Thanks, for the information.

I have a couple of questions:

1. I have not used the ITA software (found on the FT Talklinks) in the past. I quickly looked at the fare on ITA a few minutes ago; I could not figure out how one got the breakdown (as you have displayed it above) the taxes and fees.

2.What is the LX YR surcharge all about? Is that surcharge present in all economy fares, or all fares, from US to India via LX or US to anywhere LX flies?

3. I would like to ask KVS whether the KVS tool can give a breakdown of fees and taxes for any and every fare basis, as the ITA software?

1. Click on "show booking details" http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/di...17660&J=0&Q=-2

2. YR = Fuel surcharge. I am not sure how it is decided upon.

3. No. This would not be possible as taxes vary by route taken, stopovers etc.

Cheers,

Thanks, for the assistance.

In terms of your answer to question 3 - the ITA software can give a breakdown of taxes and fees for any route taken (perhaps with stopovers). I wonder if this type of ITA functionality can be incorporated into the a future version of the KVS tool - so I do not have to go to 2 separate software programs, to figure out: first, the fare for a given fare basis and booking code, and then second, find out the true fare, when taxes and fees are taken into account.

When I had looked at this E fare on the KVS tool, I was speculating that the taxes and fees would add up to approximately $100 - which technically is the case - but the $300 surcharge brings up the fare so much that my relative now has to think of other options (she wants to go to DEL from YOW in early March for a month - using the cheapest fare which will earn full Aeroplan miles - she has no issues with routing or stopovers).

While it may work for more simple fares, in practicality it would be impossible. I'll take an example:

There is an AC fare from Bangkok to Montreal with a fare basis of J. The base far is USD 2215 (one way.) The only routing restriction is that the mileage should be below 11,548. Therefore, I can find infinitely many different routings on this fare with varying costs. It would be impossible to list all these combinations with total fare in any tool or program.

Sample Routings with Fares:


Even fuel surcharges can vary depending on a number of factors. I was booking a ticket from LHR to YYZ on AC which included an 80.00GBP fuel surcharge. However, when I combined the same AC fare with an EK fare from KHI, the 80.00GBP fuel surcharge no longer applied.

Cheers,

That's just how those systems work ...

The Galileo Method can show the availability for the widest range of booking classes, followed by Apollo, and Sabre Methods.

NWA R (Elite Upgrade) availability?
 

Please forgive my searching ineptitude - I just can't seem to get it to work given the 4 char min on searches....

Does KVS show R bucket now? I remember it used to but it lost it some time back. I'm not completely happy with Expertflyer so I'm thinking about switching back if KVS can show R.

Unfortunately it cannot. Please see the [Classes Displayed By Airline] section of the KVS Tool FAQ (located at the very top of this thread).

BA has been missing from OneWorld Award search for the last 3 days. I hope it is not a permanent removal from QF search engine.:confused:

I apologize if this has been asked before but is the E class that's now coming up for CO for standard first award availability or did they make it the new R class (heavily discounted first)? Thanks

Pls see http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...58#post9070258

I am not sure, but CO award availability for both cabins continues to be available via the [ORT: Awards/SkyTeam] Method: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...69#post4227669

AF ORT Awards/SKYTEAM bug ?
 

Hello,

When trying to get awards availability info for AF through ORT Awards/SKYTEAM - Airline : AF, KVS always return an error ( Datasource error: nwa.com)
Is that a known bug and if yes will it be taken care of soon (ETA?) ?
As this is the main reason why I upgraded my KVS version to Platimium, I would like to know.

Regards

EK RTW fares
 

Is there a way to get fare information for RTW tickets on EK?

Not at this time.

I was able to confirm that the NW SkyTeam Award search engine is currently not returning AF flights on most routes. This may possibly be caused by a [temporary] data link loss issue between NW and AF ...

I am already working on resolving this issue -- ETA is 24 hours ...

Version 3.0.x: What's New
 

See http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...26#post9297226

This could have possibly been reported but I've found a situation where KVS crashes under Vista when I try to use my scroll section of the Synaptics touchpad on my HP DV2000 series. As soon as I try to scroll that way the tool crashes.

I guess you missed my response in the AC forum:

If that doesn't help, please copy all the details from the crash message and send them to me -- I will see if Microsoft has a fix for that as well...

Thanks for the heads up :) I love KVS and use it several times a day. I'll try the fix and let you know. I knew it's Vista related as it was working fine on the same machine under XP Pro.

[KVS Availability Tool 3.0.0/Platinum - Amadeus Seat Map: 19 Jan 2008/SQ 812/SIN-PEK/772/C]
Greetings,

What does the blank space mean? For example 16H, 16K?

Seat is blocked. Shows "X" on Amadeus

Thanks for that JimL1126!

BA award availability working again!
 

It looks like BA award availability has been restored. Thanks KVS for the link to send the message to QF requesting to expedite the restoration.

Indeed -- I posted an announcement at http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...28#post9095228 as well as on the Tool's homepage yesterday. And thanks to everyone who contacted QF.

Upgrade Reminder: V3.0.3 / Absence Alert
 

Just a reminder to all existing users of the Tool, who may still be using outdated versions, to download and install the latest version (V3.0.3). All previous versions will no longer be functional after 30 Jan.

Please also note the absence alert, which has been posted on the KVS Tool homepage.

Using NWA to redeem DL miles
 

Is anyone else having a problem with what NWA spits out and what DL call centers can actually provide? None of the awards on NW, CO, KL that show available on KVS are actually there on DL. Moreover, DL flights do not show up. Any ideas?

Thanks,
A.

