QueenOfCoach

Does anyone remember the fabulous Eaasy Sabre?

I joined CompuServe back in 1991 and fell in love with Eaasy Sabre. I was heartbroken when they discontinued it.

ijgordon

Yes, many of us remember it.

Now you can use ExpertFlyer to get some of the same functionality (and some nifty new things).

zbenye

I was a VAX/VMS user and looked at PCs as toys for playing silly games. Until I saw a friend using Eaasy Sabre on a PC. The next morning I bought my first one and signed up with Compuserve. 1994. Sheesh.

I loved how you could construct an itinerary and then change it by adding and removing segments anywhere in the middle. Does EF do that? ITA sure doesn't - you can only add/remove the last leg.

erik123

Or check hotel rates.

Microwave

My first AAdvantage number (I still remember it!) was used for EAASY SABRE on CompuServe back in the auld days... on my 486DX 50, with a beautiful ViewSonic 14" display and 14.4 modem. It lay unused for flights for so long that, when I took my FF accumulations from AS to AA, I had to get a new number. I kept using it when it was available as a weird Frankensteined Internet web/text amalgamation, and was very sad when it went the way of the dodo.

JDiver

I remember both - using Eaasy SABRE, (acronym for Semi-Automated Business Research Environment,) CompuServe - and GEnie before that (I moderated the Travel Forum on both). Agreeing with ijgordon, I use ExpertFlyer for some of the functions - but definitely miss Eaasy SABRE.

magic111

Since FT has almost any topic that one can imagine you can rest assured that members lamented the demise for eaasy sabre long ago.

Found a thread that was began 22 days before magic111 became a member. Missing eaasysabre ---sigh

It probaby should have been in the Travelbuzz forum but in the year 2000 Travelbuzz was not a forum. Nevertheless today we have a Travelbuzz forum and we are going to send this thread there as the subject is not airline specific

~magic111 -- Moderator AAdvantage forum.

Letitride3c

Boy oh boy, those're the good old days for sure - remember People's Express @ EWR in the 80's, $29 OW shuttle to DCA/EWR.

Mid 1980's - I had a GEnie (anyone else remember them or had an account - AOL wasn't even born then or at least hasn't risen to the top dog position) account and also CIS (that's CompuServe) account, which I use to access Eaasy Sabre mainly for flight availablities & booking, also did some HZ booking with it (getting old these days, just a faint recollection - actually found one of those text-based 80 characters wide dot-matrix printout off the pc for one of the trip in 1989.)

Back in those days, it was a monochrome 14" CRT, mouse wasn't needed for flight booking as it was menu-based, a dot-matrix printer parallel linked to an original AT&T 286/XT, maybe 16MB ram, dual floppies (5.25" remember) with a 9,600 Hayes modem. Kept my CIS account (from 87 on, I think) for years after moving back to N.Y. but dropped the GEnie account, which eventually went out of business - probably still have a few CompuServe color magazines down in the basement shop area.

The internet was still emerging & slowly making its way to the masses, but yes, ES was a powerful tool for travelers then. Numerous RT & OW tickets booked with it.

I vaguely recalled using OAG's online edition too around that time but it was still preferable then to carry the pocket OAG guide on trips .... oh, dear lord, so much has changed in the last 25 years (or 30 years if I count the pre-IBM PC days with the Wangwriter WP system running CP/M OS on the huge 8" disk.)

Hmmm .... nowadays, all one need is an iPhone or an Android device or perhaps a netbook, and the rest, as they say, is .... history.


Edit: P.S. - AA number issued then via CIS/ES starting with Mxxxxxx still good today (joined Oct. 1, 1998) although we mostly use the OneWorld #

Ocn Vw 1K

While we're waxing nostalgic about early booking engines, let's not forget United Connection. Let you easily see and book fares by fare bases. Its functionality hasn't been equaled by any of the airline's website "enhancements"

abmj-jr

I actually still remember my Compuserve password.

michaelFL

i still use Compuserve for my email and i still receive email to my original xxxxx,xxxx address.

Global_Hi_Flyer

Oh, yeah, I remember.

I first joined Aadvantage to use Eaasy SABRE. At the time, I was using a Heathkit terminal and 1200 baud modem.... and living in NY. Used it for years as I upgraded computer to computer.

Even though ExpertFlyer has some of the same functionality, it's not really the same - there were things you could do with EaasySABER that you can't do with EF.

Then again, I still remember NY Air from HPN, PeopleExpress, the Eastern Shuttle, 707 service to the west coast, and various other relics of the past.

kochleffel

Golly yes. I still have, and use, the Aadvantage number I obtained then.

swag

The wikipedia article on Travelocity has a couple of footnote-links to early articles about EasySabre.

From 1992, a detailed walkthru of the booking experience:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...pagewanted=all

And from 1989, an explanation of home computer booking:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...51C1A96F948260

The latter includes this paragraph...
Oops

MisterNice

Yep me too. Used AA a couple of times but EaaySabre all the time.

MisterNice