What technology does FlyerTalk, a site with over 250,000 registered users and over 25,000 active users, use that allows them to remember my login session for several weeks?

A cookie, like every other website. However our back end is much, much more complicated then a bulletin board website, and it's a business decision as much as a technical one. Just because you think something is simple, doesn't mean it is (as our developers like to remind us) or doesn't lead to other unintended issues. We will look at it and determine what the best use of our resources is regarding the matter.

There is a huge disconnect in what users are asking for (keep me logged in) and what EF Voice is saying can't be done.

Of course the logical fallacy is when the jump occurs from "keep me logged in" to "keep an active session on the server," which no user has asked for. Plenty of sites much larger and more complex than EF have figured out how to do it. It's very difficult to believe this request is technically impossible. It seems much more likely that EF either completely misunderstands the request, deems it too expensive to justify, or is simply unwilling to adjust its service to accommodate its paying users.

You're misunderstanding my response. "keep me logged in" vs "keep an active session on the server" are not two different things, they are technically linked and changing one requires us to change the other to ensure continuity and to not introduce user confusion when, say for example, a Refine Query link is clicked and a blank search form is shown instead because the users session information has timed out, or they are sent back to the page you see after login, etc.

If you require a more technical response, feel free to email us at [email protected] and we can talk about this off-line since you can't really know what can/can't be done or how without knowing how our system works. Nothing is "impossible", everything is just a trade-off or a matter of priority, as is the norm for a small business.

However, don't think for a moment that we don't accommodate requests for tweaks and new features when possible, we do it all the time, and it's a big factor in our product road map. Flight Alerts, Seat Alerts, the Mobile site, numerous tweaks to the UI - all user requests. The latest user request we accommodated is showing both the equipment code we receive from the airline as well as our description of it for Seat Map responses. This way you know which equipment sub-type an aircraft is for airlines that make up their own equipment codes (like BA). We released that two days ago.

Please send all feature requests/suggestions to [email protected] so we can have them saved for proper evaluation. Thank you.

There is a big non-technical difference between the two sites. FT is a free-service with no information of inherent value about the user stored in their profile. EF is a subscription based service with sensitive information about the user accessible to one who has access to the logged in account. To me, the requirement to log in every time is a security feature I welcome regardless of whatever "back-end" technical issues there may or may not be. My online bank, credit card sites, AA.com, and other sites that hold sensitive information, do not offer the option to keep me logged in and will in fact time out and log me off after some short period of inactivity.

This is a valid pint. I too tend to be more concerned about security than convenience. For example, after experiencing just how casually credit cards are handled, I not only leave mine unsigned at the back, but also black it out (so nobody else can sign it). This way, for any nontrivial charge, they give me a confused look and ask to see my ID. :) I have also blacked out the CVC code at the back (and noted it down separately).

Anyway, back to EF. You can always use your browser's autofill feature so you don't have to type your name and password over and over. From my home computers, I only need to hit return to log in.

I don't actually want a more technical response (ie, further explanation about why my request won't be addressed). I'd like EF to consider ways which this request COULD be accommodated. Things like the Refine Query link don't work after 45 minutes as it is (dump back to login), so I'm not sure what experience exactly would be worse than it is today.

In case it's not clear: YES, it is preferable to go back to the home page, or a blank search page, or ANY logged-in page after 45 minutes of idle time rather than the current behavior of a login prompt.

We've had the "security" discussion as well. If you don't trust who uses the computer, don't enable auto-login. But denying auto-login to everyone because of some nebulous security concern is about as ridiculous as most TSA policies. If it's important to you to constantly be logged out, no one is suggesting forcing you to stay logged in, or removing the log out feature. All we want is the CAPABILITY to stay logged in and not have to constantly log in all day.

I'm not sure what security you think you're gaining. Every merchant that accepts a credit card is not a handwriting expert, and the signature panel is not there to confirm your identity anyway. It's there to ensure you have agreed to the credit card agreement. The credit card company wants to make sure you've signed it as a way to strengthen their case that you owe them money for items charged to the card. That's why the card says "Not valid unless signed" instead of "Merchant: Please verify the customer's signature matches this one."