I have to question the Galileo/Apollo and Worlspan availability for CA and FM. No matter what day I enter all their flights to any destination seem to be wide open. However using Sabre it seems like a more realistic result.

NW's system does a terrible job with DL award space. I am an AS MP member and I use the AS award tool to find DL availability and then call NW and have them book the segments manually. DL actually seems to have quite good availability for NW and AS members, but I hear DL FFs complain all the time about lack of availability.

My sister-in-law is still planning to go to DEL from YOW in March, and come back a few weeks later. Her dates are flexible. She wants to book the cheapest fare ticket.

It seems that Continental may offer the cheapest fare (subject to availability), taking account taxes and fees, and taking account that one does not need to change airlines. The only disadvantage is that one has to transit via USA (in both directions).

It seems from sabre/ZUJ (see below) that TLON5CE is it the cheapest fare. The question is how to find the dates with the availability with this cheapest fare.

One can try to go to one of the 4 availability methods, and find the T booking code. However, there are 2 problems with that - one has to manually enter every date in a row, and the T booking code does not take account that there are 2 fare bases for that booking code. Is there any simple way to get booking code availability over several dates, all at once? Is there any way to get the availibility of the right fare basis, and again for several dates at one time (and if not, at least one date at one time)?

Then I try sabre dot/res - the cheapest fare I can find is TJON5CE - and its fare is quoted as CAN$1338, The cheaper T fare is not quoted, and this T fare shows a higher fare quote than that on Sabre/ZUJ - does the ZUJ method quote base fares, and the DOTRES method quote total fare, including taxes and fees? Again, this method does not tell me how to find the fare, directly, over a large number of dates, all at once?

To put my question all in one sentence, I am trying to figure out how to most efficiently, find the cheapest fares on this (or any other airline) from A to B (return), over a wide range of dates? It would be nice if this can be done in a one step process (for all dates viewed, all at once), for each of the methods one uses - realizing that I may have to use several methods in sequence (as you indicated in the FAQs at the beginning of this thread)?



[KVS Availability Tool 3.0.2/Platinum - Sabre: Fares/ZUJ/SG/CAD]

Try plugging in dates into the CO website and see what comes up...else, use the ITA Software tool at: http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch/prego

In your situation, Sabre Dot Res is a better tool to use. Zuji will list all fares that are published. Sabre will only list the ones that apply for the dates you enter. For example, suppose there were 4 fares

AAAAA
AAAAB
AAAAC
AAAAD

And you wanted to travel dep mon ret the next thu. It is possible that AAAAA only allows weekend departures, AAAAB only allows travel May-Aug, and AAAAC has a 14 day minimum stay. This would leave you with only AAAAD. The fare that shows up on DotRes will be the cheapest applicable T fare for your dates considering the rules.

Cheers,

Thanks.

The CO web site has the advantage that you can see (at once) the fares for the requested day +/- 3 days - which means you can see the fare for 1 week, for both departures and for arrival - all at once. To my knowledge, neither the KVS tool, nor ITA, allows for that option? - which is the question that I am posing to KVS.

If you are looking for the easiest/fastest way, you can use the month-long flight search feature of the ITA. If you want more accuracy and precision, take a look at the KVS Tool FAQ for keyboard shortcuts that can considerably speed-up availability checks for consecutive dates ...

Certain airlines (esp. those based in Asia) do not maintain accurate availability in all GDS systems, so what you have described is very possible...

This is what I see from the FAQ:

Q: Is there a way to request availability across multiple dates? What if I am looking for a specific class (or classes)?

A: Not directly, but you can use the <Ctrl> + <PgDown> keyboard shortcut to quickly check availability for subsequent dates. If you are looking for availability in a specific class (or classes), you may also wish to do this in conjunction with the appropriate [Filter] options.

However, expertflyer apparently (I do not subscribe to it) does allow a simultaneous display of all data (awards, upgrades etc) on the requested date +/- 3 days (ie one week in total). In a future upgrade, do plan to add this feature to the KVS tool? See "flexibile search" feature of expert flyer (link: http://www.expertflyer.com/rates.jsp).

This is certainly a possibility for one of the future versions. However, it is important to keep in mind that any perceived time savings are negated by the fact that a +/- 3 day search requires 7 separate queries to the system (1 per each date) and will, therefore, take 7 times as long to execute ...

Is the fare listed in KVS for DotRes the total fare or excludes taxes
 

I am trying find fares between LAX and BOM using KVS Fares/DotRes and following fare is the cheapest:

LAX Los Angeles Int'l CA US [KLAX]
BOM Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji IN [VABB]
TUE 01 Apr 2008 / THU 10 Jul 2008 / RT

Carrier From To Fare Cur Fare Basis
--------- ------ ---- --------- ---- --------- ---- ---- ----------
SQ LAX BOM 1100 USD VLMP

The more costly fare is as follows:

Carrier From To Fare Cur Fare Basis
--------- ------ ---- --------- ---- --------- ---- ---- ----------
SQ LAX BOM 1320 USD VLPO
SQ LAX BOM 1425 USD VLMA


Now the booking classes for both fares are V and I read thru the rules for both fares and they were the same.
Then why is there a difference between these fares and also are these the total fares or do they exclude taxes?

----I am new to this and trying to learn so please dont flame if I have asked something obvious to lot of you-----

The differences are in the [DAY/TIME] restrictions, effective date, and the routing.


Pls see http://kvs.unrealnetwork.com/Tool/FAQ.php#FAQ

The first one is a great fare for SQ, provided that the rules pertain to your travel!

However, you probably will not earn miles on this fare...