What you all guys tend to forget is that KVS is getting the data from somewhere. How they get it (paying for it vs. scraping it) is a different story, but you all must know that from where the data comes from can change from time to time.

Has anyone ever contacted Sabre (getthere) or a big data provider yourself? Cause then you would now how much 1 request (pull fare rules, pull base fare names, ...) really costs and there would be NO WAY of getting that data through kvs with such a low yearly fee!
Award search of course is a total different story, cause everyone is using their own credentials and pulling the data directly from the airline BUT if KVS would have to get the data directly from the airline (which would be pretty impossible) it would also cost MUCH more.
Try to contact Star Alliance and ask for an api to get all their award availability for "free" or a yearly fee of <200$, you will fail ;)

So KVS needs to get the data from free sources. Of course nothing onine is free, so KVS has to use grey areas to get the fare / availability data from somewhere without paying for it cause then you would all go bankcrupt by the heavy membership fees ;)
So the only possible way is screenscraping.
Of course websites like flightstats doesn't like it that their data gets pulled automatically cause they also have to pay fees for providing that data.
Long story short, the source changes from time to time where the data comes from and at some point its possible that there is no way of getting the fare data anymore and then we would have to accept it.

ExpertFlyer does..

^^

Other tools manage it just fine for a monthly price in the same ballpark.

KVS is pulling the fares from somewhere that is paying for Sabre, someone is subsidising your use of KVS, most likely unknowingly.

Or you could subscribe to alternative systems that get the data legitimately and charge a similar figure, and doesn't make a profit off reselling what others are giving for free.

It doesn't cost a lot to get flight availability, because flightstats were happy providing it for the limited income of showing a few adverts. Another tool on this forum gets you prices, seating charts, etc. etc from GDS for a similar price to KVS. KVS rather pocket your money themselves while conning many people into believing they're paying for legitimate sources of data (not ones where you have to sign up and break terms of use of sites)

Don't know how much GDS costs per request, but Timatic has a price list:http://www.timaticweb2.com/terms
13 eurocents per query or so.

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But KVS has an interface advantage in my opinion (until larger scale is required, then it sucks too).

Solution? KVS scrapes EF.

I'll add fares is down again.
It was there in 7.5.
We were told it would be fixed quickly.
7.6 came out and it was working for an hour
7.6.1 is is gone again with no mention.

Technically KVS isn't pulling anything (besides routing rules and a couple other obscure methods). You are pulling it directly to your computer, so depending on your perspective you are the guilty party.

Now that said, it isn't as simple as getting a legitimate license and access. It would then need to be hosted which I am guessing KVS has nowhere near the server capacity to support considering the routing rules search bombs out 90% of the time and that does route to KVS servers.

+1

EF told me that they oppose to this idea. But I really don't mind paying for both EF and KVS to get the legit data from EF but the better interface of KVS.

A lot of us wouldn't mind paying for both again, as we did in the past, if KVS did what it (sometimes) does reliably and without requiring users to tap into dodgy data sources.

The routing rules search seems to be rate limited. Once every 60 seconds or so. Other than that, it seems to work fine for me.

That goes to KVS's server and its data source is obscured. Perhaps KVS has to pay for it and that's why it's rate limited...

Usually its below 5 cents through the GDS but even then its expensive.

Honestly, I don't know how EF does it, cause their membership fee is also really low but they must request a TON of data from their data provider.