They ask for identification before processing the charge. I am yet to run into a merchant willing to lose a sale over fine points like "card is not valid unless signed". They know how the system works. They just ask for my ID and process the sale.

In the end, I am responsible for my security, just as you are for yours and EF for theirs, and this is what works for me. YMMV.

Routing rules bug?
 

I was once told that the routing rules are displayed correctly for fares with same fare basis ('name') and seemed to be so, however it looks like there is a thing to work on:

BCN-BEY RT fares on SU (sample dates 28-10-10 => 10-11-10). The list contains two similar fares (almost for each booking class) with different fare levels. For example, QPX at 588 (fare #3) and 698 (fare #4) USD. When I click on the routing rules icon for fare #4 I still get the routing rules for line #3 (at least this is what it looks like on screen).

Dear EF, please comment on the reason for such a situation!

It's not a bug, the issue is that there is no difference between the fares to differentiate between them. When there are fares with the same fare basis, there is some difference between them other then price, like the Global Indicator or R/T vs O/W. In this case there is none, which is something we've never seen before. And the routing rules look the same as well:

SPECIFIED ROUTE: 0015
BCN-MOW-BEY
BCN-MAD-MOW-BEY

vs

SPECIFIED ROUTE: 0087
BCN-MOW-BEY
BCN(JK/IB)MAD-MOW-BEY

We haven't seen different routing rules used to specify valid airlines and not an actual difference in valid routing before.

Either way it doesn't matter, because we'll be showing routing rules like this before EOY that will inherently solve the problem:

Other ways of thinking about the problem
 

I've found EF to be helpful and very responsive.

Maybe there are other ways of looking at the problem besides one of staying logged in or keeping a session up. For me, what I find myself wanting to do a lot is a "refine query" when I have query results on several web tabs or pages, or after my session has timed out. I can think of a couple ways this could be done (which is easy since I'm not constrained by knowing how your system works).

A "stateless" approach would encode all query fields as URL attributes (like a Google search). This would allow for "refine query" to be done on a query result from any page or age.

Another approach would automatically save the last n queries (where n might be 1, 5, 10), with a name derived from the query type and some of it's fields. Again, it would be a way to do a "refine query" after timing out or even closing the browser.

Session states can be burdensome on a server. One approach isolates the memory into a context which can be saved to disk after logoff and restored on login. This let's you pick up where you left off.

I think it may be possible to think about what people want to do, and what the system can do, with an EF focus (the kinds of things people do in EF are very different from FT).

EF, thanks to what you have explained it seems that fare rules are also incorrectly displayed for item #4: what i get for both fares is "flight application = any SU flight", while it definitely should say something else for the fare number #4 as it also allows IB/ JK segments.

Seat Maps Added for 20 New Airlines
 

We are happy to announce that as of today, ExpertFlyer now supports Seat Maps and Seat Alerts for 20 additional airlines:

• Aerogal (2K)
• Aerosur (5L)
• Air Burkina (2J)
• Air Malta (KM)
• Air Uganda (U7)
• Aserca Airlines (R7)
• Bahamasair (UP)
• Cayman Airways (KX)
• Conviasa (V0)
• Egypt Air (MS)
• First Air (7F)
• JAL Express (JC)
• Japan Transocean (NU)
• Lan Argentina (4M)
• Martinair Holland (MP)
• Meridiana (IG)
• Santa Barbara Airlines (S3)
• Sky Airline (H2)
• Wataniya Airways (KW)
• WestJet (WS)

As always, the complete list of airlines we support for Seat Maps and Seat Alerts is available here. Combined with our existing supported airlines, we now support over 115 airlines for Seat Maps and Seat Alerts in total.

I'm planning a trip to Bulawayo (BUQ) next year May 20. Looking at Expertflyer, the only flights are from JNB.

Why are not Air Zimbabwes flights listed on EF? They have two flights a day from Harare?

You'll need to specify UM as the only airline in the search and then we can choose the correct GDS which will show the flights. We just tried it and it works now.