare listings. Really handy for finding error fares etc. but its kinda stressful when it changes every day and there is no consistency and I also have to update it every day ;)

I have no problem with it changing and needing to be updated all the time. I have more of a problem in that the publicly available data sources seem to be drying up, and the [in some cases only] remaining methods require doing things that perhaps one shouldn't.

Paying someone to find this data and make it available to you is absolutely causing it to be publicly unavailable. And why do you think th:rolleyes:se sources are drying up? Could it be because someone is (despite protestations to the contrary) selling access to a thousand or two people -- at a rather hefty profit? Based on past experience I think that is an entirely reasonable conclusion to draw. As pointed out above, those whose data is being misused have to pay for its misuse. The fact that they are unhappy about what is going on is certainly understandable.

As far as continuing to pay, I'd be careful because the whack-a-mole for data business model is conducive to neither customer service nor the longevity of a business. There is zero guarantee that the data you pay KVS for today will be available tomorrow. When you go back to KVS to complain you'll be told that all you did was pay to use a 'browser' and that he'll try to find a substitute. In the mean time, he has your money. That is what quite a few people have discovered of late.

In the past, the data was always available to me. For instance, I could have gone to FlightStats' webpage and used the availability search and hovered over each result to see a little popup with the availability details. And it was a tremendous pain. KVS was worth the $5-6/month to take FlightStats' useless format and put it into something I could use. If the data was actually useful to other people outside of KVS's format, people would have visited that site directly and KVS wouldn't exist. So I have trouble believing that KVS is the reason methods are going out of service. (Except in cases where access to the data is unauthorized, of course.) These sites have done it themselves with poor design or execution.

I used the flightstats data frequently, and had no problem with the site. However I imagine each hit of the data was costing a far bit, and the adverts barely convert the cost. With a large number of people accessing it without loading the adverts flightstats were simply subsidising people who were willing to pay, just not willing to pay the right people.

The KVS model is like buying and selling pirate DVDs. Worse, as someone is actually losing out every time you did a search on KVS.

Like HiDDY and many more I assume LVS was a legitimate service, and had it actually run on a modern platform (I.e. Anything but windows) I may well have subscribe in the past. That was before I knew of the imorral business it really is.

It's not a big mystery... any method which requires credentials in a given FFP gets info from that site. But I still prefer KVS because of how the data gets centralized and searching is more flexible.

Help on GTC credentials
 

How do I enrol in GTC to search availability in KVS (I'm a Diamond member with KVS)? Can anyone help search AC R class Nov 6/YYZ-LHR, return Nov 9/LHR-YYZ?

Here you go:

Results from ExpertFlyer.com

Appreciate it. Any chance you can post for return segment LHR-YYZ/Nov 9?

They are all R0 as well. Perhaps you should request a refund from KVS and subscribe to ExpertFlyer ;)

Thanks

Can anyone help me with GTC, i manage to find some site codes/passwords but don't work. What should i do? Anyone please PM

Wait patiently. The app often doesn't do what you bought it for. KVS is very busy. But you've asked in the right tool thread:

But we must also give some credit to KVS, it only took him 1 day to find a new website to scrape the data from for the fares. Will see how long the CZ OTA will keep that channel open til they realize they suddenly get more requests.

I would guess they didn't find this option in 1 day but had it saved 'for a rainy day' when the previous option was no longer available.

Issue: KVS Availability Tool does not provide availability out of the box
Feature request: KVS Availability Tool should provide availability without causing the user to break terms of services or commit fraud by misrepresentation.
Suggestions: KVS should pay for a GDS source like legitimate companies do.

Correction:
It took only 1 day to find an option (and update scrapper/GUI/error handling, which is no trivial matter). [f@recompare]
Then it only took a couple hours for that to be shut down.
Then 3 days later found another one. [redacted]
How long will this take to get shut down?

I do feel for the guy in some ways but honestly and communication would go a long way. In the absence of both, it is pretty amusing watching whack a mole.

Mr or Ms KVS:

Please advise: What's the latest on not showing "regular availability" for flights before a certain hour in the morning (7AM? 9AM?) on the mobile companion? - - and I assume that it's still not working on a regular browser / website?!?

I want to sign up before my 12 segment - 5 city trip starting this Friday morning!

Thanx!

5 cents, or even 13 cents per query would be OK for me, I don't do that many queries. But Timatic has a base annual fee of €499, which is a bit rich. Now, if KVS paid for that and included it in the service, and then individual subscribers' fees covered the usage fees, I think that could work.

From your last one's website (what's with the at signs?)

Sadly KVS's "antics" and it's users potential illegal usage of these sites impacts on a lot of websites, and is making travel on the internet a far worse place to be :(

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

No, as long as it is done for conventional system administration purposes.

Unlike certain posters in this thread, we did not put it into [empty] "words" -- we actually put it into bits and bytes by developing a Specialized Web Browser application, known as the KVS Tool.

We continue to provide full support to KVS Tool Members on matters relating to the KVS Tool functionality via http://Contact.KVSTool.com/

We do make it clear that the KVS Tool is a Specialized Web Browser application. We do not have "a tool that scrapes the data" and we have no intention of creating one.

The term "KVS Availability Tool" dates back to 2004 (and the beginning of this Thread).

The current name, which has been in use for many years now, is KVS Tool, which better reflects the diversity of the Tool's current functionality, including an unsurpassed Award/Upgrade Availability coverage.

The [Fares] tab has been restored in the latest version (V7.7.0).

We do:

As with other web browsers, Membership Credentials, entered in the KVS Tool, are securely stored locally on each user's machine. Under no circumstances are they "routed to KVS servers", so we do not have access to them (nor do we have any need to).

Users also have an option of not saving passwords at all.

Regular Availability continues to be accessible via the KVS Tool Mobile Companion. The current Engine does not support flights that depart earlier than 07:00 [am] and we are currently looking for a solution.

As noted on the KVS Tool Homepage, Diamond-tier Members can currently access Regular Availability via the KVS Tool Mobile Companion.

What user agent does the web browser present? Or does KVS Availability* Tool pass itself off as a different browser?


* not really ;)